We list 22 nursing programmes in Finland — 16 bachelor's and 6 master's, every one taught in English. Nursing abroad is one of the highest-volume searches Indian students make, and Finland is rarely on the list they are shown.
There is a good reason to look at it and one very important reason to go in with your eyes open. We will do both, in that order.
All 22 are at universities of applied sciences
Every nursing programme in our Finnish listings sits in the UAS sector: Metropolia University of Applied Sciences (4), Tampere University of Applied Sciences (2), Jamk University of Applied Sciences (2), South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences Xamk (2), Satakunta University of Applied Sciences SAMK (1), Lapland University of Applied Sciences (1) and Arcada University of Applied Sciences (1), among others.
That is not an accident of our catalogue — it is how Finnish nursing education is organised. Nursing is a professional degree and the UAS sector is where professional degrees live. It has one practical consequence worth knowing: a UAS master's in Finland normally expects prior work experience in the field. The 16 bachelor's programmes do not. If you are applying from school, the bachelor's route is the one open to you; if you are a working nurse, the master's route is built for you.
By city: Helsinki (6), Tampere (2), Jyväskylä (2), Kouvola (2), Rauma (1), Rovaniemi (1) and Espoo (1).
The part that is usually left out
You can take the degree in English. You cannot practise as a nurse in Finland in English.
Finland's official languages are Finnish and Swedish, and healthcare professionals must have sufficient oral and written proficiency in one of them to perform their duties. For anyone whose training was completed outside the EU/EEA, Valvira — the national supervisory authority — states that an application may be assessed without a language certificate, but a language proficiency certificate must be submitted before the right to practise is granted (Valvira — recognition of professional qualifications).
Even while studying, this reaches you before graduation: clinical placements happen in Finnish wards with Finnish-speaking patients. Several programmes build Finnish language study into the degree for exactly this reason. How much, and whether it is enough to register afterwards, varies by programme — and it is the first question to ask an admissions office, ahead of fees and ahead of rankings.
None of this makes Finland a bad choice for nursing. It makes it a choice with a known cost attached, and the people who struggle are the ones who find out about that cost in year two.
Fees, money and the permit
Non-EU/EEA students pay tuition for English-taught Finnish degrees. The official national portal Study in Finland publishes a typical range of €9,000–€20,000 per year, plus a €100 application fee. We do not currently hold a verified fee for any Finnish programme, nursing included; each listing links to the page that can answer it.
The residence permit requires €800 per month, so €9,600 for a year or more, in your account at the point you apply — and that money cannot double as the tuition money (Migri). A student may work an average of 30 hours a week during studies, and placements credited as part of the degree are not counted against that limit (Migri) — which for a nursing degree, where placements are substantial, is a more useful rule than it first appears.
Who should look at this seriously
Finland is worth real consideration if you intend to work in Finland, you accept that Finnish is part of the plan rather than an optional extra, and you want a long runway afterwards — the post-study permit runs up to two years and can be claimed any time within five years of graduating (Migri).
It is the wrong destination if you are choosing a nursing degree abroad mainly as a route to registration in an English-speaking system. The qualification is Finnish, the registration pathway is Finnish, and the language requirement is not negotiable.
Browse what we list: Nursing in Finland, Nursing across every destination we list, or read our guide to studying in Finland first.
Catalogue figures counted from our published listings on 6 October 2026. Finnish rules cited from Migri, Study in Finland and Valvira on the same date — all three change, and registration rules in particular should be checked directly before you commit to a degree.