Application form for refunds of excise duty – for use by military organisations (Form 1461), Instructions for completing the form

These instructions guide you to submit an application to the Finnish Tax Administration for refund of excise duties paid by the forces of other States Party to the North Atlantic Treaty, an International Military Staff as defined in the North Atlantic Treaty, a military organisation, or other institutions and their members. The application form to submit is Form 1461. 

Please note that a different application form is used when members of U.S. forces or U.S. contractors need to claim refunds of excise duties, as agreed under the Defense Cooperation Agreement (the DCA) – the Application form for excise duty refunds under the DCA, Defense Cooperation Agreement (Form 1459).

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? 

The NATO forces of other States Party to the North Atlantic Treaty, an International Military Staff as defined in the North Atlantic Treaty, a military organisation, or other institutions and their members are entitled to duty exemptions. You can request a refund if you had purchased products subject to excise duty in Finland from another seller or supplier, not an authorised warehouse keeper’s warehouse. Electric power, biogas and natural gas are always sold with excise duty included. To gain exemption, a refund must be claimed. 

When can you claim? 

Periods of either 1 calendar month or 1 calendar 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 or an international military staff. Fill in the the applicant’s details.  If you are a natural person claiming refunds, give 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.  Enclose a photocopy of your ID card issued by the defence force and tick the “Certification of the right to request a refund is enclosed” box. 

Representative 

If you are a representative filling out Form 1461e 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 1461e for each one of the months.

If you are claiming refund only for one calendar month, enter in the “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 1461e 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 litres (l).
• Liquid fuels: Product quantity to be indicated in litres (l) except in the case of Heavy fuel oil, which is indicated by weight on 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 millilitres (ml).
• Soft drinks: Units may vary from litres (l) to kilograms (kg).
• Beverage containers: The unit for Product quantity is drink volume in litres (l).
• Other products: The unit for Product quantity for natural gas and biogas 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 sign the form. Please note that a power of attorney may be necessary for signing. If you are authorised to complete the form on behalf of someone else, enclose your power of attorney. 

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