Revised tax card: a new rate mid-year
A revised tax card (muutosverokortti) fixes your withholding when income changes during the year. Here is when it pays off and why the new rate can look oddly high or low.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Calculation method
Order a revised tax card (muutosverokortti) when your 2026 income moves well away from what your current card assumes. Take a Helsinki employee whose pay rises in July from €3,000 to €3,800 a month: the old 10.5% card would withhold €4,284 over the year against a tax bill of €5,445, leaving €1,161 short. A revised card recovers that gap from the remaining paychecks, which is why it shows 16.0% rather than the full-year average of 13.5%. Vero estimates the tax for the whole year, subtracts what has already been withheld and spreads the rest over pay still to come. It works in reverse too: when income drops, the rest-of-year rate can fall as low as zero. You can order a new card in MyTax (OmaVero) at any time; it applies until the end of the year or your next change. Rates are rounded up to the half point and capped at 60%. The usual triggers are a raise, a second job, part-time work, unemployment and parental leave.
A pay rise during the year
New rate for the rest of the year
16.0 %
| Old rate | 10.5 % |
| New income limit (full year) | €40,800 |
| Shortfall with the old rate | €1,161 |
How the rest-of-year rate is worked out
The card you received in January assumes a whole year of income. A revised rate is not simply the rate for your new annual total. Vero takes three steps: it estimates your full-year tax on the updated income, deducts the tax already withheld at the old rate, and divides what is left by the pay you have still to receive. The result is rounded up to the next half point. The longer you wait after your income changes, the sharper that correction becomes, because every payslip on the wrong rate adds to the gap and fewer paychecks are left to absorb it.
To fill in the request you need an estimate of your total 2026 income, your pay to date and the tax already withheld, all of which appear on your latest payslip. Deductions the automatic card does not know about, such as the household tax credit (kotitalousvähennys), can be added at the same time.
Case 1: a raise in July
A Helsinki employee earns €3,000 a month on a card built for €36,000, with a 10.5% rate. From July the salary is €3,800. Annual income becomes €40,800, taxed at €5,445.
| Old card | Revised card | |
|---|---|---|
| Rate, January to June | 10.5% | 10.5% |
| Rate, July to December | 10.5% | 16.0% |
| Withheld over the year | €4,284 | €5,538 |
| Final tax | €5,445 | €5,445 |
| Shortfall (−) or refund (+) | -€1,161 | €93 |
On the old card the income limit would eventually be crossed and the additional rate would cover part of the gap. The left column shows the worst case, where the limit was set generously and the additional rate never applies. With the revised card withholding rises immediately and the year ends close to even.
Case 2: a second employer
Two employers is where tax cards go wrong most easily. Each payroll compares only its own payments against the limit, so neither notices that your combined pay has passed it. If the 10.5% rate from a €36,000 main job is also applied to €8,000 of side income, €4,620 is withheld across the year while tax on €44,000 is €6,604: a gap of €1,984. A card calculated on combined income gives 15.5%, applied by both employers. The extra euros are taxed at your marginal rate, not your average one, which is exactly what the old card misses.
Case 3: part-time, unemployment or parental leave
When income drops, the old card over-withholds. Here €3,500 a month falls to €2,000 in August. Income for the year is €34,500 and tax €3,412, but the old 14.0% rate would take €4,830. The first seven months have already covered nearly all of the year’s tax, so the revised rate for the rest of the year is 0.0%. Without the change, €1,418 would sit with Vero until the refund the following year.
Unemployment benefit and parental allowance are taxable, and whoever pays them uses the same tax card. When your salary stops altogether, build the new estimate from wages already received plus the benefits you expect, so the rate works for both.
Timing changes the rate
You might expect a raise that starts late in the year to send the rest-of-year rate soaring. If you revise the card in the same month the raise begins, it does not. Here the same €800 raise starts in three different months.
| New salary from | Annual income (new limit) | Full-year rate | Rest-of-year rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| March | €44,000 | 15.5% | 16.0% |
| July | €40,800 | 13.5% | 16.0% |
| October | €38,400 | 12.0% | 15.5% |
The full-year rate moves a lot, the rest-of-year rate barely at all. Earlier months were withheld correctly for the old salary, so the only gap comes from the higher months, and those are the same months the gap is spread over. What hurts is delay: every higher payslip taxed at the old rate adds to the catch-up. If you know about a raise in advance, revise the card before the first higher payslip.
When to leave the card alone
- The raise is too small to move your rate by even half a point.
- Your limit already has room, and only a one-off item such as a bonus goes over it. The additional rate is set high precisely to handle that.
- Only one or two paydays are left and the difference is a few tens of euros; the assessment will settle it.
For a big change, act at once: each payday on the wrong rate makes the year-end correction steeper. The tax card guide explains the card the revision replaces, the income limit page covers what happens on the old card, and the tax rate calculator has a field for salary already paid.
Sources: Finnish Tax Administration decision on the 2026 withholding calculation rules for wages (20 Nov 2025); vero.fi: Tax card (English).