The Finnish Tax Administration’s certificate service will help you manage certificates
News, 7/3/2024The Tax Administration’s certificate service is an upcoming e-service that will allow users to manage their organisation’s API access rights and certificates better than before.
You need an active certificate if you want to submit and retrieve data through an API. Typical users of APIs are accounting firms, employer companies and banks and other lenders.
The Tax Administration’s objective is to make the new certificate service available to users during 2024. The new service is designed for users of the Tax Administration’s, the Incomes Register’s, and the Positive Credit Register’s APIs.
Last spring, we released news about plans to make the new certificate service available in August 2024. Start of availability will unfortunately be delayed.
‒ Our main focus has been to offer a fast and reliable certificate service to the users. After the summer season we will update our website with more precise information about the launch date of the service, says Anni Peuranen, the product owner.
What will change?
The Tax Administration’s certificate service will allow users to request API rights and new certificates, not only Tax Administration certificates but also Incomes Register certificates. After the launch of the new certificate service, API rights or certificates can no longer be managed in the Incomes Register’s e-service.
If you interact with the Positive credit register and you need more than one certificate for that purpose, you can use the Tax Administration’s certificate service to request more certificates.
In future, you will be able to download certificates directly from the certificate service's e-service. However, downloads can still be performed via APIs, as well.
The new certificate service will have two separate sections: one section for production certificates and another one for test certificates.
We will copy all existing and currently valid APIs and certificates in the new certificate service before it is launched. When you sign in to the Tax Administration’s certificate service for the first time, you will need to verify that your organisation has access to the APIs that it needs, and that you have updated the information concerning your organisation’s contact persons and the technical contact persons for certificates.
Log in to both sections on the new certificate service’s home page. You can use your online banking codes, a mobile certificate, or a certificate card. Either an official role in the company or organisation you represent or a Suomi.fi authorisation is needed for logging in to the production section of the certificate service.
The production section’s screen view is easier to understand, allowing users to see all their active APIs, certificates, and related status information at a glance. In addition, the new Suomi.fi authorisations enable organisations to give their technical contact person a specific authorisation restricted to matters related to certificates only.
In the same way as the production section, the testing section will also provide a screen view for examining the active certificates. In future, the organisations that perform tests will be able to use just one screen view for examining APIs, certificates, status information and the persons participating in the organisation’s testing activity. There will also be a simplified update feature for contact information relating to testing. With the Tax Administration’s new certificate service, the processing of certificates will be easier than before, and this will make for a faster start of new test cycles.
New features also include the introduction of a new observation form.
The following functionalities will have no changes
Instructions for renewal of certificates will remain unchanged. When a certificate is about to expire, the user can use an API to renew it. Some software products, but not all, contain an auto-renewal feature for completing the renewal process. Contact your supplier to check whether your software has the auto-renewal feature. If renewal is not possible, request a new certificate.
In general, we recommend that users ask for separate certificates for each API they use. However, if you are a data provider, you can continue using just one certificate both for the Tax Administration’s APIs and for the Incomes Register’s WS interface. Requesting new certificates is possible in the new certificate service also for this purpose.
As before, the Incomes Register’s customer service will still handle any matters relating to deactivations of certificates.
Follow the Tax Administration’s certificate service
Website of the certificate service
We will release further instructions in August or September. At that time, we will also provide more precise information about the timetable.
Do you need a new certificate now? For instructions, visit the website of the Incomes Register: