Finland Business Registry (2026 Update)
Finland runs one of Europe's better-maintained company registers, and will tell you whether a company is real, active, filing on time, and who sits on its board. But it will not tell you who owns it. Shareholder data sits in the company's own share register, and beneficial ownership is carved out of the public extract behind a legitimate-interest wall.
What Is the Finnish Business Registry?
The Finnish Patent and Registration Office maintain the Trade Register (kaupparekisteri), the official record of companies and organisations in Finland. The Business Information System (BIS), searchable at ytj.fi, is the public front end operated jointly by the PRH and the Finnish Tax Administration.
A separate Beneficial Ownership Register, also held by the PRH, records beneficial owner details but is not part of the public extract.
What Data Is Available?
The free Trade Register extract covers the following.
Company identity and status: the Business ID (Y-tunnus), registered name, legal form (for example, osakeyhtiö, a private limited company), and the date of registration.
Domicile and address: the registered home municipality and the postal address.
Business scope: the line of business, the financial year, and the date of the founding agreement.
Capital: the share capital, whether it is fully paid, and the number of shares.
People and their roles: board members, and where applicable the managing director, deputy members, holders of procuration, and other persons in positions of responsibility. Each is identified by name and date of birth, the public-facing disambiguator, not by the confidential personal identity code. A "valid personal data" table typically adds each person's nationality and municipality of residence.
Representation rights: how the company may be legally represented, both the statutory default (the board) and any rule set in the articles of association, such as the chair or managing director signing alone, or two board members jointly.
Auditor: the registered auditor, or a note that none has been appointed, which is lawful for smaller companies below the audit thresholds.
Filing history and compliance signals: the most recently filed financial statements, a list of recent years' accounts, and confirmation of whether the company has made the statutory beneficial-owner declaration.
There is no shareholder data. Finland's Companies Act (osakeyhtiölaki, Chapter 3, Section 15) requires Finnish companies to independently maintain registers of shareholders, so the shareholder list (osakasluettelo) sits with the company, not the register.
Which Entities Must Register?
Registration is dominated by two forms. On 9 January 2026, the register held 728,137 entities in total, of which 309,714 were limited liability companies, and 275,702 were private traders.
The limited liability company (osakeyhtiö): Discloses board rights, capital, financial statements, and a beneficial-owner declaration.
Private traders: File least and are excluded from the open-data interface entirely.
Housing companies (asunto-osakeyhtiö): Numerous but rarely relevant to commercial onboarding.
Note the growth trend: the total rose from 641,619 in January 2022 to 728,137 in January 2026, driven almost entirely by limited companies and private traders.
How to Search the Finnish Trade Register
The walkthrough below reflects what the Kyckr team saw when we ran a live search on 3 July 2026.
Searching BIS in 2026.
Step 1: Go to the Business Information System
Open the company and organisation search at ytj.fi. The service is available in English, Finnish, and Swedish, and needs no account. You can search by Business ID or LEI code, company name, home municipality, company form, or main line of business, and filter by whether the entity is valid or closed.
Step 2: Review the Results
A search returns a results table showing Business ID, name, company form, home municipality, and line of business. Results can be downloaded as CSV.
Step 3: Open the Company Record
Selecting an entity opens the record. For the private limited company that we inspected, the record showed the Business ID, name, company form, EUID, LEI code, home municipality, language, main line of business, and postal address, each with a start date and a named information source.
Below that, the "Registrations in force" block listed the Trade Register, Tax Administration, prepayment, VAT, and employer registrations with their statuses and start dates.
Step 4: Check the Tax Debt Register
The record links to the Tax Debt Register, maintained by the Finnish Tax Administration (Vero). The register flags companies owing at least €10,000 or that have failed to file returns for self-assessed taxes in the past six months.
Step 5: Go Deeper in Virre
More comprehensive details are available through the PRH's Virre information service, linked from the record. We found the name search unwieldy (too many results triggered a red warning), so searching by Business ID was easier.
Virre presents company information across tabs: basic details, company names, lines of business, registered financial statements, and notifications from the company.
The basic details tab confirmed the registered office, company type, dates of registration, status, whether the company holds enterprise mortgages, and, importantly, that beneficial-owner details are available for the company. The company names and lines of business tabs carry the registered name history and the full Finnish-language business scope.
Step 6: Order Documents and Accounts
The registered financial statements tab lists each financial period with an "add to shopping cart" option. Our sample company's accounts ran back to 2017.
The Trade Register search within Virre returns every notification the company has filed, financial statements, amendment notifications, and supervision entries, each with a record number, arrival date, and phase.
You can download a PDF Trade Register extract free of charge. A translated English extract costs €10.67 and a copy of the company rules €4.02. Checkout requires only a name, country, and email address, with no Finnish or EU digital credentials. You will receive the documents via email instantly.
Available Documents
The free electronic Trade Register extract is the document that anchors an audit trail: it carries the registered particulars, officers, representation rights, and beneficial-owner declaration status in one certified record.
