Customs and daily life

Daily life

• Languages: Swedish dominates on the west and south coasts; municipalities are monolingual or bilingual, and in a bilingual municipality you can use Swedish with municipal services. Depending on the sector, the employer often requires Finnish or Swedish, but English is enough in some fields (IT, industry, international companies).
• Informal address and greetings: people use first names, even between strangers and colleagues; the formal form of address is reserved for very formal occasions and, out of politeness, for older people. Handshake in formal situations, cheek-kissing is not common; people look you in the eye.
• Conversation: direct and sincere; people expect what you really say. You do not interrupt, you do not speak loudly in public, people show little emotion.
• Personal space: you do not drop in on someone without warning, even between friends. You take off your shoes when entering a home.
• Early meals: lunch around 11:00-12:00 at work and at school, dinner around 17:00. Children eat free at school.
• Alcohol: expensive; lighter drinks are sold in supermarkets, strong spirits only in the State-owned Alko shops. Drink-driving is severely punished.
• Tipping: not expected; you can leave one for particularly good service.
• Payment: cards are accepted almost everywhere; cash is rarely needed.
• Sauna: often weekly; you shower beforehand, sit on a towel, stay calm. In swimming pools, you enter the sauna naked (a towel is allowed) and saunas are separate for women and men; in many mixed saunas, swimwear is accepted. Nudity in the sauna has nothing sexual about it. More than three million saunas in the country.
• Nature and jokamiehenoikeudet (everyone's rights): you can walk, ski, cycle, camp temporarily at a good distance from houses, pick unprotected berries and mushrooms, fish with a rod. Forbidden: crossing gardens and crops, damaging living trees, collecting dead wood, lighting fires without permission, leaving waste, driving off-road, hunting.
• Winter: dress warmly; on ice, it must be at least 10 cm thick to walk on. InfoFinland recommends a vitamin D supplement, because winter is dark, unless you regularly eat fish or fortified foods; all year round for children aged 17 and under.
• Work: little hierarchy, autonomy, punctuality. Normal day of 8 hours, 40 hours a week at most as a general rule, little overtime, lunch break of at least 30 minutes once you work 6 hours. You do not do your personal errands during working hours.
• Religion: about 60% of inhabitants are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church; it and the Orthodox Church can levy a tax on their members (see FI-IMPOTS-TOUS-001).

Public holidays and festivals

• Christmas and Easter are public holidays (Christmas Eve on 24 December is the main moment of Christmas; at Easter, Good Friday and Easter Monday): many shops and offices close. Epiphany (loppiainen, 6 January) and Ascension Day (helatorstai, 39 days after Easter) are also paid public holidays, according to the University of Helsinki almanac.
• Vappu (1 May): festival of spring and labour, picnics, doughnuts and sima.
• Juhannus (St John's Day, end of June): many Finns head off to their holiday homes, bonfires.
• Itsenäisyyspäivä (independence day, 6 December): independence of 1917, presidential reception watched on television.
• All Saints' Day (early November): a quiet day of remembrance, candles on graves.
• List of paid public holidays (University of Helsinki almanac, which keeps the official calendar): 1 January, Epiphany (6 January), Good Friday, Easter, Easter Monday, 1 May, Ascension Day, All Saints' Day (the Saturday between 31 October and 6 November: 31 October in 2026), independence day (6 December), Christmas and 26 December. Pentecost (a Sunday) and St John's Day (juhannuspäivä, the Saturday between 20 and 26 June) are festivals, but always fall at the weekend. St John's Eve (juhannusaatto, the Friday) and 24 December are not public holidays by law, but many collective agreements make them paid days off: most people do not work.

Sorting, waste and deposit refunds

• Sorting at home: biowaste, paper, cardboard, glass, metal, plastic, mixed waste; hazardous waste, batteries and electrical appliances in collection points. The instructions vary a little by municipality; you find them near the containers.
• Deposit (pantti): take bottles and cans back to the machines in supermarkets, with the cap on; you get money back for most of them. More than 90% of drinks packaging is returned.
• Forbidden: using the containers of another housing company or putting your business's waste in them.

Emergencies

• 112 for any emergency (life, health, property, environment), free from any phone, answered in Finnish, Swedish and English (interpreter possible). The 112 Suomi app transmits your location.
• Poison Information Centre: (09) 471 977, 24 hours a day.
• Urgent care: everyone is treated; without a municipality of residence or entitlement to care through work, the costs may be billed to you afterwards.

Common pitfalls

• Arriving "just a little" late. At the doctor's, at the administration or at work, a few minutes matter: arrive before the time.
• Filling the silences. No need: silence is natural.
• Calling 112 for a non-urgent question. An abusive call can be penalised; for a permit or information, call the police on their usual numbers.
• Leaving the apartment sauna switched on unattended. Fire risk: if you are not using it, remove the stove's fuse.
• Taking everyone's rights for total freedom. No fires, no camping near houses, stricter rules in national parks.

What changes by country of origin

• Coming from Southern Europe or France: expect no cheek-kissing, general informal address and very early meals; timetables and punctuality often take time to get used to.
• Nordic people and Estonians: similar social codes; Swedish speakers can live in Swedish in bilingual municipalities.
• Åland Islands: Swedish is the only official language of the archipelago, which has its own parliament and its own rules (regional right of domicile, hembygdsrätt).