24 comments

1. Easy, you’ve been to Sweden so you know the basics of swedish language. Which, by the way, is much easier to learn than finnish.

2. Tampere has its own international airport. (never been there though so I don’t know much about the flights)

   For India and UK you will most likely need to go via Helsinki but there’s a high speed rail connection between tampere and helsinki.

3. If you have the personal connections in Sweden and Stockholm and none in Tampere then the long term viability sounds clearly more favorable to the former.

4. From Arlanda you can fly almost everywhere. From Tampere you will first fly either to Arlanda or Helsinki for most destinations.

   It’s probably not the end of the world but travelling to and from Stockholm is faster and cheaper in most cases.

5. If you already know people in Stockholm you should move there

6. Stockholm. Definitely.

7. Stockholm wins. More international. Bigger city, more stuff to do, more options for pleasure, easier to travel from.
   If you plan to travel, anyway from Tampere you gotta go to Helsinki to travel abroad (for most long distance destinations).
   I’ve been in both Tampere and Stockholm. Even though the salary is smaller, Stockholm wins for me. Btw from 120k per year in Finland you will get tops 70k. Cause it’s progressive tax, and besides taxes only you gotta pay to unemployment, pension, probably region tax, etc. So it will be way more then Vero website says. Just from real experience. Moreover, depending on your field of work the situation in Finland on the labor market is extremely tough. Consider your contract ends, or you get fired, how easy it will be for you to find the job? The government is tightening rules for immigrants every month.
   Moreover Sweden is a win, cause when you learn swedish good enough, Norway will be an open option to travel/look for work as well cause languages are super close. Your call

8. I would say Tampere. Better pay, better company, low cost of living, relatively easy path to nationality but city is mid sized and less international than Stockholm.

9. Consider this one as well, might be a deciding factor, but afaik Sweden might have something comparable

   https://www.vero.fi/en/individuals/tax-cards-and-tax-returns/arriving_in_finland/work_in_finland/specific-instructions-for-different-occupations/key_employees_from_other_countrie/

10. Only choose Tampere if Finnish language and long term living experience in Finland are of special interest to you, or you really want to live in the heart of a city center. Tampere has a much healthier housing market than Stockholm. The small amount of extra money probably won’t make a huge difference in the end when taking into account integration difficulties in Finland.

11. Tampere is safer. sweden has a gang problem and house prices in Finland are a lot cheaper and I mean alot cheaper same with apartments. Cars are cheaper in sweden.

    Depending on municipality usually finland has lower income tax and a lot lower corperate tax.

    Stockholm will be more fun since its more stuff to do since its a bigger city but imo tampere is better if you want to have kids since lower crime etc.

    It will be harder to make friends there compared to Stockholm.

    I would say that if your after a future family life with kids finland is the safest bet since you cant put a price on safety otherwise Stockholm since it will be more fun and has a better party scene.

12. I’ll go against the grain here and recommend Tampere over Stockholm with these numbers. Yes, Stockholm is bigger and more international city out of the two, but Tampere is by no means a bad place and your money will just go so much further there that it is kind of a no brainer in terms of your personal finances. Any inconveniences in terms of the location in relation to your international travel plans can greatly be mitigated by having decently bigger budget since you’ll be wealthier in Tampere job than you’d be working the other gig in Stockholm.

13. A person from Tampere here. Not much colder than Stockholm, you’d probably get a more wintery experience in winter (snow) compared to Stockholm. Darker? No, summers are a bit brighter, winters a tad darker, but no real difference. Yes, Tampere is smaller, but still, over 300 k people in the region. And there’s an airport, but I’m not sure what airlines operate ATM. (there’s a flight arriving from Malaga for today). Helsinki and Turku, by train 2 hrs.
    What Tampere loses in other things, it wins in safety. If you’re planning on starting a family, I’d choose Tampere, otherwise probably Stockholm.
    EDIT: Apparently Riga and Malaga are the only connections from Tampere Pirkkala airport.

14. With these numbers I’d say Tampere is better for you. Apartment or house renting/buying is crazy expensive in Stockholm conpared to Tampere. Also there seems to be quite many Indian families living at Tampere area.

15. I agree that it seems like everything else points to Stockholm, but the money is not even close though? Your take home salary in Sweden would be around 47k euros per year. Calculating base alone your take home in Tampere will be around 57k euros (you can see accurate numbers here: https://www.veronmaksajat.fi/tutkimus-ja-tilastot/tuloverot/palkansaajan-veroprosentit/#f240ad9e). The Finland number also includes pension already, don’t know about Sweden. If you are able to convert the RSUs into money it will add another 15k euros.

    So you will be getting at a minimum 1000 euros (potentially 2000 less with RSUs) less per month to live in a much more expensive city (Stockholm vs Tampere. Not sure how long you plan to stay but this is a significant amount of money. Long term prospects from job hopping will be significantly better in Stockholm however.

