Invoicing
If your company has an authorisation for payment deferment, you are entitled to about a five-week term of payment for customs duties and service charges for imports from non-EU countries. As of 1 January 2018, customers who have registered as VAT payers are to pay and declare value added tax payable on imports to the Finnish Tax Administration.
Periodic filing
Your company will receive a periodic filing on taxes and payments to be collected on goods released during a single week. Periodic filing allows customers to pay invoices that fall due for payment at the same time, that is, customs clearance decisions, taxation decisions and payment decisions.
If the customs declaration is lodged by an agent acting as an indirect representative or as a direct representative at the responsibility of a guarantor, the periodic filing is addressed and sent to the agent. In cases of direct representation, the periodic filing is addressed and sent to the representative’s customer.
The periodic filing will fall due for payment on the Friday of the week following the date of the filing, i.e. the due date is ten days from the date of the periodic filing. The transactions of the week of release will fall due for payment on the fourth Friday after the week of the release.
Periodic filing schedule
| Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Week of release = customs declaration to be submitted | Periodic filing date = Tuesday of the third week following the week of release | The due date for the periodic filing is Friday |
Post-clearances and tax payments confirmed during each calendar week fall due on the Friday of the second week following the week when the decision was confirmed.
Points to consider
If a customer does not pay for the periodic filing within the given time period, this will result in the levying of additional tax and late payment interest for each decision on customs clearance and taxation in the periodic filing, in a minimum amount of three euros per decision.
Late payment interest is levied on customs duties. The rate of interest on arrears shall be equal to the interest rate as published in the Official Journal of the European Union, C series, which the European Central Bank applied to its main refinancing operations, on the first day of the month in which the due date fell, increased by two percentage points.
Interest on arrears is not collected on customs duties if the amount of interest on arrears is under ten euros per debt collection assignment.
Costs due to late payments are listed on a request for payment to be sent to the customer.
If a customer pays the requested delayed payment in its entirety no later than on the due date, the entire debt will be paid at once along with the late payment charge.
You can also receive periodic filings as e-invoices after you notify the Customs Authorisation Centre of the change. It is not possible to receive invoices for periodic filings simultaneously as online invoices and by mail. It is also not possible to send an e-invoice to an e-mail address. Instead, Customs sends the e-invoice to the address of the e-invoice operator.
Electronic periodic filing is transmitted in the same way as filings in paper format, except when a bank is the e-invoice operator of the recipient. However, there are certain shortcomings in electronic periodic filings, for example as concerns data contents and payment-related terminology. For example, periodic filings are referred to as “invoices”. Also, the specification section contains only a list of the numbers of the taxation decisions under the periodic filing, and of the unpaid amounts relating to the decisions.
Periodic filings can be submitted as e-invoices to one or several e-invoicing addresses. A separate declaration must be lodged for each individual business ID. You can give several e-invoicing addresses for a single business ID on the form. It is not necessary to separately name the online invoicing operator.
- Appearance of a periodic filing transmitted by means other through than a bank operator (in Finnish)
- Appearance of a periodic filing transmitted through a bank operator (in Finnish)
- E-invoice notification form
- TIEKE (Finnish Information Society Development Centre): E-invoice operators
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