Even without tax deductibility, SEL’s 1.4% membership fee is a small price for the collective agreement and everything else you get as a union member.

The Finnish government has decided that trade union membership fees will no longer be tax deductible for employees starting from 1 January 2026. The unemployment fund membership fee will remain tax deductible. SEL’s 1.4% membership fee includes the membership fee for the Open Unemployment Fund A-kassa, which is 96 euros per year. In the future, A-kassa will automatically report SEL members’ annual membership fees directly to the tax authorities. The unemployment fund membership fee will appear for the first time on your pre-filled 2026 tax return, which you will receive in spring 2027.

The union membership fees you paid during 2025 will still be tax deductible. SEL will report the membership fees paid by SEL members in 2025 directly to the tax authorities, and they will appear on your pre-filled 2025 tax return, which you will receive in spring 2026.

Tax deductibility means that an employee’s taxable annual income is reduced by the amount of membership fee paid. The effect of the tax deduction depends on the employee’s income and tax rate. For many union members, the benefit has been between five and ten euros per month.

Even without tax deductibility, SEL’s 1.4% membership fee is a small price for the collective agreement and everything else you get as a union member. Only as a union member, are you involved in defending and improving your wages and other terms of employment. If food industry employees are not members of SEL, the union has no power to negotiate collective agreements.

Thanks to the collective agreement, your wages and other terms of employment are much better than what Finnish law requires. For example, wage increases, accrued days off or “pekkaset”, longer paid sick leave, and holiday bonuses are agreed upon only in the collective agreement negotiated by SEL. These benefits do not exist in law.

SEL’s 1.4% membership fee pays for itself through the wage increase agreed in the collective agreement alone. For example, this year the wages of all food industry employees will increase by 2.9% on 1 May 2026. The better terms of employment agreed in the collective agreement and at your workplace, safeguarding your interests, employment advice, legal aid, training, and other union benefits, return the value of your membership fee to you many times over.

>> 10 reasons to be a member of the union

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