    One thing that has not been mentioned: if you have not paid any taxes in Finland in the last 5 years and are relocating from another country you will be eligible to pay ”lähdevero” instead of the normal income tax. This is dropping to a fixed 25% next year. So potentially you will only be paying this amount of tax for the first seven years you are in Finland. Combined with the mandatory pension payments etc your total tax rate would be around 33% I believe. This means that with 120 taxable income you would make 79k net per year, which is significantly more than the total gross per year in Stockholm. I recommend really digging into the numbers before deciding.

16. I would work in Tampere and spend the extra money I earn to travel somewhere warmer and nicer since Nordic countries have pretty long vacation days.
    I lived in Helsinki, and we decided to move to a smaller city since having two kids in a crowded city is a bit overwhelming. We prefer a much calmer and safer environment where kids can walk to school by themselves.
    Our household income is 100k, and we live pretty well with that. I’ve traveled to Stockholm a couple of times. It’s fun to visit, but maybe not to live long-term for us. But of course, this is a matter of preference.

    Also, immigrant rules have been a bit harsh lately. It might be rough if you lose your job here. I think specialist working permit have only 6 months to find a new job.

17. With such a large difference in salary you should pick Tampere. You are underestimating your Finnish net salary by about €500. So the comparison €3800/month in Stockholm vs €5100/month in Tampere. Especially housing is also much cheaper in Tampere so your net essentials disposable income will easily be double. So monetarily Tampere is a nobrainer, the rest is of course subjective and up to you to decide. Tampere is the hip city in Finland where many families are relocating. While Stockhom is more intenational, with such a higher disposable income in Tampere you’ll afford to travel a whole lot more.

    The investment account difference is not so black and white as you’re only comparing equity saving accounts. A Swedish equity savings account is better but in Finland the more common account is a book-entry account. While you cannot take profits tax-free when trading within the account, it has other tax advantages equity saving accounts do not like gain-loss netting and deemed acquisition cost. Moreover, if you only hold dividend accumulating funds and don’t plan on selling anytime soon you get very much the same tax-free carry.

18. I understand you want to settle for long term, but if the difference in monthly salary is around 1000e+ lower living expense, maybe it’s worth trying Tampere, esp when you don’t have children yet. Since you already have network in Stockholm, it might be easier to find a job in Stockholm if you don’t like Tampere.

19. Don’t listen to the people saying stockholm. Take the offer with the higher pay, you can become a free man faster. Think of it as working 10 years less, because the money is better.

20. After living in Helsinki and Stockholm (which I know it’s not exactly Tampere but being there a lot)

    I would go for Finland anytime, Stockholm is a bigger city with “more things to do” but you will likely do them alone. People is extremely superficial and status oriented, so unless you’re Caucasian and from any “good” ethnicity (Germany, UK, Australia, USA) then you will live in a parallel society where you will be only interacting with immigrants, which is not bad unless you come with the idea of making Swedish friends or getting a Swedish partner. The “good ethnicity” argument was told to me by a couple of Swedes already over the course of the years. If you do have the beauty privilege and are non Caucasian then maybe you might have a chance. This sort of racism was something that personally shocked me after living in Finland where I never felt like this, never experienced this targeted behavior and it’s very disheartening to be honest. Finns are hard to approach at first but they are usually honest and humble, if you are a nice person you will have your chance, with swedes, it depends the status you bring to them

21. If you only had to make a choice between Sweden and Finland I would say choose Sweden definitely.

    However, you are comparing Stockholm and Tampere with the job in Tampere paying significantly higher salary, too.

    So therefore I’d say Tampere. Safer and the numbers win by a long shot. The numbers are in Tampere’s favor and you can’t put a number on safety.

22. I would pick the one with the clearly higher income and cheaper cost of living, that being Tampere, even if Reddit seems to disagree for some reason. You’ll be able to afford a nice, large apartment or a house with a minimal commute in Tampere. In Stockholm you’ll have to make ompromises regarding housing especially if your wife doesn’t work.

    What do you think you might miss out on living in Tampere? Night life? Major events? It’s definitely much smaller than Stockholm, but it’s not exactly the middle of nowhere either. Tampere is a nice little city with a pretty high density of services, lots of nature and very good (clean, affordable, frequent, safe etc) public transit, and the city is growing very rapidly relative to its size. Stockholm is more convenient for international travel for sure (like 20min trip to Arlanda) but Tampere isn’t bad either, the train to Helsinki-Vantaa takes less than 2 hours and runs very frequently. To be sure, if you love the buzz of a capital and are willing to pay a lot for it, then Stockholm is a good option also.

23. 120 000€ per year in Finland??? That’s MAJOR money. Holy crap.

24. Just for the people mentioning the difficulty curve between swedish and Finnish, I’d like to just put it out there, but you CAN also get a citizenship in Finland with a swedish language certificate

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