MaRa TES Explained — Finland's Restaurant Collective Agreement for Employers (2026)

Restaurant collective agreement

MaRa TES sets your restaurant’s pay, working hours and employer obligations. This guide explains the agreement from the employer’s point of view: what it requires of you, how pay groups are decided, what the wages and premiums are from 1 June 2026, and where errors most often arise.

Wages are a restaurant’s single largest cost, and MaRa TES frames their limits hour by hour. Most payroll errors don’t come from the maths being hard, but from an employee being placed in the wrong pay group, or time-based premiums being left out. Both errors accumulate every month and eventually come back to be paid. Let’s go through how the agreement works and what to prepare for.

This guide is based on the hospitality and restaurant collective agreement (MaRa ry / PAM) for 1 April 2025 – 31 March 2028. It is general information, not individual legal advice. Euro amounts are taken from the official PAM and MaRa TES documents and are updated at each pay increase.

See right away what an employee really costs. Pick the role and work experience, and you’ll see the TES minimum wage, the sector average wage and the employer’s total cost including on-costs.

The calculator’s “employer cost” is clearly higher than gross pay, because statutory on-costs are added on top of base pay: the pension contribution (TyEL), unemployment, accident and group life insurance, plus holiday pay and the holiday bonus. In practice one employee costs the employer about 1.4–1.6 times their gross pay. In addition, the sector pays holiday compensation of 9%, or 11.5% if employment has lasted at least a year, on the holiday-accrual-year earnings (Annual Holidays Act 162/2005), plus the TES holiday bonus. These should be accrued in the books across the year.

2026 on-costs · Vero.fiAnnual Holidays Act 162/2005

On-cost percentages are at 2026 levels and are confirmed yearly (the TyEL and unemployment-insurance rates change; accident insurance varies by industry). Check your own rates with your pension and insurance providers.

1. What MaRa TES is, and who it covers

MaRa TES, the hospitality and restaurant collective agreement, is negotiated by the trade union PAM (Service Union United) and the employer organisation MaRa ry (Finnish Hospitality Association). It sets the sector’s minimum terms: table wages, shift premiums, working hours, breaks, annual leave, sick pay and employer obligations. The current agreement period is 1 April 2025 – 31 March 2028. Source: PAM · MaRa TES

The agreement covers restaurants, cafés, fast-food places, hotels, staff canteens and other hospitality workplaces. In practice, every restaurant in Finland operates under it.

2. Why an employer must understand the TES

In the restaurant sector wages are the single largest cost, and the TES frames their limits, sidestepping it is not an option. Because the error does not stay between you and the employee: underpayment becomes a retroactive wage claim that the employee can pursue, with late-payment interest, years later. The limitation period is long, so one miscalculated premium is multiplied across the whole time the error was in force.

The second consequence comes from supervision. The occupational safety authority (aluehallintovirasto) oversees how employment terms are met and can carry out inspections. The most common notices are not dramatic breaches but everyday gaps: incomplete working-time records, payslips missing a breakdown, premiums calculated roughly. When the records can’t prove the hours worked, it’s hard to show that premiums were paid, and ambiguity is usually read in the employee’s favour.

For an employer, the TES is above all risk management. When pay groups, premiums and working time are calculated correctly from the start, you avoid retroactive claims, disputes and official notices, and the labour cost stays predictable in the budget instead of surfacing later as a surprise.

3. Pay groups PR 1–5, this decides the wage

MaRa TES has five pay groups (PR 1–5), and the pay group decides the employee’s minimum wage. The most important thing to understand: the pay group is set by the demands of the task and the type of workplace, not by the job title alone. The same title, a cook for example, can fall into a different group depending on whether the venue serves over 5.5% alcohol.

In a restaurant kitchen the deciding factor is almost always alcohol service. That is why the same cook’s role splits into three groups:

Pay is paid according to the pay group whose work the employee does for the majority of working time. If the employee regularly does work below their group’s demands, that does not reduce their pay. If less than half the time is higher-group work, a proportional increase must be agreed.

4. Wages and premiums from 1 June 2026

The minimum wage is built from the pay group’s table wage, which rises with years of experience in four steps (under 2 years, 2–5 years, 5–10 years, over 10 years), with shift premiums added on top. Below are the table wages in force from 1 June 2026, monthly pay €/month (hourly pay €/h):

The table wage changes three times over the agreement period. Plan the increases into the budget in advance, because they take effect for the whole staff at once:

On top of the table wage come time-based premiums. They are fixed euro amounts or percentages, and they accrue for every hour actually worked, not by rounding at month-end:

In the restaurant sector working time is usually counted in three-week periods, not by the day, so additional work and overtime are decided by the period too:

The single largest premium in a restaurant open every day is Sunday and public-holiday work, which doubles the hourly pay. Below is an example month for one PR 4 cook: Sunday shifts bring clearly more in premiums than evening and night hours combined, even with fewer hours.

