The Finnish tax card, line by line
What the withholding rate, income limit and additional rate on your 2026 tax card (verokortti) mean, and how Vero arrives at them.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Calculation method
A Finnish tax card (verokortti) gives your employer three numbers: a withholding rate (veroprosentti), an income limit (tuloraja) and an additional rate (lisäprosentti). In 2026 someone in Tampere earning €42,000 a year, outside the church, gets a withholding rate of 16.5% and an additional rate of 42.0%. Every payday the base rate applies until your earnings for the calendar year reach the income limit; anything above it is withheld at the additional rate. Vero, the Finnish Tax Administration, builds the automatic 2026 card from your last completed tax assessment and raises the wages it found there by 6.5 %. With no Finnish wage history, or wages of €15,000 or less, the card is computed on a default income of €15,000. Rates are rounded up to the next half point and can never exceed 60%. The card runs for the whole year unless you order a new one in MyTax (OmaVero). Your pension and unemployment insurance contributions are deducted on top of the card rate.
Tax card rate from annual income
Withholding rate
13.0 %
| Income limit | €40,000 |
| Tax per year | €5,156 |
| Exact tax rate | 12.89 % |
Three numbers, one card
Your payslip usually shows a single percentage, yet the card itself holds two rates and a euro amount. Think of the income limit as a budget: while your cumulative 2026 pay stays below it, payroll uses the base rate. The moment a payment takes you past it, the slice above the limit is withheld at the additional rate. That rate sits at least two points above the base rate, because Finnish state tax is progressive and the last euros you earn are taxed hardest.
| Annual income (limit) | Base rate | Additional rate | Tax for the year |
|---|---|---|---|
| €30,000 | 10.0% | 38.0% | €2,872 |
| €42,000 | 16.5% | 42.0% | €6,741 |
| €60,000 | 23.5% | 50.0% | €13,944 |
The additional rates look steep because they come from a separate Vero scale, with your municipal rate and health insurance contributions added on top. If your limit is accurate, the additional rate is never used. Its job is to stop unexpected extra income from being under-withheld. The page on the income limit and additional rate works through what happens when you go over.
Where Vero gets your numbers
The card that arrives automatically for January cannot know your 2026 pay. It is built from your most recent completed assessment or a correction to it, or from any change you made to your card during the previous year. Confirmed wages are scaled up by 6.5%. Confirmed pay of €37,000 turns into a base of €39,405, which in Tampere produces a 15.0% rate and a 42.0% additional rate.
One-off income is stripped out first. Vero’s decision lists share rewards, employee stock options, payouts from a personnel fund and timber sales among the items not expected to recur. The figures your own card rests on are shown in MyTax on the prepayment decision (ennakkoperinnän päätös). If a large bonus from last year is missing, fine; if a one-off sale has slipped in, correct the card in January rather than waiting for a refund.
Some deductions are built in: the automatic €750 work-expense deduction, last year’s commuting costs above €900, the basic deduction and the earned income tax credit. Trade union and unemployment fund (kassa) fees are ignored at withholding stage even though they reduce your final tax, so union members are usually withheld a little too much.
The default card for newcomers
Most people who move to Finland for work have no Finnish wages on file. If income Vero can take into account is €15,000 or less, the card is calculated on a default wage of €15,000 for anyone aged 21 to 65, or €10,000 for younger workers who have had some pay. At that level the deductions wipe out most of the tax, so the base rate is tiny: 0.0% in Tampere, with an additional rate of 28.5%.
Now picture a software developer on €42,000 a year using that default card. The first €15,000 is withheld at the base rate, the remaining €27,000 at the additional rate, for roughly €7,695 withheld across the year. The real tax bill is €6,741, so €954 comes back only after the assessment the following year. With an accurate estimate the card would read 16.5% with a €42,000 limit, and the money stays in your monthly pay.
Rounding and the ceiling
Vero divides your total taxes and contributions by your income and rounds the result up to the next half percent. The Tampere example above has an exact tax ratio of 16.05%, printed on the card as 16.5%. That rounding alone explains why most employees get a small refund in a year where nothing changed. No card rate, base or additional, can exceed 60.0%.
What the percentage covers
- state income tax on the progressive scale, reduced by the earned income credit
- municipal tax at your home municipality’s rate, plus church tax if you are a member
- the health care contribution of 1.10% and the daily allowance contribution of 0.88% once wages reach €17,255
- the Yle public broadcasting tax, capped at €160
Outside the card rate are your pension contribution of 7.30% and unemployment insurance of 0.89%. Payroll takes them separately, which is why total deductions on a Finnish payslip are always higher than the rate on the card.
When the card stops fitting
A raise, a second job, a gap between contracts or parental leave all change your annual income, and the automatic card falls out of step. You can order a new card in MyTax at any point in the year; the new rate accounts for what has already been paid and withheld. A mid-year example is on the revised tax card page, and the tax rate calculator gives you the figure to enter. Whatever difference remains is settled through a tax refund or residual tax.
Sources: Finnish Tax Administration decision on the 2026 withholding calculation rules for wages (20 Nov 2025); vero.fi: 2026 tax bases (health insurance contributions, Yle tax); vero.fi: Tax card (English).