Gift tax – instructions for filing and payment
You must file a gift tax return and pay gift tax if:
- you receive a gift worth €5,000 or more
- you receive several gifts from the same donor within a period of 3 years and their total value is €5,000 or more.
If you get a gift with a lower value, you do not have to file a return. However, there are situations that make it useful for you to submit a gift tax return even if the value stays below the threshold of gift taxation.
CHECK THE GIFT’S VALUE
If you receive a gift that is other than money – for example, securities, a share in a housing company or a real estate unit – check the gift’s fair market value and enter it in the gift tax return. Read more about determining the fair market value
SUBMIT A GIFT TAX RETURN
Do this before 3 months have elapsed from the date when you received the gift.
To fill in the return form, you must have the following information on hand:
- donor’s personal ID
- your family relationship to the donor
- value of the gift
- date when you received the gift.
How to file a gift tax return in MyTax
If it is more convenient, you can use the paper form to file the return.
Fill in the gift tax return carefully. If the return is inaccurate, if something is missing or if you file the return late, you may have to pay a late-filing penalty or a punitive tax increase.
YOU RECEIVE THE GIFT TAX DECISION WITH INSTRUCTIONS FOR PAYMENT
After your gift tax return has been processed, you will see the decision in MyTax. If you have not activated electronic Suomi.fi messages, you will also receive the decision by post.
It takes 2 to 8 months on average to process a gift tax return, but in some cases you may receive a decision in a few days or weeks. You can use the calculator to estimate the amount.
After you have received the decision, you can pay the tax in MyTax, where the details needed for payment have been pre-completed. You can also pay the gift tax by using an e-invoice, if the tax decision was made after 20 November 2023. If you do not yet receive e-invoices from the Tax Administration, see the instructions on how to request e-invoicing.
Enclosed with the decision you will also receive a bank form with the necessary payment details. If you received the forms but you have misplaced them, you can log in to MyTax to find the details you need for paying.
When is the due date for gift tax?
The first due date will be approximately 3 months after the date when you receive the gift tax decision.
If the tax is below €500, you must pay it in one instalment. Higher amounts are split into two instalments. In this case, the second due date is two months after the first.
If the due date is a Saturday, Sunday or other holiday, you can pay on the next business day without having to pay any late-payment charges.
Need an extension of time to pay the tax?
Frequently asked questions
A parent or guardian files a gift tax return on the child's behalf.
You can file a tax return on the child's behalf in MyTax. Log in to MyTax with you personal online banking codes. After login the system will check whether you have the guardian's right to manage the child's tax matters.
If two or more people have given you assets as gifts, file a separate gift tax return on each gift. Separate returns must be filed even if only one deed of gift has been drafted.
If there are multiple recipients, each one of them must file a separate gift tax return.
If there are multiple donors, the gift tax is calculated separately for gifts received from each donor.
Example: Antti and his wife Tiina give their daughter Liisa €7,500, paying €3,750 each. As both gifts are worth less than €5,000, Liisa does not have to pay any gift tax on the gifts.
If instead, Antti and Tiina were to give Liisa €10,500, paying €5,250 each, Liisa would have to pay gift tax on these two gifts under bracket 1. For €5,250, gift tax under bracket 1 is €116 in 2023. Liisa's gift tax would be €232 in total (2 × €116).
If the gift is a shared gift, the recipients file only one return. Gifts are treated as shared only if the deed of title (e.g. deed of gift) expressly states that the asset is intended to be a shared gift.
There is no need to present the deed of gift to the Tax Administration in most cases.
The guidance on how to fill out a gift tax return form contains a list of the circumstances that make it mandatory to enclose a deed of gift or other documentation with a gift tax return. Read more about filling out a gift tax return
Even if it is not necessary to send the deed of gift to the Tax Administration, the deed must still be drawn up if:
- Real estate is given as a gift. Donation of real estate must be attested by a notary public. More information on attesting real estate transfer is available on the website of National Land Survey (www.maanmittauslaitos.fi).
- The donor of the gift retains the right of possession or other rights.
If the total value of the gift or gifts stays below the €5,000 threshold, you do not have to file the return unless the Tax Administration has requested that you do so. However, there are situations – corporate shares of a non-listed company as a gift – that make it useful for you to submit a gift tax return even if the value stays below the threshold of gift taxation. After the return is processed, a confirmed gift tax value is recorded for the asset you received. If you sell the asset later, you will be able to use the confirmed value as the acquisition cost.
If the Tax Administration has not confirmed the tax value of an asset that you sell, its acquisition cost is based on the length of time that you, the seller, has held the asset. The deemed values are either 20% or 40% of the selling price. When you sell an asset, it may be more advantageous to you to use the confirmed tax value than the acquisition cost presumption.
If you receive listed shares, their quotation value at the stock exchange on the date of the gift is their acquisition cost, even if no value has been confirmed for purposes of gift taxation. This means that if the value of stock-exchange-listed shares stays below €5,000, you do not have to file a gift tax return unless you receive other gifts from the same donor and the combined total value goes over the €5,000 threshold within a 3-year period.
Yes, you can. However, if you do so, you must take account of the fact that also the tax is a gift, so gift tax must be paid on it.
Accordingly, if you give an apartment to someone as a gift − or if you give some other property − and you want to make it so that the recipient of your gift will not have to pay gift tax, there’s nothing to prevent you from donating the necessary sum of money to cover the gift tax, too. The base for gift taxes is the total gift value — the amount that includes the apartment and the cash gift you give in order to pay for the gift tax.
Another important point is that the base also includes all the other gifts you may have given during the past 3 years. If gift tax was paid on those already, the Tax Administration will take it into account: you will only have to pay the part that your previous gift-tax payments do not cover.
If the donor has designated the gift as a shared gift, one of the recipients must submit a return on all the recipients’ behalf. The Tax Administration imposes a joint tax for the people who receive the gift, and they are jointly responsible for paying it. The gift tax is calculated based on the total value of the gift.
Gifts are treated as shared only if the deed (a deed of gift, a gift certificate etc.) expressly states that the asset is intended to be received as a shared gift.
If you submitted a gift tax return and notice some errors, please contact us by telephone on +35829 497 050.
Gift tax decisions are confidential documents. You can see your own gift tax decisions in MyTax. All gift tax decisions made on or after 1 January 2016 are available in MyTax. If you need a photocopy of a gift tax decision made before 2016, please call our service number 029 497 018 (standard call rates).
Note that you cannot receive a photocopy of another person’s gift tax decision except under special circumstances for a well-justified reason. Such a reason could be, for example, that a gift tax decision issued for another person affects your taxes. Photocopies may be subject to a charge.
Instructions for individual document requests (available in Finnish and Swedish, link to Finnish)
You can request a photocopy of another taxpayer’s document by filling in a form (available in Finnish and Swedish, link to Finnish)
Instructions for filing and payment — other pages
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