Small producer of soft drinks — get a registration

If you are an independent small producer of soft drink products and containers for beverages, there is no need for you to pay the duties on soft drinks nor beverage containers. By extension, if you are a company that imports soft drinks, there is no need for you to pay the duty if the source of your imports is a company having the status of a small producer in the country where it is located. 

However, the following action must be taken by all independent small producers:   

• Go to MyTax to submit an application for registration as a small producer (as a recipient of de minimis aid).    
• Submit data to the Tax Administration on your company’s annual volumes of product output.
• Submit data to the Tax Administration on all the de minimis aid, from all providers of public financial support, that you receive during the year.

How do I apply for registration and report the data? 

Apply for small-producer registration and declare your volume of soft drinks produced for the calendar year in MyTax with a Notice on change of register information. 

During future years, when you send your annual verification and updates, the MyTax form to fill in will continue to be the “Notice on change of register information”. If there have been any changes in your details, you should make corrections as needed. If the details (your company’s volumes of beverage production) are unchanged, you should submit the same data as last year.

The MyTax form you should use would also be the “Notice on change of register information” if your small-producer status ever ceases, and you inform the Tax Administration of this (you are no longer a recipient of de minimis aid).

The due date for submittal of the Notice on change of register information is every year during January and February — no later than end of February. For example, the due date for giving the details for 2027 is 28 February 2027. See the exception for the year 2026:

To find the Notice on change of register information in MyTax, select Registrations and authorisations > Excise duty registration.

Go to MyTax

What kind of companies are independent small producers? 

Companies are treated as being a small producer for purposes of excise duties, if:  

• Annual volume of drinks is 70,000 litres or less  
• The company is legally and financially independent of other manufacturers or producers in the business sector of soft drinks and beverages 

In the case of a chain of producers, the annual volume of soft drinks is measured as a total of all participant companies’ output that share the same Business ID. The chain’s volume should not exceed 70,000 litres in total. Whether a company will be deemed a small producer – and avoid having to pay the excise duty on soft drinks – depends on the total volume of drinks produced every year. 

References to “volume” above should be taken to mean “volume of the finished product (soft drinks)”. Where various ingredients and other products are utilised in your company’s production processes, the size of the excise duty is assessed by reference to the volume, in litres, of the finished drink products yielded by the ingredients/other products, per calendar year. If the production output exceeds the threshold of 70,000 litres, the company becomes liable to pay the duty for the entire annual volume. 

If requested, provide detailed information on your business 

The Tax Administration may send a request to an independent small producer for a written account, containing updated information on the producer’s independence from others and on production per calendar year. 

The small-producer exemption is granted not only to Finnish producers but also to foreign independent small producers. If the Tax Administration has sent out a request for information, the Finnish importer of the soft drinks bears responsibility for giving a response, i.e. the written account described above.  

Why must independent small producers provide reports concerning received financial support? 

Under EU law, it is deemed a financial support received from the state when a small producer can benefit from a duty exemption. However, because of its characteristics, the exemption is considered a state aid consisting of small amounts as referred to in Council Regulation (EU) concerning ‘de minimis aid’. Maximum amount of public financial support is €300,000 in total, from all the relevant providers of aid, over a period of 3 consecutive tax years.  

This means that you are required to send reports to the Tax Administration detailing all the aid and financial support you receive from different public authorities, during the ongoing tax year, the year before, and the year before that.  You should send the above reports once a year, together with your annual verification of registered data. 

In turn, the Tax Administration will issue written annual statements indicating the total amount of support provided by the Tax Administration during the year concerned. 

Read more about the de minimis aid (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment)

Further information

• Excise duty treatment of differences in inventories (available in Finnish and Swedish, link to Finnish)
• Excise duty on soft drinks
• Information on extended producer liability (ymparisto.fi)