Declare your parcel

If you are a foreign private person who does not have a Finnish personal identity code and you are unable to identify yourself with Finnish identification tokens, you cannot, at the moment, identify yourself using the Finnish Authenticator Service when logging in to the Import Declaration Service for private persons or to the Customs Clearance Service.

Instead, you can authorise another person or an agent to declare the consignment on your behalf. See also Instructions for other service alternatives.

 

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You can ask another person to declare on your behalf

You can authorise another person to declare your parcel in the Import Declaration Service for private persons or in the Customs Clearance Service and to pay the import duties on your behalf. The authorisation may be given either verbally or in writing. The other person identifies him or herself in the service and declares your parcel and your details on your behalf. The service guides the user on how to fill in the details.

Posti will deliver your parcel to the address provided on the consignment or to a pickup point. The person who submits the declaration is only liable for the customs debt and for the details provided in cases where they are aware or should have been aware of the incorrectness of information provided in the customs declaration. You are responsible for both the customs debt and any post-clearance duties (direct representation).

You can declare goods using a form

You can also send the declaration details on a form by email or post to Customs as described.

• Complete and sign customs declaration form 
  • 1143e – Private person’s declaration of goods imported from outside the customs and fiscal territory of the EU
  • 1143e Completing instructions
  • 1105e – Declaration of goods imported to the Åland Islands from an EU country
  • 1141e – private person’s declaration for sending goods from Åland to mainland Finland
  • 1142e – private person’s declaration for clearing goods from mainland Finland to Åland
    
    Forms can be found here (with completion instructions): Other customs forms. The forms are also available at the customs offices.

Send the scanned customs declaration form primarily to the email address provided on the form.  Attach at least the arrival notice and a document indicating the value and content of the consignment (e.g. the order confirmation). Use the secure email service to send the declaration: Guidance on the use of secure email service. It is advisable to use email to speed up the processing of the declaration, because Posti will return undeclared consignments to the sender after 20 days from their arrival in Finland.

• Alternatively, you can send the documents to the following address: Airport Customs/Declaring with a form, PO Box 512, 00101 Helsinki.
• Before sending the documents, check carefully that you have completed all mandatory sections of the form and that you have attached all the required documents. If the required details have not been provided, the declaration cannot be processed.
• If you cannot send the documents electronically yourself, you can ask a customs officer at a customs office with customer service to send them on your behalf.
• Customs processes the declarations during office hours. You will usually receive a reply no later than on the following working day. Please note: the reply can also be a request for additional information, so follow the instructions in the request.

Pay the customs invoice before the storage time of the parcel comes to an end

The customs invoice must be paid and the payment must be sent to Customs before the storage time of the parcel announced by Posti or some other transport company comes to an end. Customs cannot extend the storage time for consignments.

Please note that the due date of the customs invoice can be after the end of the storage time. Please move the due date before paying the invoice so the declaration is completed within the time limit specified by the transport company and the transport company won’t have to return your parcel. Please note that, depending on the method of payment, it can take two to three banking days for the payment to be registered on Customs’ bank account.

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In the notice of arrival sent by the transport company and in the Import Declaration Service for private persons, the indicated country of dispatch may be an EU country, even though the consignment was originally dispatched from outside the EU. This can happen if the goods have been intermediately stored as undeclared in the EU, for example.  Enter the actual country of dispatch in the Import Declaration Service, and then you can clear the goods. This does not concern e.g. consignments sent from the Canary Islands or delivered to the Åland Islands.

You may need to check with the seller from which non-EU country the consignment was sent. You can get more information in advance about customs declaration upon import from the seller or, for example, from the terms of delivery of the online store you are using.

Invalid request for customs clearance of a parcel from an EU country

Check that 

• the country of origin of the goods is an EU country or
• it was sent from another EU country where it was already cleared.

If you receive an invalid request for customs clearance from Posti for such an item, request an exemption for your parcel on the webpage of Posti. Attach a verification (such as the invoice, order confirmation or receipt), which shows that the country of dispatch is an EU country. If the country of dispatch is not indicated in the receipt, you should contact the seller of the goods for a T2L document or some other additional documentation that indicates the country of dispatch.

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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.

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