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Working on a foreign vessel or aircraft
If you are a Finnish resident and you work on board a foreign vessel or aircraft in international traffic, you must pay tax on your wages to Finland. In most cases, you must also pay tax on them to a foreign country. Because Finland is your country of tax residence, any double taxation will be eliminated in Finland – in other words, any tax you pay abroad will be deducted from your Finnish tax. Only the foreign tax that you actually pay will be deducted.
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Example: The pay from work done on a Norwegian ship is income subject to Finnish tax. If you work on board a Norwegian ship sailing international sea routes, you will, in most cases, also be required to pay tax to Norway.
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In general, an employee working on board a foreign vessel (such as a ship or aircraft) operating on international routes must pay tax to the country where the employer company has its registered domicile or its place of corporate management.
However, when the work is done on a water vessel registered under the flag of a Nordic country, the employee has to pay tax to the country of the flag regardless of the employer company’s country of domicile. When the work is done on an aircraft registered in a Nordic country, the employee will only pay tax to his or her country of residence.
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Example: The domicile country of the shipping company owning the ship where you work is Norway, but the ship is registered under the flag of Sweden. Consequently, you will pay tax to Sweden.
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Social security
As a general rule, when you work on board a foreign vessel, you are covered by the social security system of the country under whose flag the ship sails. No health insurance contribution of a person insured in Finland (approximately 2%) is collected. However, if you have received a certificate for a ‘posted’ employee from the Finnish Centre for Pensions, or if you have an exemption order, and you are covered by Finnish social security, the health insurance contribution will be imposed.
When you work in a foreign country or when you are a seafarer on a foreign water vessel, the provisions of EU legislation and other international legislation binding on Finland have an impact on how your social security is determined.
Social security for employees, who work within the EU/EEA on an aircraft, is provided by the country of location of the employees’ home base.
For more information on how the coverage is determined, see Health insurance contributions in international employment situations (sections 3.3.1 and 3.3.2).
When you begin your employment on a foreign vessel – submit an application for prepayments
We recommend that you ask the Tax Administration for a calculation of income-tax prepayments when you begin your employment on a foreign ship or aircraft in international traffic. Later, when you have earned wages and paid prepayments for them, you will not have to pay back tax or late-payment interest.
You can apply for prepayments (or for an adjustment of the prepayments) during the year when your employer pays you, or in the following year, until the end date of the Tax Administration’s process of tax assessment.
Apply for prepayments in MyTax.
When you submit your application for prepayments for the first time, and also later, when you request a change to your original prepayments, you need an estimate of your income and deductions for the entire year. Besides that, you need to inform the Tax Administration of the income you have earned so far during the current year, and of the amounts of tax withheld on that income.
Other methods available to taxpayers for applying for prepayments or for having them changed:
- Call the service number +358 029 497 024 (individual income tax, international situations).
- Complete the paper application form and print it out together with Form 16A — Statement on foreign income, earned income and send the to the Tax Administration by post. The postal address is on the first page of the paper forms.
Declare your foreign-source income when you submit your Finnish tax return
Your income, derived from working on a foreign vessel or aircraft, must be declared on your Finnish tax return.
Submit your tax return in MyTax
Use MyTax for declaring your income from foreign sources, and any taxes you paid to foreign countries, under 4 Work abroad, not covered by the six-month rule.
If you submit your return on paper, use Form 16A — Statement on foreign income, earned income. Declare your income under 4 Work abroad, not covered by the six-month rule.
Tax deductions
- If you have paid pension insurance or unemployment insurance contributions or health insurance premiums to organisations outside Finland, you can claim these tax-deductible costs in MyTax. Go to Other deductions – YEL or MYEL contributions or other mandatory pension insurance contributions. If you use a paper form, write the amounts into field 8.2 of Form 50A. The above instructions apply equally to employees on water vessels and on aircraft.
- Expenses connected to seafarer's income (such as membership fees of a trade union, and commuting expenses) cannot be claimed, because they are taken into account in the standard deduction from seafarer's income, which the Tax Administration will grant you automatically.
- To ensure your eligibility for the standard deduction, it is important that you tick the box for Income is seafarer’s income earned on a foreign ship in MyTax or on the paper form 16A.
If you work on a Norwegian water vessel or on an oil production platform
If you work on a Norwegian water vessel or on an oil production platform, for example, read the following additional instructions on tax deductions:
It may be that you have employment in maritime transport but the pay is not necessarily treated as seafarer’s income. This may apply, for example, when you work on a Norwegian offshore oil drilling platform (often called a “rig”). If the tax authority does not consider the income to be seafarer's income, it may affect Finland’s tax decisions. Correspondingly, the standard deduction normally allowed to seafarers cannot be given to you.
