115 Years of Finnish Trade Register

The Finnish Trade Register started operations on 1 July 1896, the same day the new Act on Joint-stock Companies entered into force.

The Finnish Trade Register is a public register that contains information on traders, i.e. businesses. Businesses have to notify the register of any changes in their registered details, and most of them must also submit their annual accounts.

The initiative to the campaign for the establishment of a trade register in Finland came from the traders’ spokesmen, who wanted to have a centralised national register which would offer reliable, up-to-date information about companies to all business operators.

Another contributory factor was the Paris Convention for the protection of intellectual property, concluded in 1883, where industrial property includes patents, industrial designs, trademarks, and trade names. The 1895 Act on Joint-stock Companies also required that a trade register should be established.

The question of a trade register was discussed at the 1891 parliamentary session, and those supporting the establishment of a centralised, nation-wide trade register claimed that the decisions there would be more uniform, thereby ensuring an impartial processing of matters. In a centralised model, information would also be more readily available for the registration authorities themselves for example in the comparison of trade names.

The Trade Register today

At the end of 2010, the Trade Register contained the details of 500,000 businesses.

Each year the Trade Register registers about 30,000 new businesses, about 80,000 changes to registered company details, and about 140,000 annual accounts.

Trade Register information can be obtained online from the Virre Information Service (www.virre.fi), and the Business Information System (www.ytj.fi), which is jointly maintained by the National Board of Patents and Registration of Finland and the Finnish Tax Administration.

Read more about the Trade Register’s history:

The Trade Register: 115 Years in the Promotion of Business Life in Finland (PDF, 470 kb)