Mileage and per diems in Finland: what is tax-free in 2026

Published 11 September 2026

Each year the Tax Administration sets how much an employer can pay for business travel without it counting as salary. For 2026 the key figures are 0.55 euros a kilometre and per diems of 25 and 54 euros. Here is when they apply, what the paperwork must show and what a sole trader does instead.

Who can be paid tax-free

An employer pays these allowances to an employee, and that includes you as an Oy owner working for your company. It can pay them even in a year without salary, if each trip meets the conditions and you write a travel claim for the company's books.

A business trip is a temporary work trip to somewhere other than your regular workplace, such as a client or a trade fair. The daily commute never counts.

The amounts are maximums: any excess is taxable salary, and an allowance for a trip that does not qualify is salary in full.

Kilometre allowance: 0.55 euros

In your own car, or another car your employer has not provided, the tax-free maximum for 2026 is 0.55 euros a kilometre. The common additions per kilometre are:

4 cents for each passenger the employer is responsible for transporting
9 cents for towing a trailer
4 cents for carrying machinery or items over 80 kilograms or of large size

Rarer ones cover caravans, heavy loads, dogs and forest roads. The distance limits below apply only to per diems.

Domestic per diems: 25 or 54 euros

A per diem covers extra meal and living costs, not tickets or hotels. In 2026 the maximums in Finland are:

25 euros for a trip of more than 6 hours (partial per diem)
54 euros for a trip of more than 10 hours (full per diem)

Longer trips count in 24-hour travel days from departure, each earning a full per diem; time past the last full day earns 25 euros if it is at least 2 hours, or 54 euros if over 6.

The destination must be more than 15 kilometres from where the trip starts, usually home or the regular workplace, by the shortest available route, and more than 5 kilometres from both.

Two free meals halve a full per diem, and one halves a partial one. Breakfast included in the hotel or ticket price does not count.

Meal allowance instead. Without a per diem, for example on a shorter trip, the employer can pay up to 13.50 euros, or 27.00 euros for two meals, if work keeps you from your usual eating place at the meal break and no meal is provided.

Trips abroad

The same decision lists foreign per diems by country, with separate rates for some regions and cities; look up the destination and the return-day rules there. The country where each travel day ends decides the rate, a trip of under 10 hours follows the domestic rules, and two free meals halve the foreign rate.

The travel claim

Tax-free treatment rests on the employee's travel claim, matkalasku, which is the basis for payment. It must show:

the purpose of the trip and the destination
the route, where needed
how you travelled
the dates and times the trip started and ended
for trips abroad, the country where each travel day ended
for a kilometre allowance, the kilometres driven and the rate

Tickets and hotel receipts go with it. Although tax-free, the allowances are reported to the Incomes Register by the fifth day of the month after payment.

A toiminimi: a deduction instead of an allowance

A sole trader cannot pay themselves these allowances. Actual costs such as fuel, parking, tickets and hotels are booked as business expenses; on top of them you claim an additional deduction, lisävähennys, in the business tax return, never in the books.

Car. If you or your spouse own the car and business driving is at most half of its kilometres in the tax year, you deduct 0.55 euros per business kilometre, plus any of the additions above, less car costs already booked. No time or distance limit applies, but driving between home and your permanent place of business is private.
Per diem. For a temporary trip outside your usual area of operation, you deduct 25 or 54 euros in Finland less extra living costs already booked, under the same time and distance rules. There is no meal allowance equivalent.

If actual costs are higher, you deduct those instead. For a car that belongs to the business, only its actual costs are deductible.

The car deduction needs a driver's log or another reliable record: for each business drive the start and end time, start and end point (and the route where needed), kilometres and purpose, plus the car's total kilometres for the year. Without that total there is no additional deduction. For per diems, record daily where you went, how far and the actual times.

Two examples with 2026 figures

An Oy pays its owner. You drive your own car to a one-off client meeting 120 kilometres away and back, 240 kilometres, from 8.00 to 17.00: nine hours. The company can pay you 240 × 0.55 = 132.00 euros of kilometre allowance and a partial per diem of 25.00 euros, so 157.00 euros tax-free. If the client buys you lunch, the per diem halves to 12.50 euros.

A sole trader makes the same trip. The car is mostly in private use, and the only trip cost in the books is 20.00 euros of fuel. The car deduction is 132.00 less 20.00, so 112.00 euros, and with no meal costs booked the per diem deduction is the full 25.00 euros. That is an additional deduction of 137.00 euros, and 157.00 euros with the fuel: the same as the first example.

What we do

We check each travel claim against these rules before the allowances are paid, report them to the Incomes Register with the payroll and claim a toiminimi's additional deduction. If your company pays travel allowances or plans to, book an introduction. See what we do.

Sources

Please note: this is general information about Finnish rules, not advice for your own situation, and the rules change. Ask us before you act on it.

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