Accounts in Finland

Investment account

Nothing is due while an accumulating fund grows. When you sell, profit is taxed at a flat rate, and after ten years you can use a fixed assumed cost instead of the real one.

Shares, funds and bonds you hold at a bank or broker outside any of the accounts below. Dividends from listed shares and the profit when you sell are capital income, taxed at 30% and 34% above 30,000 a year.

When you sell, the law lets you subtract a presumed cost instead of what you really paid, if it is larger: 40% of the sale price for holdings kept ten years or more, 20% for newer ones. The plan cannot see when each unit was bought, so it uses the ten-year figure for every sale. That means at most 60% of any sale is ever taxed as profit.

How it is taxed, rate by rate, is on the tax page.

In the withdrawal orders

With the ordinary accounts

Pays out

Whenever you like

At the first death

Your partner takes it over, and the gain built up in it is wiped for tax

Equity savings account (osakesäästötili)

Nothing is taxed while the money stays in. Each withdrawal is part deposits, untaxed, and part growth, taxed as capital income.

An equity savings account (osakesäästötili) is a bank account for buying and selling listed shares, one per person. Sales and dividends inside it are not taxed as they happen. It can hold only shares listed in the European Economic Area, not funds or bonds, and the law caps what you can pay into it at 100,000 euros.

Every withdrawal is split in the same proportion as the whole account: the part that matches what you paid in comes back untaxed, and the rest is growth, taxed as capital income. Unlike the ordinary account, no presumed cost applies, so all of the growth is taxed. The plan does exactly this, using the deposits you enter, and lets money out at any age.

If you die first, the account ends without any income tax on its growth, and your partner holds what was in it at its value that day, as their new cost.

In the withdrawal orders

With the ordinary accounts

Pays out

Whenever you like

At the first death

It ends, and its value is paid into your partner's ordinary account, with no tax on its gain

Savings life insurance or capitalisation contract

Switching funds inside is not taxed. What you take out is part premiums, untaxed, and part growth, taxed as capital income.

Savings life insurance (säästöhenkivakuutus) is a policy you hold with an insurer, mostly invested in funds you choose from the insurer's list. It is one of the larger pots of private savings in Finland. Switching between funds inside the policy is not a sale, so nothing is taxed until you take money out.

Each withdrawal, whether a part surrender or the whole policy, is split in proportion: the share that matches the premiums you paid comes back untaxed, and the growth share is capital income, with no presumed cost. The plan follows that rule with the premiums you enter, and grows the policy at your portfolio's return.

A capitalisation contract (kapitalisaatiosopimus) goes in this row too. It works the same way but insures no one's life, and it can be sold or passed on. If you bought the contract from someone else, what you paid for it counts as premiums.

If the insured dies first, the payment to a close relative such as a partner is free of income tax; inheritance tax applies instead, which the plan does not model. The plan pays it into your partner's ordinary account at its value. A capitalisation contract carries on in law, with the heir's cost reset to that value; the plan pays it out the same way, so the death is priced the same, and later growth is taxed as ordinary investment income.

In the withdrawal orders

With the ordinary accounts

Pays out

Whenever you like

At the first death

It ends, and its value is paid into your partner's ordinary account, with no tax on its gain

Voluntary pension insurance

Everything paid out is capital income. It pays from an age set by when you took it out, at most a set amount a year. Taken earlier or faster, the taxed amount is raised by half. One taken before May 2004 goes with your pensions instead.

A voluntary pension insurance (vapaaehtoinen yksilöllinen eläkevakuutus) is a private pension policy you took out yourself. Most were sold before 2010, and many people now near retirement hold one. Its premiums could be deducted from your income when you paid them, which is why the whole payout is taxed later. This row is for policies taken out on or after 6 May 2004.

When the contract was made decides how it pays. A contract from 6 May 2004 to 17 September 2009 pays from 62 in the plan, with no yearly limit. A later one pays from 63 to 68 depending on your year of birth (2009 to 2012), or 68 to 70 (from 2013), and each year at most the balance divided by the payout years left, though 2,000 euros a year may always come out. The plan starts payments when you retire or at that age, whichever comes later, and takes what it needs up to the limit.

Money taken before that age, or above the year's limit, is raised by half before it is taxed: 1,000 taken early is taxed as 1,500 of capital income. The plan uses this route only if you allow it, and only once everything else is spent.

Premiums paid from 2027 are no longer deductible, so the law gives them back untaxed. Enter them under paid in from 2027 and the plan does the same, in proportion to the balance.

In the withdrawal orders

With the accounts taxed on the way out

Before the earliest age

Before the age the law sets for it, only by cashing it in at a 50% charge, and only if you allow it

Pays out

Up to a legal maximum every year

At the first death

Your partner takes it over as it stands

Long-term savings account (PS)

Everything paid out is capital income, from the same age and on the same yearly limit as a voluntary pension. Taken earlier or faster, the taxed amount is raised by half.

A long-term savings account (pitkäaikaissäästämissopimus, or PS) is a savings contract with a bank, fund company or insurer, built on the same rules as a voluntary pension. It has existed since 2010 and is much less common.

Everything paid out is capital income. It pays from the same age as a voluntary pension taken out at the same time, by your year of birth, and each year at most the balance divided by the payout years left, or 2,000 euros. Taking more, or taking it earlier, raises the taxed amount by half, and the plan does that only if you allow it. Deposits from 2027 come back untaxed, as with a voluntary pension.

In the withdrawal orders

With the accounts taxed on the way out

Before the earliest age

Before the age the law sets for it, only by cashing it in at a 50% charge, and only if you allow it

Pays out

Up to a legal maximum every year

At the first death

Your partner takes it over as it stands

Supplementary pension from your employer (lisäeläke)

Taxed in full as pension income.

A pension from a group pension insurance, a pension foundation or a policy your employer took out in its own name. It is earned pension income like your työeläke, so the pension income deduction and the extra tax on large pensions apply to the two together. A policy in your own name that your employer paid into is a voluntary pension insurance instead: enter it in the money step.

Voluntary pension insurance, premiums deducted (vapaaehtoinen eläkevakuutus)

Taxed in full as pension income, paid for a set number of years.

A voluntary pension insurance whose premiums you deducted from your income, paid to you as an income for a set number of years, is taxed in full as earned pension income. If you never deducted the premiums, only the growth is taxed: see the list below for where that one goes.