Customer service for individuals

Foreign item tracking services often notify “Lähetys on Tullissa” (the consingment is in the Customs) or “Held by Customs”. The consignments, however, are not located in any Customs facility, but they are located in a warehouse of Posti or another transport company. If the consignment has to be declared, Posti or some other transport company in Finland will send you a notification saying that you need to declare the consignmentv.

Posti or the transport company

• knows where your parcel is
• sends the notices of arrival
• stores parcels to be cleared
• transports the parcels after clearance
• returns parcels.

When you declare your parcel in the Import Declaration Service for private persons, the decision on release is available in the My declarations section in the service.

• You can find the customs declarations that you have submitted in the Import Declaration Service for private persons in the last 90 days and the documentation related to them, such as customs clearance decisions, decisions on release and customs invoices.
• You can make corrections to an incomplete clearance, pay the import duties and taxes or respond to a request for additional information.
• You can enclose documents to your declaration if Customs requests them in connection with the customs clearance.
• You can check if your declaration has been processed.

Note that you will receive a customs clearance decision and other documentation in the language in which you used the Import Declaration Service. If you have used the Import Declaration Service in Finnish or Swedish, you cannot obtain a customs clearance decision in English for example for online trade.

A receipt is not generated for a paid customs clearance. Your bank will provide a receipt on the customs clearance that you have paid for.

Go to the section My declarations

If more than 90 days have passed since the customs clearance, your documents will be in the Customs Clearance Service

If you have declared your consignment personally in the Import Declaration Service for private persons and it has been more than 90 days since the customs clearance, you will find your clearance documents in the Customs Clearance Service. For searching your documents, you will need the Movement Reference Number (MRN) of your customs clearance (in clearances done in 2024, the number begins with 24FIU000…).

1. Log in to the Service.
2. Select the tab “Declaration search”. Select “MRN or other declaration reference” and the “E-services” transaction method. 
3. The clearance documents are on the #Summary and submission” page.

If you need the MRN of your customs clearance, please contact our customer service. Before you contact us, make sure you have the arrival ID of your package or the transport document number you included in your customs declaration.

Go to the Customs Clearance Service

If you declared the parcel in the Customs Clearance Service, you will find your clearance and the related documents in the Service

You can find the documents of the declarations you submitted in the Customs Clearance Service in the Service.

1. Log in to the Service.
2. Proceed to the “Finished” tab and select the preferred customs clearance. If you know the MRN of your customs clearance, you can search your customs clearance also on the “Declaration search” tab.
3. The clearance documents are on the “Summary and submission” page.

If a transport operator or a forwarding agency declared your goods on your behalf, they will have the documents

When a transport company or a forwarding company has cleared your consignment on your behalf, ask them for the documentation.

Keep the customs clearance documents

As a private person, you should keep the customs clearance documents for the current year and an additional six years following the clearance. Save the documents for your archives immediately once your customs clearance is done. Customs may ask you to present the documents also retrospectively.

Paying VAT in Finland depends, among other things, on whether or not the online store has an IOSS number.

• If the seller has an IOSS number, you will pay the Finnish VAT when you purchase the goods. The postal company or the transport company, will usually declare the consignment on your behalf, and no VAT has to be paid in conjunction with the declaration. (However, this does not apply to products that are subject to excise duty, such as alcohol products. For these products, the import taxes are always paid in conjunction with the declaration.)
• If the seller doesn’t have an IOSS number, you will usually have to pay the VAT again upon importation to Finland. You will still have to pay the import duties to Finland even though you have already paid the VAT of the selling country to the seller.
• Some online stores have included the VAT to be paid to Finland to the price of the goods, even though they don’t have an IOSS number. The invoice from the online store may e.g. have the abbreviation ‘DDP’ or the text ‘Delivered duty paid’ written on it. Ask the seller if your order has been delivered by a transport company that does the declaration in Finland on your part and pays the Finnish VAT.

Read more on the IOSS number.

It may happen that you receive a defective item that you do not have to send back to the seller. If the seller sends you a new item or a new component of the item free of charge, please note that the new item or component must be declared.

If you declare the new item or component in the Import Declaration Service for private persons, select that you wish to declare “purchased goods” on the start page. When declaring the value of the new item or component, enter the normal price of the item or component.

After that, you can apply for a correction, i.e. revision of the customs clearance decision, so that you can get a refund of the import taxes that you have paid for the defective item. To complete your application for revision you need the MRN of the original declaration and the MRN of the declaration of the new item.  

Please note that you cannot apply for a revision of the customs clearance decision if you received the original item from EU territory, but the new item or component arrives from outside the EU. The new item or component must be declared and when declaring its value, the normal price of the item or the component must be entered.

Please note that in the Import Declaration Service for private persons, select “goods replaced for free under warranty” only if you sent the defective item back to the seller.  

Have you received a customs clearance request concerning a letter, a card or a parcel containing for example a certificate, passport or some other document? Very often, such items are not commercially valuable. However, you are required to declare such a parcel, as a value was determined for it upon dispatch.

You can declare the consignment yourself in the Import Declaration Service for private persons. On the start page, select the option of declaring “purchased goods”. On the “Consignment details” page, enter the value of the parcel. Usually the value of a document is very low. However, the declared value cannot be 0 euros. The lowest possible declared value is 0.01 €. If you do not know the value, you should ask the sender.

Enter any possible transport costs under “transport costs”.

On the “Goods details” page, find and select “Printed products ” and enter the value of the goods to be declared. Add the goods to the declaration basket, and enter any other required details.

If your consignment is transported by Posti and you paid tax for the customs clearance, remember to also pay the Posti handling fee so that Posti can deliver your parcel. This does not concern customers of Åland Post.

This is how you clear documents if you cannot use the e-service

If you cannot use Import Declaration Service for private persons, e.g. because you don’t have Finnish online banking ID codes, a certificate card or a mobile certificate, clear documents with the form “Private person’s declaration of goods imported from outside the customs and fiscal territory of the EU” (1143). See also the detailed instructions for completing the form.