7L Rental income, farmlands, woodlands, other rental property – Instructions

Use this form for declaring your income from rental contracts for agricultural lands (such as a field on a farm), forest or woods (such as land rented to a wind power plant company), other property (such as a motor vehicle, car, boat that you rent out).

If you are a shareholder of a partnership, formed for tax purposes, which owns the farmlands or woodlands, any rental income that the partnership may have received should be declared on Form 7Y instead.

If you rented out several categories of property – an agricultural field, a forest and other property, as well – complete a separate Form 7L to show each category.

If you own several fields and you rented them out, complete just one Form 7L to declare your combined rental income for all the fields (report the related tax-deductible expenses, as well). In the same way, if you own several forest areas for rent, complete just one Form 7L to declare your combined rental income for all your forests (and the tax-deductible expenses).

And if you rented out more than one kinds of movable property, such as your car and additionally, you rented out your boat, etc., you would need to complete one Form 7L for the car-rental income and another Form 7L for renting out the boat.

Report the rental income even if no taxable income is left after all the related expenses have been deducted. If you are a co-owner of the rented property, sharing ownership with your spouse, for example, both of you need to complete your separate forms and report your own portions of the rental income and the related expenses.

You can provide the information either in MyTax or on the form available on the Forms page. The return address is on the first page of the form.

When do I need to report rental income?

Report the received rental income to the Tax Administration when you start renting out the property. The Tax Administration will take the rental income into account in your tax rate or use it to determine tax prepayments. Report the rental income via MyTax in connection with applying for tax prepayment or for change in withholding tax percentage. If you use this form, also fill in Form 5010e (Application for prepayment and/or for change in withholding tax percentage).

After you have provided information on your income when filling out the Application for prepayment and/or for change in withholding tax percentage, the Tax Administration’s computer system will transfer it to your pre-completed tax return. If after receiving the pre-completed return you notice that rental income and related tax-deductible expenses are not as they should be, make the corrections that are needed either in MyTax or on this form, no later than on the deadline for sending back the pre-completed tax return.

Also use this form when you submit a claim for adjustment after the assessment has finished. Fill in the claim for adjustment of income tax (Form 3308e) and attach this form to your claim. The claim can also be submitted via MyTax.

To report rental income for the purpose of applying for tax prepayment or for change in withholding tax percentage, report the details and amounts of rental income for all the property rented out. If you need to make corrections to any information submitted previously on the pre-completed tax return or if you need to claim adjustment, report all the information about the property and rental income that the correction or claim concerns.

The Tax Administration receives information on income you gain on digital platforms, both from Finland and from abroad. The Tax Administration also supervises the reporting of these details for tax assessment. Remember to always report this type of income on your pre-completed tax return.

Other rental income ‒ Select the correct form

Declare the income you received from renting out real estate other than agricultural, forest, woodlands by completing Form 7K (Rental income ‒ Real estate) instead. In the same way, declare the income you received from tenants in an apartment in a Finnish housing company on Form 7H (Rental income ‒ rental apartments).

Forms 7H, 7K and 7L can only be used to report rental income earned from property located in Finland. If your buy-to-let property is located abroad, report the related rental income on Form 16B (Statement on foreign income (capital income).

If you are a co-owner of agricultural/forest land held in a tax partnership, report the related rental income on Form 2Y.

Although Form 7L is now in use for agricultural and forest land rentals, when any farm buildings, structures, plot sites suitable for construction, and farm/forest machinery are rented out, you will still have to use the income tax return for agriculture for reporting the rental income.

Read more about the taxation of rental income

Read more about the taxation of sporadic rental operation

1 Taxpayer identification and the tax year

Enter your name and personal identity code.

Report also the tax year, i.e. the year during which the reported rental income was paid to you and you received it.

2 Details of property rented out

This section is for detailed information concerning the property:

• Specify the type of other property you have rented out (e.g. a recreational vehicle, a boat).
• Report to whom you have rented the property: the name and personal identity code or Business ID of the leaseholder.
• Enter the period for which the property has been rented out.