Normally, the pay you earn for work done on an oil production platform is not considered seafarer’s income if the platform is fixed on the ocean floor with a permanent structure, etc. that keeps it in place. However, the pay can be considered seafarer's income if the underwater leg structure can be loosened from the seabed so the platform can float independently and move to another location.
Other factors affecting taxes are whether the platform is registered under the flag of some other country, not Norway, and whether it is placed at an offshore location outside of Norwegian territorial waters.
Submit an application for tax prepayments, if you will work:
- on an oil production platform
- on vessels providing maintenance and support (supply vessels)
- on a “flotell”, providing accommodation for the workers
- for the Norwegian rescue service
Please note that if your work involves duties to be performed on a ship operating in the preliminary exploration, prospection or production of hydrocarbons, special tax rules affecting the treatment of your income may apply.
See instructions above: When you begin your employment on a foreign vessel – submit an application for prepayments
Individual taxpayers in Norway must pay a "trygdeavgift”, which is the social security contribution imposed on everyone who works in Norway and is covered by Norwegian social security. The trygdeavgift is often included in the amount withheld (forskuddstrekk) on wages. However, the Nordic Tax Convention excludes the trygdeavgift from the taxes to which the Convention is applicable. As a result, when your taxes are assessed in Finland, the Tax Administration will not treat the trygdeavgift as a foreign-paid tax.
The trygdeavgift covers Norway’s mandatory health care, social security and pension contributions. The maximum deductible amount in Finnish tax assessment equals the sum of the Finnish pension contributions, unemployment insurance contributions, and daily allowance contributions of health insurance, as provided by Finnish legislation.
However, for both the 2025 and 2026 tax years, the tax assessments in Finland allow a full deduction of trygdeavgift payments, if they are claimed as contributions to a mandatory insurance contract. In 2026, the trygdeavgift is 7.6% of wage income (for 2025, it was 7.7%).
Because the trygdeavgift is not a creditable tax according to the Nordic Tax Convention, and because it is often included in the Norwegian withholding, you will carry the responsibility for preparing a calculation and itemising the correct amounts on your tax return.
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Example:
Person A works on board a Norwegian ship. A is a tax resident of Finland. Both Finland and Norway have the rights to tax with regard to seafarer’s income. When taxes are assessed for the year in Finland, the Tax Administration will credit the amounts of tax paid to Norway.
Person A’s earnings for the 2025 tax year were €40,000 in total. Person A paid a total of €10,000 in tax to Norway, which includes the trygdeavgift. In 2025, the trygdeavgift was 7.7% of gross wages → €3,080 (7.7% × €40,000).
Because the trygdeavgift is included in the amount withheld (€10,000) in Norway, person A must calculate the actual amount of tax, without the trygdeavgift: €10,000 – €3,080 = €6,920.
The difference €6,920 is the tax paid to Norway, which can be credited in the Finnish assessment for the tax year concerned.
When submitting the tax return, A declares the €40,000 as foreign-sourced income, which is not subject to the six-month rule for purposes of taxation. In addition, A fills in €6,920 as tax paid to a foreign country.
And further, A fills in the trygdeavgift of €3,080 as a mandatory insurance contribution deductible against earned income.
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If you have paid the Norwegian trygdeavgift contribution, and if Norway had the right to collect the contribution from you, you can use MyTax to claim a tax deduction for the trygdeavgift. The MyTax field for filling in the amount you paid is YEL or MYEL contributions or other mandatory pension insurance contributions.
Alternatively, you can send the Tax Administration a paper form to claim the deduction: use Form 50A — Earned income and deductions, the field to fill in is 8.2 Mandatory pension insurance contributions for non-wage income.
Your foreign-sourced wages may be exempt from tax in Finland
The six-month rule may apply to your pay when your Finnish taxes are assessed. If so, you do not have to pay tax to Finland for the wages earned in a foreign country. This means that all of the following conditions must be met:
- You stay in the foreign country, for reasons related to your work, for at least 6 months.
- During that six-month period, you spend no more than 6 days per month in Finland, on average.
- The tax treaty between Finland and the foreign country where you work does not prevent that country from collecting tax on your wages.
If you request that the six-month rule should be applied, you must provide exact details on the duration of the work, your dates of entry and exit from Finland, either using MyTax or writing the details into field 3 Work abroad for which you request implementation of the six-month rule on Form 16A — Statement on foreign income, earned income.
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