Guides · 2026-06-24
Nurse shift pay in Finland: how evening, night and weekend pay works
You worked a string of nights and a Sunday this month, and the pay slip lands. The total looks right, or maybe it doesn't, but you can't really tell. The hours alone don't explain it, because not every hour pays the same. This guide walks through why.
In Finland, your base hourly wage is only the start. On top of it you earn extra for working at less popular times. These extras are called differentials, or "lisät" in Finnish. They're paid on top of your normal rate for the hours that fall in certain windows. Here are the main ones.
Evening pay
An evening differential is extra pay for hours worked in the evening. In the care sector it covers 18:00 to 22:00, and it's +15% on top of your base rate (SOTE collective agreement; SuPer). It's added for just those hours, not the whole shift. So if your shift runs into the evening, only the evening hours get the bump.
Night pay
Night work pays more again. The night differential covers 22:00 to 07:00, and in the care sector it's +40% (SOTE collective agreement; SuPer). One thing to know: the employer can choose to pay this as money, or to give it back as time off, counted at 24 minutes off for every night hour worked. Same idea as evening, only the hours inside the night window earn it.
Saturday and Sunday pay
Weekends are their own thing, and Saturday and Sunday are not the same. Saturday work earns +20% (SOTE collective agreement; SuPer). Sunday work earns +100%, meaning the hours pay double (Working Hours Act 872/2019). The Sunday rate runs from Saturday 18:00 right through to Sunday 24:00, and it also covers public and church holidays.
Holiday eves count too. The morning of Christmas Eve, Midsummer Eve and Easter Saturday, 00:00 to 18:00, also earns +100% (SOTE collective agreement; SuPer).
This Sunday and holiday +100% is set by law, and it's special: it's paid on top of your other differentials and on top of overtime, not instead of them (Working Hours Act 872/2019).
Overtime
Overtime is the time you work beyond your agreed hours, and it always needs your consent first (Working Hours Act 872/2019). Daily overtime pays +50% for the first 2 hours, then +100% after that. Weekly overtime pays +50% (Working Hours Act 872/2019). There's no separate cap on overtime hours anymore. Instead, your total hours, overtime included, can't pass an average of 48 hours a week over a 4-month period (Working Hours Act 872/2019).
One rule that trips people up
Most differentials don't stack, with one exception. For ordinary differentials, an hour earns the one that applies to it, and your agreement sets out how they're counted. But the statutory Sunday and holiday +100% is different: it's added on top of the rest, including overtime (Working Hours Act 872/2019). So a Sunday overtime hour can carry both.
Where the real numbers live
The figures above are from the SOTE collective agreement (2025 to 2028) and the Working Hours Act 872/2019. They're real, but they're not the whole story for you. Amounts vary by agreement and by your work-time form, so it's worth checking your own collective agreement and your latest payslip. The links are at the bottom.
How Sisu Shift shows it for you
This is the part the app handles. You enter your own rates once, your base wage and your differentials and your overtime rules, straight from your agreement and tax card. Then for every shift, Sisu Shift works out what it pays. It splits the hours into base, evening, night, weekend and holiday, adds the right differential to each, and handles overtime.
For take-home pay, the tax is the personal part. How much is withheld depends on your own withholding rate, the one printed on your tax card (verokortti). You can find or update yours at vero.fi. Put your rate into Sisu Shift and it estimates the deductions, so each shift shows a net figure too.
Because you set the rates yourself, the numbers match your situation, not some average. You can see the breakdown per shift and the total for the month, so the pay slip stops being a mystery. You're not doing the maths. You're just checking it.
Set your rates once and see what each shift pays. Download Sisu Shift.