Buying a Home in Finland 2026 — Transfer Tax, Deadlines, Registration Fee and the Exemption on Selling

1. Two different forms of ownership

"Buying a home" in Finland is not one single transaction. If you buy a detached house together with its plot, you are buying real property and you have the title registered in your name. If you buy a flat, what you actually buy is not the flat itself but shares in a housing company that give you the right to occupy it.

The distinction is not a formality: the transfer tax rate, the filing deadline, the registration obligation and the fees payable all follow from it. The same distinction applies to other shares such as a parking space, a storage room or business premises, which are taxed as shares too. Establish which category you are in before signing, because the deadlines start running from the day of signature.

2. Transfer tax rates

3. Filing and payment deadlines

For real property the return goes to the Tax Administration and the tax is paid before you apply for registration of title. You must apply to the National Land Survey for registration of the title or the leasehold right within six months of signing the deed of sale or other agreement. If you bought only a building or structure without the land and no registration is needed, the return is filed and the tax paid within six months of signing. Filing the return is the buyer's responsibility even when the sale was conducted through a real estate agent.

For housing company shares the return is filed and the tax paid within two months of signing. If you bought the shares through an agent you pay the tax on the day you sign the agreement, and the agent files the return on your behalf at signing. If the sale concerns a newly-constructed building, the return is filed and the tax paid within two months from the date the right of ownership is transferred to you — and that applies even where the sale went through an agent.

4. Registration of title and its fees

5. Home loan interest is no longer deductible

The rule changed on 1 January 2023: interest on loans taken to buy a permanent dwelling, and on home repair loans, is no longer deductible. The interest expenses still appear on your pre-completed tax return, but for information only; they give no deduction. This is where buyers who budget on the old rules most often go wrong.

There is one exception: interest on a loan taken in order to gain or produce income remains deductible. The typical case is a flat bought to be rented out. Such interest is deducted primarily from your capital income — dividends or rental income, for example. If you have no such income, a credit amounting to 30 per cent of the interest expenses is set against your earned-income taxes.

6. When you sell: the two-year rule

When you sell your own permanent home, the gain is exempt from tax if two conditions are met together: you owned the house or flat for at least two years, and during your period of ownership it was your or your family's permanent home for at least two consecutive years.

The site on which the building stands can also be sold tax-free, provided its area is no more than 10,000 square metres or, in a planned area, it is not larger than a plot or construction site according to the plan. Even though the exemption applies almost always, the sale must still be reported: the Tax Administration checks that the terms are met and, where the exemption holds, sends a prepayment decision showing the amount of tax as zero.

7. Common mistakes

8. Purchase checklist