Shipments to and from Åland
Important points to consider
- Responsibility of the Transport Company: The carrier is responsible for submitting the arrival notification for the goods.
- Responsibility of the Importer: The importer must submit the customs declaration (national tax border declaration) to Customs and file the VAT declaration with the Tax Administration.
Exceptions to the Tax Border Declaration:
- If a seller with a tax border number sells to private individuals.
Notification of goods arrival
When your goods are transported by Åland Post, we submit a notification to Customs to confirm that your goods have arrived. This is required for us to release goods coming from mainland Finland or another EU country.
Shipments from third countries must always be cleared through customs before they can be delivered to the recipient. When your shipment reaches Åland Post, you will receive a notification from us via email or letter.
Our notification to Customs and the information in the notification you receive from us are based on the electronic advance information provided by our partners. Therefore, it is important that you verify that the details about the sender/exporter and recipient/importer are correct before customs clearance.
Declaration of Domestic Shipments
Incoming shipments
Once Åland Post has notified Customs of the arrival of your goods, you must declare them in accordance with Customs' instructions for periodic clearance: VAT-registered importers – two-step declaration process (tulli.fi). The declaration must be completed no later than the last day of the month following the month of import.
If you have authorized us to handle your customs clearance, you can upload the documents you want us to use for the clearance in the "Customs Clearance" service in the Customer Portal. Learn more about how to assign Åland Post custom clearance cases and how to become a contractual customer.
Outgoing shipments
All shipments sent by businesses from Åland to a VAT-registered company in mainland Finland must be cleared through Customs' system.
Åland Post submits an arrival notification for your goods to Customs before they leave Åland. We also send an email to the sender/exporter when the goods have departed from Åland.
As an exporter, you can choose to handle customs clearance on behalf of the importer as their representative. If you act as a representative for the importer, it is important to remember that you are responsible for ensuring that the importer receives all customs clearance documents. Read more about goods traffic between Åland and mainland Finland on Customs' website