Finnish Customs refunds import duties paid in excess because of an error that occurred in the currency (updated 18 February 2021).

Finnish Customs has applied the wrong currency rates in customs clearances for some currencies during the period 1 May 2016 to 30 June 2019. In accordance with EU legislation, Customs will refund excess payments automatically if the refund amount is 10 euros or more. Customers may apply also for smaller sums to be refunded.

Finnish Customs has erroneously used selling rates laid down by a Finnish bank in connection with currencies, whose conversion into euros should have been carried out by using rates laid down by the European Central Bank. This concerns customs clearances whose tax determination date has been confirmed during the period 1 May 2016 to 30 June 2019. The erroneously converted currencies include, inter alia, the Russian rouble, the Swedish krona and the US dollar. Because of the error, the customs and value added tax (VAT) value of goods, which was used as the basis for import duties was confirmed as 1.5–2.5 % too high. The error affects about 960 000 customs declarations. The sum to be refunded, with regard to Customs, amounts to about 11,5 million euros, according to Customs’ current estimate.    

Finnish Customs apologises the error that occurred in customs work. After having realised the mistake Customs has immediately begun to apply the rates laid down by the European Central Bank in customs clearances whose tax determination date is 1 July 2019 or a date after that date, and to gather information for the purpose of refunds. 

Virtually all the corrections of errors that occurred in the currency lead to refunds (updated on 18 February 2021)

In accordance with EU legislation, Customs will automatically refund the import duties levied in excess if the refund amount is 10 euros or more. If the import duties imposed in excess amount to less than 10 euros, Customs will refund them if the customer applies for their refund. The instructions for an application are available on the Customs’ web-site. Contact and account information of the customers who will receive refund ex officio will be received by Customs, at its request, from the Tax Administration, thus the customers do not need to contact Customs nor Tax Administration. If Customs is not able to receive customer’s information from the Tax Administration, Customs will contact the customer by email or by letter and request the customer to provide the bank account number for the payment of the refund. 

As required by the regulations, if the customs clearance has taken place prior to the year 2018, the VAT imposed in excess will not be refunded if the matter concerns an importer which is registered as VAT-liable in the Value Added Tax Register or another importer referred to in section 100 of the VAT Act (1486/1994) and, if the tax paid on the imported goods may have been deducted or received as a refund. However, Customs refunds the import VAT, if it has not been possible for the importer to deduct the VAT levied in excess because of the error that occurred in the currency.

The VAT return, that is to be submitted to the Finnish Tax Administration, must be corrected by the customer on its own initiative (updated on 8 November 2019)

Since 2018, the Tax Administration has been responsible for VAT taxation of imports of goods, if the importer is registered as VAT-liable in the Value Added Tax Register. Customs value that has changed because of the incorrect exchange rate, and customs duties, taxes and charges, levied by Customs, affect the basis of calculation for import VAT

The Tax Administration has published instructions on correcting the VAT return and they are available on the internet site vero.fi (in Finnish and Swedish only). Go the instructions of the Tax Administration to the internet site vero.fi.

The following currencies have been affected by the error (updated on 8 November 2019): 

AUD, CAD, CHF, CZK, DKK, GBP, HKD, HUF, ILS, INR, JPY, KRW, MXN, NOK, NZD, PLN, RUB, SEK, SGD, THB, TRY, USD, ZAR