Customs Glossary

The aim of the Customs Glossary is to provide customers and interest groups with a better understanding of customs activities and related concepts as well as to facilitate their transactions with Customs. Furthermore, the terminology work is intended to make the definitions of Customs’ data consistent with data of other operators.

The Customs Glossary defines and describes terms used in the customs activities as well as how they relate to one another. The concepts described with the terms are defined in the glossary in a practical and non-technical way.

Realisation of the glossary

Presently, the Customs Glossary contains about 150 terminological entries. Principles of terminology work were used when drafting the glossary. The concepts of the terminological entries are described with definitions and supplementary notes. Recommendations for how the terms are used are also provided. The relationship between the concepts is modelled with conceptual diagrams.

Equivalent terms in Swedish and English will be published at a later stage.

Experts from the different fields of Customs have worked on the terminological glossary since 2018. The Finnish Terminology Centre has provided support for the work.

The Customs Glossary will be published on the Customs website as well as in the terminologies section of the Suomi.fi website. The glossary is updated according to each topic. The published glossary contains e.g. concepts that relate to customer status and customs clearance.

A glossary of foreign trade statistics has been published as a separate entity and it was drafted in cooperation between Customs and Statistics Finland.

Glossaries