Guide · Finland · Kaupparekisteri
What is YTJ and the Finnish Trade Register (Kaupparekisteri, PRH)?
Finland’s trade register is run by the Patent and Registration Office and searched through YTJ. Here is who runs what, how the Y-tunnus works, what the register records, and what an API can serve from it.
Lue suomeksi (this guide in Finnish): Mikä on kaupparekisteri?
The same lookup with curl
curl "https://api.prometiam.com/functions/v1/risk-api/companies/search?company_number=0112038-9&country=FI" \ -H "Authorization: Bearer rk_live_your_api_key"
Key facts: Finland
Register: Finnish Trade Register (PRH)
Identifiers Y-tunnus
- Company recordsYes
- OfficersNo
- Insolvency noticesYes
- Corporate eventsRegister changes
- MonitoringYes
- Financial statementsDigital filings, tax data
- VAT numberFrom the register, if VAT-registered
- NACE classYes
- UpdatedEvery working day
Financial statements are on the Scale plan and above; the other plans and the free trial get 10 calls a month.
Price From EUR 9.99 a month (Starter plan)
The short version
The Finnish Trade Register (Kaupparekisteri) is where Finnish companies are registered and where changes to them are filed: names, legal form, registered address, line of business, key persons and more. It is maintained by the Finnish Patent and Registration Office, PRH (Patentti- ja rekisterihallitus), and it is public: PRH states that anyone is entitled to obtain information about the entries made in the register.
In practice you rarely meet the register directly. You meet YTJ, the Finnish Business Information System at ytj.fi, which is the company and organisation search and the online filing service in one.
Who runs what
| Name | What it is |
|---|---|
| Kaupparekisteri | The Trade Register itself: the registered details of companies. Maintained by PRH. |
| PRH | Patentti- ja rekisterihallitus, the Finnish Patent and Registration Office. It also runs the separate Register of Associations and handles foundations. |
| YTJ | Yritys- ja yhteisötietojärjestelmä, the Finnish Business Information System at ytj.fi: company and organisation search by name, business ID or LEI code, and the online filing service for notifications. |
| Virre | PRH’s information service for the registered details of companies and foundations, and for following the progress of a notification. |
| Y-tunnus | The business ID every registered Finnish business and organisation gets. The key you store. |
The Y-tunnus
A Y-tunnus is written NNNNNNN-N: seven digits, a hyphen and a check digit, for example 0112038-9 for Nokia Oyj. The check digit is a modulus-11 sum over the seven digits with the weights 7, 9, 10, 5, 8, 4 and 2. A remainder of 1 has no check digit, so a number that would need one is never issued. That is why a mistyped Y-tunnus can be rejected offline, before you spend a lookup: try it in the identifier validator.
The EU VAT number of a Finnish company is FI followed by the same eight digits without the hyphen: 0112038-9 becomes FI01120389. One identifier does two jobs, the register key and the VAT number, so store it with the hyphen, the way the register writes it, and derive the VAT form. Some older numbers appear with only six digits before the hyphen; restore the leading zero and the check digit works again.
Whether a VAT number is registered and active is a separate question that only VIES answers; the VIES validation guide covers it.
What the register records
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Name | The registered name, with previous names and any auxiliary or parallel names. Housing companies and property companies often carry long, address-like names. |
| Legal form | Oy (private limited company), Oyj (public limited company), Ay (general partnership), Ky (limited partnership), osuuskunta (cooperative), asunto-osakeyhtiö (housing company), sivuliike (branch of a foreign company) and others. |
| Registered address | A street address and a postal address, with the post office written in capitals as the register prints it. |
| Line of business | The registered line of business, plus an industry code in Statistics Finland’s TOL classification. The register now uses TOL 2025, which is based on NACE Rev. 2.1; the fifth digit is a Finnish subdivision. |
| Dates | The date of registration in the Trade Register and the date the business ID was granted. They are two different dates, and for old companies they can be decades apart. |
| Status | Registered, or flagged with a situation: bankruptcy (konkurssi), liquidation (selvitystila) or company restructuring (yrityssaneeraus). A company that has ceased is no longer registered. |
| Tax registers | Which of the Tax Administration’s registers the company has been added to, such as the VAT and employer registers. |
| Key persons | Key persons, such as board members and the managing director, are filed with the register. |
| Financial statements | Most companies file their financial statements with the Trade Register after each financial period. |
A practical warning: a large share of Finnish register entries are housing companies (asunto-osakeyhtiö) and property companies. A name search for a street or a district returns many of them, so filter by legal form or search by Y-tunnus when you know it.