Trade Register extract (free): the valid registered information of the company, downloadable as a PDF from Virre.
Translated Trade Register extract in English (€10.67): a shorter document than the Finnish original, because fields such as the line of business cannot be translated automatically.
Company rules or articles (€4.02): the articles of association, partnership agreement, or bylaws, depending on company form.
Registered financial statements (priced per period): profit and loss and balance sheet filings, ordered by financial year.
Beneficial owner extract: priced and access-restricted; see Limitations below.
APIs and Open Data
The PRH publishes open data through the BIS interfaces free of charge, updated once a day.
The service returns basic company details, and the Finnish Tax Administration registers to which a company belongs.
Digital financial statement data is available where accounts were filed in the iXBRL reporting format; older or non-iXBRL accounts must be bought through Virre.
The interface carries no beneficial ownership data, which sits behind the separate legitimate-interest system.
Finland's Beneficial Ownership Register
Finland applies legitimate-interest access to beneficial ownership data.
A foreign obliged entity can request UBO information on a case-by-case basis through an online form or apply to become a "contract client" of the PRH's Virre service.
The document-order beneficial owner extract costs €7, plus €12 for delivery and invoicing, with a translated English version at €30.12.
The contract-client route carries a €200 setup fee plus VAT and a €22 annual username fee, after which electronic extracts drop to €0.90 each. Every applicant must justify an anti-money-laundering purpose of use and sign the data-use terms.
2026 Reforms: What Changed and What It Means
The new Trade Register Act took effect on 1 June 2023. Further amendments followed on 1 January 2025, and more parts of it came into force in 2026 and 2027.
1. Self-service beneficial-owner extract (February 2026)
The PRH launched a service letting a company download its own beneficial-owner extract, initially in Finnish and Swedish, with a document-order extract at €7 and a translated English version at €30.12.
2. Non-filer enforcement is live
As of June 2026, more than 22,000 limited companies and co-operatives still had not filed beneficial-owner details, despite the duty existing since the summer of 2020. The PRH is sending reminder letters and imposes a €300 negligence fee if the deadline in the letter is missed. Separately, around 35,000 companies had not filed financial statements and face late-filing fees.
3. Annual verification duty (from 2027, enforced 2028)
Limited companies, co-operatives, European companies, European co-operatives, and foreign traders with a Finnish branch will have to verify their Trade Register details every year and check their contact details in the Business ID Register at ytj.fi. From 2028, the PRH can charge a negligence fee of €300, or €600 for public limited and European companies.
How Reliable Is Finland's Company Register?
Finland runs one of Europe's stronger registers, with one clear structural limit.
Directors, officers, and beneficial owners are keyed internally to the personal identity code, but that code stays private. In public, you get a name and a date of birth, and little more for foreign officers, verified once at registration.
Enforcement is real. Since 2025, the PRH fines late and false filings and strikes off persistent offenders, and the more than 22,000 outstanding beneficial-owner declarations are now drawing €300 negligence fees.
Core data is free and machine-readable through the open interface, though most full accounts still sit behind the paid Virre service.
Access Structured Finland Company Registry Data Instantly
Finland's Trade Register offers free, well-enforced, machine-readable company data, but it has limits, namely ownership and access: shareholders are not in the register, beneficial ownership sits behind a legitimate-interest wall with fees the EU has flagged as a barrier, and full documents are in Finnish or Swedish.
Kyckr provides live access to Finnish company data and official documents, without the contract setup or the language and credential barriers that direct users face. Book a demo to find out more.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Finnish business registry free?
Basic company data and an electronic Trade Register extract are free at ytj.fi and through the Virre service, with no account or Finnish credentials required. Translated extracts, company rules, financial statements, and beneficial-owner extracts are charged. Full accounts filed in older formats sit behind the paid Virre service.
What is the Y-tunnus?
The Y-tunnus is the Finnish Business ID, a permanent check-digit identifier assigned to every registered entity that never changes. It is the most reliable field to search and match on, and far cleaner than a name search, which is capped at 300 results.
Who can access the Beneficial Ownership Register?
Obliged entities with an anti-money-laundering purpose of use, including banks, insurers, auditors, and other regulated parties, plus supervisory authorities. Foreign users can order case by case for €7 plus €12 delivery, or become contract clients for a €200 setup fee. Approval is discretionary, and the registry may demand a power of attorney where it doubts a requester's authority.
What documents can I get from the Finnish Trade Register?
A free electronic Trade Register extract, a translated English extract (€10.67), company rules or articles (€4.02), registered financial statements by period, and a beneficial-owner extract on a legitimate-interest basis. Order the Trade Register extract first, as it anchors the audit trail.
Does Finland offer an API for the business register?
Yes. The PRH publishes open data through the BIS interfaces free of charge, updated daily, returning basic company details and tax-register memberships in structured form. Private traders, email addresses, phone numbers, and beneficial ownership data are excluded, and digital accounts are available only where filed in iXBRL.