Customs clearance

Customs clearance of an incoming shipment

We will notify you when you are about to receive a shipment requiring customs clearance.
In practice, customs clearance means declaring the contents of the shipment and, if necessary, paying the required taxes and other duties.
Make sure that you have the required documents and information: - A receipt, an order confirmation or some other document indicating the value and the potential sending costs of the cleared goods - The nature of the cleared goods - The country of origin and sender of the goods
Clear the shipment at Tulli.fi.
If necessary, pay Posti’s handling fee of EUR 3.10. You only need to pay the fee if you paid tax on it.
Once the shipment is cleared, Finnish Customs will release it to Posti for delivery. Your parcel is now on its way to you!

You can track the shipment in Posti’s services:

Note: If the sender has not included your phone number in the shipment details, the shipment will not appear in OmaPosti automatically. In that case, you need to add the shipment to OmaPosti yourself. See instructions.

If you don’t know the contents of the shipment

Once the shipment has arrived in the country and can be cleared through customs, the information provided by the sender regarding its contents will be visible in Posti's services alongside the other shipment details. You can view this information:

via the "Start customs clearance" button in OmaPosti
via the "Start customs clearance" link in the notification you received by email or SMS.

If the sender has not included your phone number or email address with the shipment, you will receive the information about the shipment requiring customs clearance as a paper letter.

If the shipment details do not contain sufficient information about the contents, you should try contacting the sender to find out.

Sending goods abroad?

Why and when do I have to pay a handling fee?

Clear the shipment first and pay Posti’s handling fee (EUR 3.10) only after that. You only need to pay the handling fee if you have to pay taxes on your shipment in connection with customs clearance. If you do not need to pay taxes in connection with customs clearance, you do not need to pay Posti's handling fee either.

Posti’s handling fee covers the costs arising from the warehousing and processing of shipments by Posti. It is based on the agreements of the Universal Postal Union.

How to pay Posti’s handling fee

You can pay Posti's handling fee on this page. Enter the shipment ID (also known as “item ID”) in the field. Payment methods: bank and credit cards, as well as online banking.

How to pay:

Enter the shipment ID in the field and click the “Find an item” button.
Click the “Pay” button, which appears if your shipment is pending the handling fee payment.
Select the payment method, complete and approve the payment.
Save or print the receipt.

Note: Make sure you enter the shipment ID (item ID) correctly. An incorrectly entered shipment ID may result in you accidentally paying the handling fee for someone else's shipment. This cannot be reversed afterwards.

You can also pay the handling fee at a Posti outlet when picking up the shipment. In this case, the handling fee is EUR 3.30.

Did you pay the handling fee when you didn’t need to?

If you paid a handling fee for a shipment when you didn’t need to, you can claim a refund. In this case, fill in the “Request a handling fee refund” form. Please also attach the customs clearance decision you got from Finnish Customs.

Open the “Request a handling fee refund” form.

Publications, gifts and documents must also be cleared

All goods arriving from outside the EU should be cleared, including products purchased online, publications you have subscribed to, gifts that have been sent to you as well as documents for which a value has been provided.

The notice of arrival tells you when you have an incoming shipment that requires customs clearance.

We will declare some online purchases for you

Posti will declare purchases under EUR 150 on your behalf if you have already paid the VAT in the online store (so-called IOSS purchases) and the sender has included everything required for customs clearance. The online store will provide us with the necessary customs clearance information, and we will forward it to Customs. In these cases, the parcel’s journey does not pause for customs clearance. Instead, the parcel automatically continues its journey to you. Read more about IOSS purchases on the website of Finnish Customs.

What if Posti cannot declare the purchase?

If the online store has not provided everything required for customs clearance, you must clear the shipment yourself using Finnish Customs' service. Once the parcel has arrived in Finland, you will receive a notification from us that you have received a shipment requiring customs clearance.

Prices for Custom clearance services

The following is charged for shipments subject to customs clearance arriving from, or leaving to a destination outside the EU internal market area.

Service

Import Customs clearance

Price (Incl. VAT)

EUR 26.85

Service

Opening the shipment

Price (Incl. VAT)

EUR 14.16

Service

Export Customs clearance (Incl. 2 HS tariff numbers)

Price (Incl. VAT)

EUR 40.86

Service

The charge of each additional HS tariff number

Price (Incl. VAT)

EUR 4.80

Freaquently asked questions

If you know that a parcel is on its way to you but it doesn’t appear in OmaPosti, you can add it yourself. In this case, you can add the shipment to OmaPosti. Unfortunately, OmaPosti cannot send notifications about this type of shipment, but you can still track its journey more easily. See our instructions

Unfortunately, no. Customs clearance must be completed within the stated time limit. After the deadline has passed, the shipment is returned to the sender.

It can also happen that the customer completes customs clearance but just misses the deadline. In this case, there is a high risk that the shipment has already been sent back and customs clearance was unnecessary.

Unfortunately, in rare cases, so much information is missing from the shipment details that customs clearance cannot be done, and it is impossible to obtain the missing details. In these situations, neither Posti nor the recipient is permitted to clear the shipment, and it must be returned to the sender.

Posti is responsible for the transport to the payer, in most cases the sender. As the recipient, you are not entitled to compensation. Unfortunately, Posti’s handling fee won’t be refunded either. As any import tax related to customs clearance is paid to Finnish Customs, you can contact Finnish Customs regarding a remedy, if you want. Please note that Finnish Customs will not agree to a remedy unless you can demonstrate that the shipment was sent back to the sender and has left Finland.

You can only pay the handling fee once the notice of arrival has been sent. If we haven’t had time to send the notice of arrival, you can’t progress with the payment.

The issue may also be due to other reasons, such as a technical issue or an interrupted payment transaction, which means that the payment cannot be resent straight away.

If the payment is unsuccessful despite a new attempt, feel free to contact our customer service.

In this case, please contact Finnish Customs’ customer service directly. Go to the Finnish Customs advice page for private customers.

Starting from July 1, there will be a new batch-specific customs duty of EUR 3 for online purchases from outside the EU with a value of up to EUR 150. The change will remove the current lower limit for customs duties, as until now, you have only had to pay customs duties for purchases worth more than EUR 150.

The change will apply to items arriving in Finland from the United Kingdom, China, Switzerland and other countries outside the EU, for example.

Products which are identical, have the same commodity code and come from the same country of origin are considered to be a single batch. One parcel, i.e. item, may contain several batches.

The new customs duty is based on the EU regulation (EU 2026/382) which addresses the significant increase in the number of online purchases ordered from outside the EU and its consequences for the environment and consumers. All EU member states must comply with the regulation.

The instructions related to the new customs duty will be specified further as the deployment progresses.

The party who handles the customs clearance, i.e. either the sending online store or the receiving party, will pay the customs duty. According to the EU guidelines, the sending online store will be primarily responsible for paying the new customs duty.

Posti will declare a so-called IOSS purchase on behalf of the recipient. IOSS purchase refers to an online purchase for which you have already paid the VAT at the time of purchase. If the sending online store provides Posti with the necessary information electronically, the recipient won’t need to take any action when the item arrives in the country. Posti will handle the customs clearance and the recipient will receive a notification once the item is available for pickup.

If the parcel is arriving from an online store without an IOSS identifier, the recipient will declare the item themselves in the online customs clearance service of Customs and pay the EUR 3 customs duty directly to Customs. In this case, the recipient will also pay the VAT on the purchase.