Remember to update your personal data 

If you are a Finnish citizen and live abroad, you are obliged to update your personal data. Inform any changes to the Finnish Population Information System maintained by the Digital and Population System Services(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window). Such data include information concerning, among other things, marriage, birth of a child and home address. You can submit the notification either to the Local Register Office of your most recent municipality of residence or the Finnish mission nearest to you in your current country of residence. 

Information based on a foreign document can be entered in the Population Register System after an Apostille Certificate has been acquired for the document (for example birth, marriage or death certificate) or the document has been otherwise legalised. You can acquire an Apostille Certificate in a State that has acceded to the so-called Hague Apostille Convention(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window) by contacting the designated Apostille authority in that State.

If the state has not acceded the Hague Apostille Convention, the foreign document must be legalised. To get a document legalised means that you get the required stamps from both the Foreign Ministry of the country that has issued the document and, after that, from the Finnish mission in that country.

As the certificate has normally been prepared in the language of the country issuing it, it must be translated by an authorised translator either into Finnish, Swedish or English. Translations that have been made abroad must be legalised.

More information on the website of the Digital and Population Service System – Instructions on relaying information about expatriate Finns(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window).

Check your personal data

You can check what data about you has been filed in the Population Register System(Link to another website.) (Opens New Window). If necessary, you can ask that incorrect entries be corrected.

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