Check Finland VAT numbers
Validate Finnish VAT numbers (ALV) against the EU VIES registry. Finnish numbers are FI followed by 8 digits, derived from the Y-tunnus business identity code. The VAT number is the Y-tunnus without its dash separator. Every response includes the company name, registered address, and validity at query time.
Try it
curl -X POST "https://api.vatverify.dev/v1/validate" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $VATVERIFY_KEY" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"vat_number":"FI01120389"}'Facts
Format
- Prefix
- FI
- Digits
- 8
- Regex
- ^FI\d{8}$
FI01120389FI01120380FI0112038VAT rates (EUR)
food and beverages, animal feed, restaurant and catering services
books, medicines, passenger transport, hotel accommodation, cultural and sports events
What we return for Finland
{
"data": {
"valid": true, // boolean validity at query time
"vat_number": "DE129273398",
"country": {
"code": "DE",
"name": "Germany",
"vat": { "standard_rate": 19 }
},
"company": {
"name": "SIEMENS AG", // legal entity name
"address": "..." // when VIES provides it
},
"verified_at": "2026-04-25T10:00:00Z"
},
"meta": {
"request_id": "019dc...", // for audit trail correlation
"source": "vies",
"source_status": "live", // live | cached | degraded
"cached": false,
"latency_ms": 234
}
}
Test against production VATs
Real numbers from publicly-documented corporate filings. Click to see the live result.
Watch out for
- Finnish ALV number is derived from the Y-tunnus by removing the dash: Y-tunnus 0112038-9 becomes FI01120389. Including the dash produces a format error.
- Finland raised its standard VAT rate from 24% to 25.5% in September 2024. Check invoice dates when reconciling old and new rate invoices.
- Not every Finnish company is VAT-registered: businesses below 15,000 EUR annual turnover can opt out. Y-tunnus alone does not confirm VAT status.
Y-tunnus is the business identifier; ALV-numero is the EU form
Finnish VAT numbers are 8 digits prefixed with FI. The underlying
identifier is the Y-tunnus (Business ID), issued by the Finnish
Patent and Registration Office (Patentti- ja Rekisterihallitus, PRH)
in cooperation with the Tax Administration (Verohallinto).
The Y-tunnus is shown domestically as 7 digits, a hyphen, and a check
digit (for example 1234567-8). For EU-facing use, the hyphen is
removed and FI is prefixed, producing the 10-character form
FI12345678 that VIES accepts.
The EU-facing form is sometimes called the ALV-numero (ALV stands for Arvonlisävero, Finnish for VAT).
vatverify validates FI\d{8} and accepts the hyphenated domestic
form as input by stripping the separator before the registry call.
Standard rate increased in 2024
Finland raised its standard VAT rate from 24% to 25.5% effective September 1, 2024. The reduced rates remained at 14% and 10% at the time of the change. Invoices straddling the transition date need date-aware rate logic.
The 14% reduced rate covers food and restaurant services. The 10% reduced rate covers books, public transport, accommodation, cultural admissions, and a defined set of additional supplies.
Hardcoded rate constants from before September 2024 will produce incorrect amounts if reused after the cut-off. Date-aware lookups against current Verohallinto publications are the safer default.
Y-tunnus is shared across registers
The Y-tunnus is a single identifier serving both PRH (the corporate registry) and Verohallinto (tax administration). A Finnish business has one Y-tunnus, used for company registration, VAT, and general tax purposes.
Whether the entity is VAT-registered is a flag on the Verohallinto
record. A Y-tunnus that resolves in PRH may not be VAT-registered if
the entity operates only in VAT-exempt sectors or has not yet
crossed the registration threshold. VIES will return valid: false
in that case while the Y-tunnus is still a valid PRH record.
vatverify validates against VIES.
Cross-border with Sweden, Estonia, Russia
Finland borders Sweden (EU) and shares a long border with Russia (third country). It also has dense trading relationships with Estonia (EU) across the Gulf of Finland.
Standard EU intra-Community reverse-charge applies to B2B supplies between Finland and other-EU VAT-registered businesses. Russian counterparties fall under third-country export rules; sanctions regimes also affect what is permitted.
Reverse-charge for construction
Finland applies domestic reverse-charge to construction services between two Finnish VAT-registered businesses, similar to the rules applied in Sweden, Austria, and Belgium. The supplier issues an invoice without VAT and the recipient self-accounts. The rule covers a defined list of construction-related supplies under guidance from Verohallinto.
If you are validating Finnish Y-tunnus values inside a construction-sector invoicing flow, the domestic reverse-charge is the default treatment for in-scope work.
Caching against the Verohallinto cycle
Verohallinto pushes registration changes to VIES on a regular batch. Newly VAT-registered Finnish Y-tunnus values are generally visible in VIES within 24 to 48 hours. vatverify's default TTLs (30 days for valid, 24 hours for invalid) line up with this cadence.
Automate Finland VAT checks in your stack
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