Finnish passports are issued to nationals of

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

for the purpose of international travel. Aside from serving as proof of Finnish nationality, they facilitate the process of securing assistance from Finnish consular officials abroad (or other EU consulates or Nordic missionsArticle 34 of the Helsinky Treaty
Article 34 p. 8
in case a Finnish consular official is absent). Finnish passports share the standardised layout and burgundy-red cover with other EU countries. Passports are issued by the local police or by an authorised Finnish diplomatic mission abroad. Men who are less than 30 years of age and consequently eligible for

military service Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job ( volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription). Some nations (e.g., Mexico) require ...

, but have not completed it, may only be issued a passport with an expiration date up to the last legal start date for completion of the obligation, which is at the age of 28. Men older than 30 can receive a passport with normal expiry dates regardless of the status of completion of the military duty. Every Finnish citizen is also a citizen of the European Union. The passport, along with the national identity card allows for free rights of movement and residence in any of the states of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

European Economic Area The European Economic Area (EEA) was established via the ''Agreement on the European Economic Area'', an international agreement which enables the extension of the European Union's single market to member states of the European Free Trade As ...

and Switzerland. For travel within the Nordic countries no identity documentation is legally required for Nordic citizens due to the

Nordic Passport Union The Nordic Passport Union allows citizens of the Nordic countriesIceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finlandto travel and reside in another Nordic country without any travel documentation (e.g. a passport or national identity card) or a r ...

. The passport cards are currently printed and customised by

Thales Group Thales Group () is a French multinational company that designs, develops and manufactures electrical systems as well as devices and equipment for the aerospace, defence, transportation and security sectors. The company is headquartered in Paris' ...

Physical appearance

From 1996, Finnish passports have had burgundy-coloured covers and use the standard

European Union passport The European Union itself does not issue ordinary passports, but ordinary passport booklets issued by its 27 member states share a common format. This common format features a coloured cover (for which burgundy is compulsor all countries ex ...

layout, with the Finnish Coat of arms emblazoned in the centre of the front cover. The words "Euroopan unioni" (

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

) and "Europeiska unionen" (

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

) meaning "European Union" are inscribed above the coat of arms, and the words "Suomi – Finland", the country's name in Finnish and Swedish, and "Passi – Pass", meaning "Passport" in Finnish and Swedish, below. In older non-biometric EU passports issued prior to August 2006, the words were entirely in capital letters, but current versions use mixed case.

Biometric passport A biometric passport (also known as an e-passport or a digital passport) is a traditional passport that has an embedded electronic microprocessor chip which contains biometric information that can be used to authenticate the identity of the pa ...

s, first issued on 21 August 2006, also have the standard biometric symbol at the top. In 2012, the coat of arms was enlarged and the European Union title was shifted below it and separated by a double line from the country's name which is now in all capitals. The biometric symbol has been moved to the bottom. The inside pages contain drawings of an moose that when flipped rapidly show the moose in motion. The cover is embossed with a snowflake motif. 1st page of the finnish passport

Visa requirements

In 2022, Finnish citizens had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 189 countries and territories, ranking the Finnish passport third in the world (tied with Italian and Luxembourgish passports) according to the

Henley Passport Index The Henley Passport Index ( abbreviation: HPI) is a global ranking of countries according to the travel freedom enjoyed by the holders of that country's ordinary passport for its citizens. It started in 2006 as Henley & Partners Visa Restricti ...

. Additionally, Arton Capital's Passport Index ranked the Finnish passport second in the world, with a visa-free score of 172 (tied with Austrian, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Luxembourgish, Spanish, Swedish, Swiss, and United States passports), as of 19 September 2022. As a member state of the European Union, Finnish citizens enjoy freedom of movement within the

(EEA). The Citizens’ Rights Directive defines the right of free movement for citizens of the EEA. Through bilateral agreements freedom of movement is extended to Switzerland, and all EU and

EFTA The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) is a regional trade organization and free trade area consisting of four European states: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. The organization operates in parallel with the European U ...

nationals are not only visa-exempt but are legally entitled to enter and reside in each other's countries.

Different spellings of the same name

Names containing special letters (ä, ö, å) are spelled the correct way in the non-machine-readable zone, but are mapped in the

machine-readable zone A machine-readable passport (MRP) is a machine-readable travel document (MRTD) with the data on the identity page encoded in optical character recognition format. Many countries began to issue machine-readable travel documents in the 1980s. Mos ...

, ä becoming AE, ö becoming OE, å becoming AA.
For example, Hämäläinen → HAEMAELAEINEN.

History

Finnish passports issued from the 1930s until the 1970s had a white paper cover with the bearer's photograph and the seal of the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

where the bearer applied for his or her passport affixed on the back cover. Those issued from the 1970s until the adoption of the EU design in 1996 had a dark blue leather cover and did not contain the "European Union" texts, but were otherwise broadly similar in appearance. Previously, children could be included in the parents' passport, but this is no longer allowed and children must be issued their own passport, regardless of age. File:Russian Finland International Passport.jpg, An international passport of the

Grand Duchy of Finland The Grand Duchy of Finland ( fi, Suomen suuriruhtinaskunta; sv, Storfurstendömet Finland; russian: Великое княжество Финляндское, , all of which literally translate as Grand Principality of Finland) was the predecess ...

from the late-1800s or early-1900s (About 1890) File:Suomen passi vanha.jpg, Front cover of a pre-1996 Finnish passport File:Suomen passi EU ei biom.jpg, Front cover of a 1996–2006 EU-format machine-readable, non-biometric Finnish passport File:Finland passport.jpg, Front cover of a 2006–2012 biometric Finnish passport File:Finland passport 2014.jpg, Front cover of a 2012–2016 biometric Finnish passport File:Finlanddippassport.jpg, Front cover of a biometric diplomatic passport (2006–2012 design) File:Finlandservicepassport.png, Front cover of a biometric service passport (2006–2012 design) File:Åland passport.jpg, Passport issued to residents of

Åland Åland ( fi, Ahvenanmaa: ; ; ) is an autonomous and demilitarised region of Finland since 1920 by a decision of the League of Nations. It is the smallest region of Finland by area and population, with a size of 1,580 km2, and a populat ...

File:Finnish passport 2007.jpg, Current-type passport with no RFID chip (only issued at Finnish embassies abroad) File:Suomen vanhojen passien kokoelma.jpg, A collection of old Finnish passports displayed by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Åland

, being an autonomous region with its own

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...

, has a separate passport. The Åland Islands passport does not however indicate a different nationality, with all holders being Finnish citizens. Unlike the Danish autonomous countries or British Crown dependencies (none of which belong to the European Union) the Åland Islands autonomous region is a full part of the Finnish state, and an Åland Islands passport therefore brings all the rights and benefits of European Union membership for the holder. The passport follows the standard European Union format, and is marked on the front cover with both ''Finland'' and ''Åland''.

References

{{Passports

Passport European Union passports