Advance notice – Private individual ordering or sending alcohol or tobacco to themselves from abroad (EU)
If you purchase products subject to excise duty, such as alcohol or tobacco, from another EU country for your personal use and request another private individual or an entrepreneur to transport them to Finland on your behalf, you must pay excise duty on the products to Finland.
You must also submit an advance notice on the products to the Finnish Tax Administration and deposit a guarantee for the excise duty payments.
What is an advance notice?
In an advance notice you report the estimated date of receipt, the product volume and the product group to the Tax Administration. As you file, you receive information about the amount of the guarantee and the excise duty to be paid (e.g. excise duty on tobacco or alcohol). The amount of the guarantee is equal to the amount of the excise duty. Your excise duty return will be prepopulated with the information you give in the advance notice. The guarantee will be later used for the excise taxes.
What products require an advance notice?
An advance notice is required for products such as
- alcohol and alcoholic beverages
- tobacco products, which also include cigarette paper and cigarette liquids
- soft drinks
- beverage containers.
A guarantee must be deposited for alcohol and tobacco products. No guarantee is required for soft drinks, beverage containers, cigarette paper and cigarette liquids.
When do I have to file the advance notice and deposit the guarantee?
The advance notice must be submitted before the products are dispatched or before their transport begins. You can file the advance notice before or after you submit your order.
You must pay the guarantee before the products are dispatched or their transport begins.
How do I file the advance notice and deposit the guarantee?
File the advance notice in MyTax and calculate the guarantee amount there. You can also pay the guarantee in MyTax, or you can pay it separately via your bank.
Fill in relevant information about the products ordered or dispatched on the advance notice. MyTax will calculate the guarantee amount based on the information you submit.
How to file an advance notice in MyTax - Private individual
Alternatively, you can file the notice on paper.
Link to paper forms related to excise taxation
If you forget to file an advance notice
If you fail to file an advance notice, you may have to pay a negligence penalty later.
Please note that if you are liable to pay excise duty on alcohol or soft drinks, you may additionally have to pay excise duty on beverage containers. You must file an advance notice on the beverage containers as well. In other words, you must file two separate advance notices. However, you do not have to set a guarantee for the beverage containers. Read more: Ordering alcohol from abroad
Distance buying means that a private individual buys products that are released for consumption in another EU country for their personal use and makes arrangements for transporting the products to Finland without that the seller participates in the transport arrangements in any way. The excise duties are payable by the distance buyer.
Example: A Finnish private individual buys beer in a Swedish web shop. The individual then asks an independent transport company, separate from the seller, to transport the beer to Finland. The buyer, i.e. the Finnish private individual, must file advance notices for alcohol and for beverage containers and pay a guarantee for excise duty on alcohol before the transport from Sweden to Finland begins.
If a seller located in another EU country sends the products or arranges their transport to a private idividual in Finland, it is considered distance selling. Distance selling also includes situations where the seller directs the buyer to use certain transport companies during the ordering process on their website or otherwise takes part in the transport arrangements.
Example: An Estonian distance seller receives a long-drink and cola order from a private individual. An advance notice must be filed on alcoholic beverages and a one-off guarantee must be paid. An advance notice must be filed on soft drinks and beverage containers. The distance seller has to file the advance notices and pay the guarantee before dispatching the products from Estonia to Finland.
Starting 1 September 2024: In the case of distance selling, if the distance seller has not filed an advance notice on the products ordered by the buyer and the seller has not paid a guarantee corresponding to the amount of excise duties (on alcohol and tobacco), the buyer is liable for the duties together with the seller. However, the buyer does not need to file any excise duty returns. The Tax Administration will send both the buyer and the seller tax decisions with identical contents. Both parties must pay the excise duties according to this tax decision.
Read more: Distance selling of products subject to excise duty to Finland (available in Finnish and Swedish, link to Finnish)