Changes have been made to the legislation governing the submitting of notifications regarding the transport of goods and passengers. Read more: Goods and passenger transport licences 2022 (in Finnish)
Renew your existing licence in good time
Transport licences are renewed on the basis of an application. Renewal applications should be submitted by no later than one month before the existing licence is set to expire. By doing so, the applicant can continue engaging in transport operations on the basis of the licence to be renewed until their application has been processed.
The application for renewing a goods or passenger transport licence must include a report on the applicant’s financial standing as an attachment. As regards the other licence conditions, the applicant must provide supplements or other evidence upon request.
When applying for the renewal of a taxi transport licence, the application by itself is usually sufficient, as Traficom receives the information necessary for granting the licence from the information systems of other relevant authorities via API queries.
The application should be filled as thoroughly as possible, as requests for supplementary information will delay the granting of the licence.
Applications will be processed in the order of arrival within approximately two weeks of the commencement of proceedings.
Make sure that you meet the licence conditions
The licence conditions include professional competence, Business ID, legal capacity, good repute, being based in Finland and being able to demonstrate your financial standing and the appropriate fulfilment of obligations.
Traficom does not assess in advance whether the conditions are met, nor does it issue preliminary decisions. The fulfilment of the conditions is only assessed during the processing of the licence application.
If all the licence conditions are met, the applicant is granted a transport licence.
How to demonstrate financial standing
This section only applies to goods and passenger transport licence applications.
The holder of a goods or passenger transport licence must at all times be able to meet their financial obligations in the course of the annual accounting year. To this end, the applicant must demonstrate that they have sufficient financial resources for the operations that they intend to engage in based on the licence, i.e. the applicant must demonstrate their financial standing.
The applicant must demonstrate that they have at their disposal financial resources totalling at least EUR 9,000 when only one vehicle is used and EUR 5,000 for each additional vehicle used.
The applicant for a light goods transport licence must submit proof of having financial resources that amount at minimum to EUR 1,800 for the first vehicle and at minimum EUR 900 for the following vehicles when the application only concerns a light goods transport licence and the applicant does not already hold any other transport licences. If a company is applying for a light goods transport licence and it already holds a 'full' goods transport licence and/or a passenger transport licence, the guarantee amount required is EUR 9,000 for the first vehicle (lorry or bus/coach), EUR 5,000 for the following vehicles (lorry or bus/coach) and EUR 900 for the light goods transport licence applied for.
Financial standing must be demonstrated taking into account all of the applicant’s transport licences, excluding taxi transport licences. In other words, the applicant must demonstrate that they have sufficient financial resources for all the goods and passenger transport licences that they currently posses or are applying for. The guarantee amount of EUR 9,000 for the first vehicle applies only once, not separately for both types of licences.
Financial standing can be demonstrated with a certificate of the applicant’s financial resources issued by an authorised, meaning KHT, HT or JHT, auditor and/or a surety obligation (bank guarantee) issued by a Finnish credit, financing or insurance institution or a bank deposit (pledge account).
For more detailed instructions and templates, please see the links below.
More detailed instructions for demonstrating financial standing (in Finnish)
Pledge account template (in Finnish)
Bank guarantee template (in Finnish)
Demonstrating financial standing with a certificate issued by an auditor (External link) (in Finnish)