You can test your own case on the salary calculator’s TES tab and see how the pay group and shift premiums affect the employer’s total cost.

5. Working time, shifts and mandatory rest

The TES sets out precisely how shifts may be arranged: how long a single shift can be, how much rest must fall between shifts, and when a day off must be given. These are not recommendations but binding limits, breaching which shows up as compensation and inspection notices. The key limits in roster planning:

In practice this means the roster is best built three weeks at a time, checking four things: each working week has at least 30 hours of continuous weekly rest, no more than seven working days fall between days off, 11 hours of rest lie between shifts, and a weekend off is given at least every fifth week. In addition:

• Working-time records are mandatory. Every shift is recorded with clock times, this is the only reliable basis for calculating premiums and overtime, and the most common thing inspections look at.
• The roster is drawn up at least three weeks ahead and made known; later changes need a reason.
• Annual free days (VV) accrue from hours worked and are given as time off or compensated per the TES.
• Part-timers’ hours must, from 2026, be checked regularly: if the actual hours consistently exceed what was agreed, additional work must first be offered to your own part-time staff.

6. Sick pay, how many days the employer pays

When an employee falls ill, the employer pays sick pay for a period that grows with length of employment. The pay during it is full base monthly pay; after the period, Kela’s sickness allowance takes over. This is a cost worth knowing in advance, not first working out when someone falls ill.

In practice, an employee who has been with you for over ten years can be on sick leave for nearly two months on full pay at the employer’s expense. The illness must be evidenced as the TES requires (usually a doctor’s certificate); a self-notification practice for short absences can be agreed locally.

MaRa TES § 22 · sick pay

7. Annual leave and the holiday bonus

Annual leave and the holiday bonus paid on top of it are among the largest predictable staff costs. Leave accrues monthly, holiday pay is paid for the leave period, and on top of these comes the holiday bonus (in the TES, lomaltapaluuraha), in practice an extra amount of about half a month’s holiday pay every year.

MaRa TES § 27–28Annual Holidays Act 162/2005

8. Paid absences and family leave

The TES also requires pay for certain short absences that are neither annual leave nor sick leave. These are easily missed in payroll:

Family leave is mostly funded by Kela benefits, not employer pay. Pregnancy leave starts 30 working days before the due date; parental leave can be taken in up to four periods of at least 12 working days each; and carer’s leave is up to five working days a year. The employer has no general obligation to pay wages during family leave; the exception is that loss of earnings from pregnancy-related medical examinations is compensated. Any paid pregnancy-leave period under the TES is checked case by case.

MaRa TES § 23–25Employment Contracts Act 55/2001 · family leave

9. The most common errors, where claims arise

The same errors recur in practical payroll. These are worth checking first:

10. Why TES interpretation is best left to a professional

MaRa TES contains legal terminology, updates step by step, and binds even non-member employers. Pay-group classification, accrual of premiums and the working-time rules all take experience, a single error shows up as a retroactive wage claim or an inspection notice, often only years later.

For an immigrant or foreign entrepreneur there is an extra layer: the agreement is a legal text in Finnish, and PAM, the labour authorities and the tax office also communicate in Finnish. Talous SK specialises in restaurant payroll and accounting: we place employees in the right pay groups, calculate premiums and overtime correctly, carry the pay-increase steps into pay on time, and keep the labour cost predictable. We explain the rules to you in plain English and deal with PAM, the labour authorities and the tax office in Finnish on your behalf, so the numbers don’t have to be translated twice.

11. What to give your accountant each month

Correct payroll needs correct information. Each month, give your payroll handler:

1. Working-time records with clock times for each employee.
2. New employees’ contract details (pay group, experience step), given at onboarding and updated only when they change, not every month.
3. Actual shifts itemised: evening, night, Saturday, Sunday, public holiday.
4. Any overtime hours.
5. Absences: sick leave, annual leave, unpaid absences.

The clearer the material, the more accurate the payslip and the steadier the costs. TES wages are calculated as part of a restaurant’s monthly bookkeeping and payroll.

Frequently asked questions

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