Disclosing lobbying activities

Long-term and systematic lobbying that targets Parliament and the ministries is reported to the Transparency Register. A disclosure of activities is submitted twice a year. The lobbying activities carried out between January and June is reported in July–August, and the lobbying activities carried out between July and December is reported in January–February.

Which activities should be disclosed to the Transparency Register?

The following information must be collected for the Finnish Transparency Register:

1. Subject(s) of the lobbying carried out by the organisation.

2. The lobbying targets that have been lobbied in relation to the subject must be added to each subject. The lobbying targets are disclosed at the level of precision indicated on this page.

3. The main method of communication must be selected for each target.

Disclosing the subject

The lobbying activities are disclosed to the Finnish Transparency Register by subject.

You can describe the subject in a free-form manner or by referring to the project number.

The free-form description can have a length of between 50 and 600 characters. Describe the subject, project, legislation, budget or other similar matter targeted by the lobbying. The description should be short and clear but as accurate as possible. In other words, the subject of lobbying is any matter in which the organisation has carried out lobbying. A good subject reveals clearly the issue on which the organisation has lobbied. We recommend to avoid subjects that are too general in nature.

The subject must be disclosed in Finnish or Swedish.

If the lobbying has targeted an official project you can refer to the project using the official Government project number, in which case no free-form description is required.

The Transparency Register is not a meeting journal, which means that you do not need to disclose when and how many times you have met a specific lobbying target.

For the subject, all lobbying targets and the contact methods used must be disclosed. Read more about lobbying targets.

Small-scale lobbying

Small-scale lobbying refers to lobbying activities where the communications during a calendar year include no more than five individual contacts in total with one or more lobbying activities. In practice, the contacts may be directed either five times at the same targets or at different targets. The key point is that there are no more than five contact times in total.

Actors carrying out small-scale lobbying do not need to register with the Finnish Transparency Register. When the activities are no longer small-scale (i.e. when they include more than five contacts during a year), the actor must register with the Finnish Transparency Register.

The five contacts include all contacts made by the entire organisation with all lobbying targets. Thus, small-scale lobbying does not mean that there can be five contacts with each lobbying target, but contacts with all targets are included in the five contacts. A contact is, for example, an individual telephone conversation, meeting or email message. However, an individual contact, such as an email, can have several recipients in different organisations. It is nevertheless considered a single contact.

The scale of the organisation's lobbying activities can vary from year to year. If an organisation has registered with the Finnish Transparency Register and submitted disclosures of its lobbying activities but, during a particular year, has no more than five contacts with lobbying targets, i.e. its activities are small-scale, the subjects of lobbying and lobbying targets do not have to be specified in the Transparency Register. However, the registered organisation must report the scale of its lobbying to the Register in a disclosure of activities.

If the lobbying activities of a registered organisation remain small-scale during a calendar year, it may be useful to estimate whether its lobbying will remain small-scale in the future as well. If the lobbying continues to be small-scale, the organisation can exit the Transparency Register by submitting a deregistration.

Specification regarding the disclosure of small-scale lobbying

Under the Finnish Transparency Register Act, a small-scale actor (up to five contacts per calendar year) is not obliged to disclose the subjects and targets of its lobbying to the Finnish Transparency Register. However, a registered organisation is obliged to report in a disclosure of activities whether it has carried out lobbying.

If the lobbying has been small-scale between January and June, the organisation should report in the disclosure of activities submitted in July–August that it has had no more than five contacts for lobbying purposes.

During the following disclosure period, in January–February, the actor must examine the lobbying activities it carried out during the entire calendar year and report on its scale.

• If there were no more than five contacts during the entire calendar year, the actor discloses that it had up to five contacts for lobbying purposes.

• If the number of contacts during the calendar year exceeded five, the actor must disclose the subjects and targets of its lobbying for the entire year.

Submitting the first disclosure of activities

An actor subject to the disclosure obligation must register no later than on the date on which it starts lobbying or lobbying consultancy.

The first disclosure of activities is submitted during the disclosure period following the registration. For example, if the registration was submitted on 1 September, i.e. in the middle of the reporting period of July–December, the first disclosure of activities is submitted during the disclosure period starting in January of the following year. In this case, the disclosure of activities concerns the period between the date on which the registration was submitted (1 September) and the last day of the reporting period (31 December).

Submitting the disclosure of lobbying and lobbying consultancy activities

Lobbying and lobbying consultancy activities must be disclosed in the service portal of the Finnish Transparency Register. A person with the required authorisation can submit the disclosure of activities on behalf of their organisation. Only registered organisations can submit the disclosure of activities.

Information can only be disclosed during the disclosure periods (in July and August and in January and February). You can edit and supplement the most recent disclosure of activities throughout the disclosure period.

Please note that the form can be completed by only one person at a time.

You can download the user guide here. The guide will also be updated on this website soon.