How do you use the Finnish Transparency Register

The Finnish Transparency Register’s online service consists of two parts: a public website for everyone and a service portal intended for those subject to the disclosure obligation (disclosers). On the public website, you can browse registrations and disclosures of activities made by the disclosers and read background information, instructions and news.

To use the service portal, strong identification through the Suomi.fi service is required. Once you have identified yourself, you can register with the system. After that, you can submit disclosures of activities when the disclosure period is open.

Logging in, registration and disclosures of activities

Actors who engage in government-level lobbying and lobbying consultancy must register with and disclose their activities to the Finnish Transparency Register twice a year.

To log in to the Transparency Register, strong authentication using Suomi.fi e-Identification is required. A person who discloses lobbying activities or lobbying consultancy on behalf of an organisation must have the right to provide information on behalf of the organisation. To this end, the person must be granted an authorisation in the e-Authorizations section of the Suomi.fi service.

To log in to the Transparency Register, go to avoimuusrekisteri.fi. At first login, you must register the organisation as a Transparency Register user.

Disclosures of activities must be submitted twice a year. Changes to and discontinuation of lobbying must also be disclosed to the Transparency Register.

Registration

The registration contains the organisation's basic information, including its business ID, business name and main sector as well as a general description of its activities. The registration must be made no later than on the date on which the lobbying or lobbying consultancy activities commence.

When the Finnish Transparency Register is introduced in 2024, all those already engaged in lobbying must register between 1 January and 31 March 2024.

Disclosures of activities

Disclosures of lobbying activities should be submitted twice a year: disclosures of activities in the period between January and June are submitted in July or August, and disclosures of activities between July and December in January or February.

The disclosure should include the lobbying targets, the subject discussed and the contact methods used. Disclosures of lobbying consultancy should also indicate the client on whose behalf the work is performed.

From 2026 onwards, lobbyists should also include financial information concerning the previous year's lobbying activities in their disclosures. The financial information includes the number of people who participated in the lobbying activities and their person-years, the costs of outsourced lobbying services, and other marketing and representation costs. Consultants should report the turnover of consultancy services relating to lobbying.

The financial information should be reported annually in the disclosure submitted in July or August.

Figure 1. Annual clock for disclosures of activities to be submitted to the Finnish Transparency Register starting from 2025. Financial information should be provided for the first time in summer 2026.

Disclosing the subject of lobbying

Lobbying and lobbying consultancy activities are reported to the Finnish Transparency Register according to the subject of lobbying.

The subject may be related to, for example, a policy project, a legislative project, a budget measure or a development measure in any administrative sector. The subject should be disclosed as descriptively as possible and in sufficient detail.

The subject is disclosed in a free format, and the number of characters in the disclosure is limited (50–600 characters). In your disclosure, you should describe briefly and clearly – but nevertheless as accurately as possible – the matter, project, legislation, budget or other similar issue you have tried to influence.

It is essential to disclose the most important subject of communication. You should therefore not record each issue discussed or provide an excessively detailed report on the subject. With the help of information obtained from the Register, those interested in the subject may contact the actors involved in order to obtain further information.

If the lobbying has been targeted at an official Finnish project, you can refer directly to it using the project number on the Hankeikkuna website (in Finnish).

It is advisable to disclose all persons lobbied on the same subject and all methods of communication in the same disclosure.

The subject should also be disclosed in cases where you support a customer’s lobbying activities but are not yourself in direct contact with Parliament or the ministries. In this case, it should be stated in the description of the subject of lobbying how this consultancy has been related to your customer’s lobbying activities. An example of this is a lobbying plan drawn up for the customer with the aim of promoting certain matters in Parliament or in the ministries.