Finland · FI
The Finnish VAT number
The VAT number is the Business ID with the hyphen removed. The simplest transformation in the Union — and the entire register downloads as a single file.
Format: FI + 8 digits (the Business ID without its hyphen)
Example: FI04805519 — Business ID 0480551-9
Issued by: the Patent and Registration Office (PRH) and the Tax Administration jointly.
The format
A Finnish VAT number is always ten characters: the country code and eight digits.
- FIThe country code.
- 0480551Seven digits of the Business ID.
- 9The check digit.
The check digit is computed modulus 11 with weights 7, 9, 10, 5, 8, 4, 2. A remainder of 1 means no such identifier exists. Domestically the Business ID is written with a hyphen before the check digit — 0480551-9 — and the hyphen is dropped in the VAT number.
Business ID and VAT number
The Business ID (Y-tunnus) is issued to every company and organisation when it enters the business information system. It never changes.
The VAT number is that same identifier with an FI prefix, but it exists only if the business is entered in the VAT register. The distinction matters: everyone has a Business ID, not everyone is VAT liable.
A company may also be in the prepayment register and the employer register, independently of one another. Neither affects the VAT number.
Finding the company
PRH open data
The Patent and Registration Office publishes the trade register as open data with no registration required. Single companies can be fetched from the API, but the endpoint that matters is /all_companies: it returns the entire register as one zipped JSON file — hundreds of thousands of companies in a few tens of seconds. Paginating the same work would take thousands of requests and hours.
One caveat: the trade register is not the VAT register. Not every company in the file is VAT liable, and ceased companies stay in it with a status flag.
YTJ
ytj.fi is the human-facing interface to the same data: name, industry, address and register entries, VAT liability included.
VIES
Finland discloses name and address through VIES. The address sometimes carries a c/o run together with the next word without a space, which is worth allowing for when parsing.
Finland-specific pitfalls
- Drop the hyphen.
FI0480551-9is not valid; a VAT number is digits only. - A Business ID does not imply VAT liability. The trade register and the VAT register are different registers.
- Ceased companies remain in the open data, so the status has to be checked separately.
- Do not paginate the API. The whole register is available in one request; paginating takes hours.
- Addresses can contain a c/o glued to the following word.
One API for 27 member states
Vatlas turns a European VAT number into a company record: legal name, national identifier, legal form, status and address. For Finland the answer comes from the PRH register imported locally, and falls through to the live API for companies that have ceased trading.
curl "https://api.vatlas.dev/v1/vat/FI04805519" \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $VATLAS_KEY"Response:
200 OK
{
"data": {
"vatNumber": "FI04805519",
"countryCode": "FI",
"nationalNumber": "04805519",
"nationalId": "0480551-9",
"name": "Conimex Oy",
"legalForm": null,
"status": "active",
"address": {
"line1": "Kruunuvuorenkatu 9 C 35",
"line2": null,
"postalCode": "00160",
"city": "HELSINKI",
"country": "FI"
}
},
"meta": {
"origin": "database",
"source": "PRH",
"sourceUpdatedAt": "2026-08-28T02:14:07.000Z",
"checked": ["database"]
}
}meta.origin says where the answer came from: database for a register imported locally, source for a national API queried live, vies as a last resort. The shape of the response never changes from one country to the next.
Free to try. An email address creates an account — no credit card, no sales call — with 100 requests a month and a working key in about a minute.
Frequently asked
The Finnish VAT number in short
How many digits does a Finnish VAT number have?
Eight after the FI country code — ten characters in total.
Are the Business ID and the VAT number the same?
The digits are. The VAT number is the Business ID with the hyphen removed and FI in front, but it exists only for businesses in the VAT register.
Why does VIES reject an existing Business ID?
Because the company is not in the VAT register. Everyone has a Business ID; VAT liability is separate.
Can I download the whole Finnish trade register for free?
Yes. PRH publishes it as open data with no registration, and the entire register comes as one compressed file.
Do ceased companies appear in the register?
Yes, with a status flag. Presence in the register alone does not mean the company is trading.
VAT numbers in other countries
Last updated 28 August 2026.