Presentation of the Finnish Transparency Register
The Transparency Register increases the transparency of decision-making at central government level.
The aim of the Finnish Transparency Register is to make the decision-making in Parliament and the ministries more transparent. The Transparency Register increases the transparency of such unofficial activities to influence decision-making that are carried out outside official working groups and hearings, such as consultation rounds and committee hearings. The Register also aims to combat inappropriate lobbying of central-government-level actors.
The Transparency Register increases the transparency of public administration in several ways:
It makes informal, network-based and PR-related communications, which are not necessarily documented, more public.
It makes it easier to submit requests for information on the public authorities’ PR activities because, based on the information in the Transparency Register, it is easier to target information requests at the correct documents.
It makes the activities of political decision-makers and their assistants more public, which in turn makes it easier for the citizens to follow the dialogue around political decision-making.
Any long-term and systematic lobbying or lobbying consultancy that targets Parliament or the ministries is to be disclosed to the Transparency Register. Lobbying and lobbying consultancy refer to communications that aim to influence a matter or decision-making by promoting a certain interest or objective.
The Finnish Transparency Register is governed by the Transparency Register Act, which was adopted in Finland in spring 2023. The online service of the Transparency Register can be found at the address avoimuusrekisteri.fi. Information in the Register can be browsed by, for example, citizens, researchers and journalists.
How does the Finnish Transparency Register work?
Actors subject to the disclosure obligation report their lobbying and lobbying consultancy activities to the Finnish Transparency Register.
The Transparency Register’s online service consists of two parts: a public website open for anyone and a service portal where the actors subject to the disclosure obligation can submit their disclosures. On the public website, you can browse the registrations and disclosures of activities submitted to the Register as well as find background information, instructions and news.
Logging in, registration and disclosures of activities
Logging in to the Finnish Transparency Register requires strong authentication with Suomi.fi e-Identification. A person who discloses lobbying or lobbying consultancy activities on behalf of an organisation must have the right to provide information for the organisation. To this end, the person must be granted an authorisation under e-Authorisations in the Suomi.fi service. You can find more detailed instructions on authorisations here.
To log in to the Finnish Transparency Register, go to avoimuusrekisteri.fi. At first login, you must register the organisation as a user of the Finnish Transparency Register.
A disclosures of activities must be submitted twice a year. Changes to and discontinuation of lobbying activities must also be notified to the Transparency Register.
Registration
The registration contains the organisation's basic information, including its business ID, company name, main line of business and 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.
Here you can find instructions for submitting a registration.
Disclosure of activities
A disclosure of activities is submitted twice a year: lobbying activities carried out between January and June are disclosed in July–August and activities carried out between July and December in January–February.
The disclosure of activities should state the subjects of communication, the lobbying targets and the methods of communication. In the case of lobbying consultancy, the disclosure of activities should also indicate the client on whose behalf the work is performed. The Finnish Transparency Register is based on subjects. This means that information on lobbying is disclosed by subject in such a manner that the lobbying targets and the main methods of communication are disclosed for each subject.
From 2026 onwards, actors subject to the disclosure obligation should also disclose financial information on their lobbying activities during the previous year in their disclosures of activities. The financial information includes the total number of persons who participated in lobbying activities and the person-years used for lobbying, the costs of outsourced lobbying consultancy and the marketing and representation costs related to lobbying. In the case of lobbying consultancy, the turnover of the lobbying consultancy activities should be disclosed.
The financial information is disclosed annually in the disclosure of activities submitted in July–August.
Figure 1. Annual clock for the disclosures of activities to be submitted to the Finnish Transparency Register starting from 2025. Financial information will be disclosed for the first time in 2026.