Annual changes 2026: What is changing in the Incomes Register?
12/8/2025This article includes the key changes. The full list of changes is available in the material for the annual event (in Finnish).
Changes to the processing rules for identifiers 1 Jan 2026
These changes apply to the earnings payment report, employer's separate report, and the benefits payment report.
- The use of the Finnish personal identity code or business ID will be prevented if the type of identifier is something other than a business ID or Finnish personal identity code.
- The use of the country code FI in the identifier will be prevented if the entered type of identifier is something other than a business ID, Finnish personal identity code or another identifier issued by a Finnish public authority.
- If a report includes more than one identifier, they must all be of different types. The same type of identifier is allowed only if their country codes are different.
- Identifiers may not start or end with or contain invisible whitespace characters. A space in the middle of a record is the only allowed whitespace character.
Changes for reporters of earnings payment data 1 Jan 2026
The tax exemption for the bicycle benefit is abolished on 1 January 2026. The change applies only to benefits that an employer and employee have committed to introduce on or after 24 April 2025. Benefits introduced before said date will follow the current rules until the end of the agreement period, or until five years have passed from the introduction of the benefit.
The procedure for a reduced taxable value for low-emission company cars is abolished. Starting from 2026, the emission value can only be reported as 0. Only report the value as 0 if the company car is a zero-emission one.
Two new types of additional income earner information and related processing rule are introduced:
- (18) Leased employee living abroad, working on board a Finnish aircraft
- (19) Leased employee living abroad, working on board a Finnish ship.
These types of additional income earner information are used when a foreign employer pays wages to a leased employee who lives abroad, works in Finnish transport, and whose wage is taxed in Finland.
Application of additional income earner information type ‘Key employee’ is also extended to Finnish citizens if they meet specific requirements.
Two new causes of absence are introduced:
- cause of paid absence (24) Partial special pregnancy leave
- cause of unpaid absence (18) Partial special pregnancy leave.
Reason codes for the termination of employment are specified. Additionally, the earnings payment report can be used to report only one grounds for registration entry per income earner. These changes apply to when an income earner is insured in accordance with the Public Sector Pensions Act (JuEL).
A new processing rule is added to the income type of substitute payer, to prevent conflicts between the type of exception to insurance and the insurance information of the income type.
Changes for reporters of benefits payment data 1 Jan 2026
Two new income types are added to benefits:
- 1446 Partial special pregnancy allowance
- 1445 General social security benefit on basis of unemployment (may not be used in reports until 1 May 2026).
Changes for data users 1 Jan 2026
Records distributed from the Incomes Register will include a new record, All payers. The record includes sharing data on the payers, substitute payers and actual employers who have submitted notifications during a specific time period.
A new report-level exclusive distribution rule regarding earnings-related pension insurance data is added to the earnings payment report’s data access profiles. This allows the report for all earnings-related pension insurance data (1, 2, 3) to be excluded if the distribution rule is applied.
Other changes 1 Jan 2026
New, more detailed calculation rules will be added to the Incomes Register’s calculation rules documentation. The calculation rules will only be used in the Incomes Register extract. This change aims to prevent double consideration of income subject to social insurance contributions in situations where a payment is paid by a substitute payer.
There is a new option in the e-service’s search function to search for employment relationship data when the search concerns an individual earner. This will make it easier to view information in more detail.
Payers using the SFTP channel can request records of the earnings payment data they have submitted. Two changes will be made to this material during the beginning of 2026.
- A new data group will be added to the Summary of payer’s earnings payment data (312) and its recurrent subscription (313): Sum data of employer’s separate reports by reporting period. The record will contain monthly summary data, such as the number of reports, number of health insurance contributions, deductions made and reports containing the “No wages payable” entry. The record will help to reconcile the data and detect any errors more easily.
- In addition, you can use the earnings payment record owner's record reference as a query criterion. However, employer’s separate reports cannot be ordered with this reference.
Changes to detailed and technical guidance 1 Jan 2026
Further specifications have been added to nearly all detailed instructions for the Incomes Register. A summary of changes is presented at the beginning of each guidance. Updated instructions for reporting benefits and wages will be published once translations have been completed.
There have also been updates to the technical guidelines.
- Description of income types have been added to the XLS codesets for income types. At this time, we will discontinue publishing PDF versions of codesets and the separate PDF versions of income type descriptions.
- The instructions that describe the Incomes Register’s interfaces have been consolidated into one document titled Technical interface – Application instructions for the submission and distribution of data. These new instructions replace the earlier documents for the three technical interfaces. In addition, general sections of the description documents on wages and benefits have been included in the new instructions.
- The instructions for transcripts and records have been consolidated into one document titled Transcripts and records from the Incomes Register. The new instructions include all transcripts, records, and calculation rules thereof, that are distributed to payers and data users. The instructions also include descriptions of the records and parameters used for record subscriptions, which were previously described in the record subscription document.