What Prometiam serves for Finland
Company records from the Finnish Trade Register: legal name, legal form, status, registered address, activity code and dates; with register-change events and monitoring, but no officers and no registry-compliance signal. Corporate insolvency notices are linked by business ID.
In plain terms: you can resolve a Y-tunnus, a Finnish VAT number or a company name into the record and see its status. You cannot get board members, signatories or beneficial owners for Finland from this API, and financial statements only for companies that file digitally with PRH (about one in twenty) and for listed groups (their ESEF annual financial reports), plus Finnish Tax Administration tax records from 2020. Register-change events and monitoring are available. Sole traders (yksityinen elinkeinonharjoittaja; PRH’s English term is private trader) can register too, but they are not part of the Finnish records, so searching for one returns nothing even though the business exists.
Querying Finnish companies from an API
The same call as every other live country, with country=FI:
# by Y-tunnus (the hyphen is optional; the check digit is verified server-side) curl -H "Authorization: Bearer rk_live_..." \ "https://api.prometiam.com/functions/v1/risk-api/companies/search?company_number=0112038-9&country=FI" # by the VAT number (FI plus the eight digits, no hyphen) curl -H "Authorization: Bearer rk_live_..." \ "https://api.prometiam.com/functions/v1/risk-api/companies/search?vat=FI01120389&country=FI" # by name, for a type-ahead field curl -H "Authorization: Bearer rk_live_..." \ "https://api.prometiam.com/functions/v1/risk-api/companies/search?name=nokia&country=FI"
A Y-tunnus whose check digit does not match is answered with a 400 validation error that says the number is not a valid Y-tunnus, so a typo never looks like a missing company. The free Y-tunnus lookup runs the same call with a shared key (there is also a Finnish-language Y-tunnus search), and the Finland company data API page walks through validation, autocomplete and the insolvency link.
Finnish insolvency notices
Finnish corporate insolvency notices, meaning bankruptcy, liquidation and dissolution notices, are served on GET /insolvency/search?country=FI, corporate only; personal insolvency is never returned. They carry the Y-tunnus, so on a Finnish company record ?include=insolvency returns the notices filed under that business ID. A notice for a business that is no longer served as a company record stays reachable on the insolvency endpoint.
FAQ
What is YTJ?
YTJ (Yritys- ja yhteisötietojärjestelmä, ytj.fi) is the business information system run jointly by the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH) and the Tax Administration, where basic company data is searched by name or Y-tunnus. The Trade Register sits behind it.
What is PRH?
PRH is the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (Patentti- ja rekisterihallitus), the authority that maintains the Trade Register and the register of associations. Its Virre service shows the registered data of companies.
How do I look up a Finnish company by Y-tunnus?
Enter the Y-tunnus (for example 0112038-9) or the company name in the free Y-tunnus lookup to see legal name, legal form and status. The same lookup is available in the API as GET /companies/search?country=FI.
What is the Finnish Trade Register?
Kaupparekisteri, the public register of Finnish companies, maintained by PRH and searched through YTJ.
What is a Y-tunnus?
The Finnish business ID: seven digits, a hyphen and a modulus-11 check digit, for example 0112038-9.
Is the Y-tunnus the same as the Finnish VAT number?
It is the basis of it: the VAT number is FI plus the eight digits without the hyphen. Whether the number is VAT-registered and active only VIES can answer.
Does Prometiam serve Finnish directors or company events?
Company events yes, directors no. Finnish records are company-level: legal name, legal form, status, registered address, activity code and dates. There are no officers and no registry-compliance signal for Finland. Register-change events (name, status, legal form and registered address; dated when the change first appears in the register data, none before 2026-09-30) and monitoring are available. Corporate insolvency notices are linked by business ID.
Are Finnish sole traders included?
No. They are not part of the Finnish company records, so a search for one returns nothing even though the business exists.
Official sources and related guides
Official sources: PRH: the Finnish Trade Register · YTJ, the Finnish Business Information System.