Were there several leaseholders or rental periods during the year?

If you rented out the property to more than one leaseholder during the year, leave the field “Personal ID or Business ID of leaseholder” empty. Instead of giving the leaseholder’s name, write “several”.

If you did not rent out the property for one continuous period but for several periods during the year, the rental period is the whole year. Enter the period in the form 1.1.20xx–31.12.20xx.

2.1 Your portion of gross rental income per year: Report the gross amount of rental income you received without deducting any expenses from it. Only report the part of the income belonging to you. This means that if you are a co-owner of the property, sharing ownership with your spouse, for example, report only your portion of the rental income.

3 Expenses paid during the tax year, and the profit or loss resulting from your rental operation (your personal portions only)

3.1 Report the expenses attributable to the property rented out. Only report expenses incurred during the period in which the property has been rented out.

If you have taken out a loan to purchase the property, do not report the interest on the loan on this form; interests are deducted separately from all capital income. The loan is an income generation loan, which can be reported via MyTax. You can also report the information using Form 50B (Capital income and deductions) when you submit your pre-completed tax return or on Form 5010e for the Application for prepayment and/or for changes to withholding tax percentage.

3.2 First, fill in section 4 “Calculation of depreciation”. Then, transfer the amount entered in field 4.4 “Depreciation for the tax year” to this field.

3.3 and 3.4: Calculate and report the amount of taxable rental income, i.e. the difference between rental income and the related expenses. If the difference is positive, enter the amount of profit in field 3.3. If the expenses are higher than the income, i.e. the difference is negative, enter the amount of loss in field 3.4.

4 Calculation of depreciation

Depreciation is the means for deducting and reallocating the costs and the price you had to pay when you bought the movable property (or any other property). Read more about depreciation for different types of property.

Read more about the effect of short-term renting on deducting acquisition costs (in Finnish and Swedish only).

At the beginning of this section, enter the depreciation rate used. The maximum depreciation rate for movable property is 25%.

If you are a co-owner of the property, sharing ownership with your spouse, for example, remember to only report your portion of the acquisition price and the other information in the calculation of depreciation that is equivalent to your share of ownership.

You can claim yearly deductions in the form of straight-line depreciation for an acquisition cost – or major renovation cost – of agricultural drain pipes of a field that you a renting out. The straight-line calculation concerns the field’s economic life, the start date of which is deemed to be the date when the drainpipe system was first placed into service.

Example: Completed and placed into service in 2020, an agricultural drainpipe system will have 20 years of economic life. In the previous tax years 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024, the field’s owner claimed depreciation based on each year’s residual remaining acquisition cost. Now, the system’s undepreciated residual value stands at €15,000. This amount must be periodized, taking account of the 15 future years of economic life, and the owner will be able to deduct it in the form of straight-line depreciation every year.  When filling in line 4.4 of Form 7L, enter €1,000 as the tax year’s depreciation, and correspondingly, enter €14,000 as the end-of-year undepreciated acquisition cost value in 4.5.

4.1 Undepreciated acquisition cost at the start of the tax year: Report the undepreciated acquisition cost at the start of the tax year. Undepreciated acquisition cost means the remaining acquisition price after the previous years’ depreciation charges have been deducted from the original acquisition price.

4.2 Additions during the tax year: Report any additions to the property's acquisition price.

4.3 Undepreciated acquisition cost after additions: Add together the amounts entered in fields 4.1 and 4.2, i.e. report the undepreciated acquisition cost after additions. If no additions were made during the tax year, the same amount that was entered in field 4.1 is entered here.

4.4 Depreciation for the tax year: Calculate the amount of depreciation, i.e. the portion of the undepreciated acquisition cost based on the depreciation rate used. Transfer the calculated amount of depreciation to field 3.2.

4.5 Undepreciated acquisition cost at the end of the tax year: Subtract the “Depreciation for the tax year” from the amount entered in field 4.3 and enter the difference in this field.

Date and sign the form. Also give your daytime telephone number.