Repayment of a student loan begins when you no longer receive student financial aid
You will usually have to start repaying your student loan about one year after you stop receiving student financial aid. This means that you may have to start making repayments on your loan before you graduate. Initially you only pay interest on your loan, which is debited every six months, on 15 December and 15 June. You don’t need to let us know when your student financial aid ends, as we will receive this information from Kela.
After about 1.5 to 2 years from the end of your student financial aid, you will have to start paying back your loan principal. Your payments will include the instalment (which amortises the student loan principal), interest and fees.
We will send you a proposal for a repayment schedule with a repayment period of 15 years. If you’re happy with the repayment schedule, all you need to do is to start repaying your loan according to the plan. If you wish to change your repayment schedule, you can do this online. You can change the repayment schedule free of charge during the first six months. If you apply for a change at a later date, we will charge you the fee stated in our tariff.