Application form for excise duty refunds under the DCA, Defense Cooperation Agreement (Form 1459e), instructions for filling out the form

This guide is for situations where members of U.S. forces or U.S. contractors need to claim refunds for paid excise duty as agreed under the Defense Cooperation Agreement (the DCA). 

The application form is Form 1459e. The instructions below will cover the information content required. After completing the application form, please send it by post to the address stated on it.

Who can claim the refunds? 

Under the provisions of the USA–Finland Defense Cooperation Agreement (the DCA), U.S. forces and their members that have come to Finland and contractors selling goods and services to them are entitled to exemptions from taxes. A certification, endorsed by the U.S. forces, of the applicant’s right to receive refunds is a requirement for the duty-free product use. 

U.S. forces and U.S. and Finnish contractors can claim refunds of excise duty if they have not provided their exemption certification at the point of purchase, or if they bought the products for official use from a seller other than an authorised warehouse keeper’s tax warehouse or the Finnish Defence Forces. Electric power, biogas and natural gas are always sold with excise duty included. To gain exemption, a refund must be claimed. 

When to claim them? 

Periods of either 1 calendar month or 1 year are the accepted refund periods. Submit your application to the Tax Administration when the period has ended.  

Maximally, you can claim an excise duty refund within three years of the end of the calendar year of the refund period.  

How to complete the application form 

Applicant

The applicant may be an individual i.e. a natural person, a unit of the forces, a contractor company, etc. Fill in the applicant’s details. If you are a natural person claiming refunds, fill in your last name and first and middle names. Please repeat “Applicant’s ID code” on all the other pages of the application form. The ID code can be a Finnish or foreign registration number or identity code.  

Fill in the postal address to which you want the decision on refunds to be sent.  

The applicant must have a certification of the applicant’s right to request a refund. The certification has to be endorsed by U.S. forces. Tick the “Certification of the right to request a refund is enclosed” box. Enclose a photocopy of the certification.

Representative  

If you are a representative filling out Form 1459e on behalf of the party entitled to the exemption and refund, enter your company’s information or your personal information here. You must have a power of attorney obtained from the party. Tick the ‘Power of attorney is enclosed’ box. Enclose a photocopy of the power of attorney.  

Refund period 

Indicate the period for which you claim the refund. This means the period relevant to refunding, i.e. when you bought the products to start using them as defined by the exemption rules. Period length can be either 1 calendar month – or 1 entire year. If you are claiming refund part way through the year – after you made purchases over the course of several calendar months – you will need to fill out a new Form 1459e for each one of the months.

If you are claiming refund for just one calendar month, enter it in “Refund period” as appropriate, mm/yyyy. If you are claiming refund for a year, fill in the “yyyy” space. 

Example: your application only concerns products bought during December 2025. The Refund period to enter is 12/2025.

Refund recipient’s bank account 

Give the requested details concerning the bank account to which you want the refund to be transferred. If this is not a bank account belonging to you, give the account holder’s details. In addition, enter in the bank’s details as appropriate.  

Products  

The application form contains lines and columns under the “Products” heading to indicate typical products subject to excise taxation in Finland. However, you may have purchased a product not included here. If so, please enter the product and the required data into the “Other products” line.

Read more about products subject to excise taxation 

When declaring your products indicate the month when they were purchased (mm/yyyy) product-for-product, and provide Product quantity and information for the other columns as appropriate. You can leave the “Excise tax amount” column blank. You can print out multiple copies of any page of Form 1459e if you purchased several products falling into one excise category, and you need to use more lines to show all purchased products.  

Tips for entering in the different types of products 

• Alcoholic drinks: make sure to fill in “Contains alcohol by volume (%)” and the Product quantity in liters (l).
• Liquid fuels: Product quantity to be indicated in liters (l) except in the case of Heavy fuel oil, which is indicated by weight in kilograms (Kg).
• Electricity: Product quantity – in kilowatt-hours (kWh).
• Tobacco: The units for Product quantity may vary: from cigarette, cigar, etc. (pcs) to grams (g) to milliliters (ml).
• Soft drinks: Units may vary from liters (l) to kilograms (kg).
• Beverage containers: The unit for Product quantity is drink volume in liters (l).
• Other products: The unit for Product quantity is the megawatt (MW).

Please enter Retail price for all of the following products: cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, pipe tobacco, smoking tobacco, fine-cut rolling tobacco, and smokeless non-liquid nicotine products (including nicotine pouches). Please only enter the Retail price for cigarette paper and for Tobacco products - other, and leave the other columns blank.

Date and signature 

Remember to authorize the form with your signature. Please note that a power of attorney may be necessary for signing. If someone else bought the products and asked you to file Form 1459e on their behalf, you would need to enclose a written power-of-attorney given you by that person.

Send the completed form to the postal address stated on the top.