Is your organisation ready to report on its activities to the Finnish Transparency Register?

Find out whether your organisation must use the Finnish Transparency Register

If your organisation has regular contacts with Parliament or the ministries to influence the preparation or decision-making in a matter, it must probably register with the Finnish Transparency Register.

You can check which lobbying activities should be disclosed to the Register and who should disclose their activities to the Register.

Agree who will use the Transparency Register and reserve sufficient time for applying for authorisations

Before an organisation can register with the Transparency Register, it is necessary to decide who will use the Register on behalf of the organisation. It must also be ensured that these persons have the right, i.e. an authorisation, to represent the organisation.

The way in which authorisations are granted depends on the organisation form and the provision concerning the authority to sign for the organisation. In some cases, the authorisation is applied from the Digital and Population Data Services Agency, in which case it is advisable to reserve at least one week for the processing of the application. Read about how authorisations are granted in the Suomi.fi service.

Register your organisation with the Finnish Transparency Register

Organisations must register with the Finnish Transparency Register by 31 March 2024. Thereafter, each new actor engaged in lobbying must register no later than on the date on which it starts lobbying or lobbying consultancy.

The registration is made in the service portal of the Transparency Register. You can see what information is needed for registration and what the registration form looks like in advance, without logging in to the portal. Read also the detailed guidelines for registration.

Monitor your organisation's lobbying activities as from 1 April

Lobbying activities are disclosed to the Finnish Transparency Register for the first time in July–August. The first time, only the activities carried out from April to June will exceptionally be disclosed. This means that organisations must monitor their lobbying activities starting from 1 April 2024. However, the activities of the preceding six-month period will be reported in the future.

The subjects on which lobbying has been carried out are disclosed to the Transparency Register, but the dates and numbers of contacts are not reported. You should therefore always enter the subject of lobbying as accurately as possible in the disclosure. You can view the disclosure form in advance.

Some meetings with lobbying targets do not have to be reported to the Transparency Register. Such exceptions include, for example, participation in a hearing or an official working group organised by a ministry.

In the case of some lobbying targets, the job title and name are disclosed in addition to the organisation, department and unit. This information can be retrieved directly through the disclosure of activities. You can also view the Excel file where we have listed lobbying targets.

The National Audit Office provides support for the use of the Finnish Transparency Register

The National Audit Office (NAOF) provides support to all users of the Finnish Transparency Register. Guidelines are available online, and the NAOF organises in Finnish webinars and support clinics.

You can check out the Questions and Answers page to see if someone else has already faced the same questions. You can also find materials of the previous webinars online (in Finnish).

You can contact the Transparency Register team by sending email to avoimuusrekisteri@vtv.fi. Subscribe to the Transparency Register newsletter, which is issued (in Finnish) four times a year, and follow the Transparency Register on Instagram (in Finnish) (@avoimuusrekisteri) to get information and reminders related to the Transparency Register.