Obtaining a Finnish Passports Abroad

The Min­istry of For­eign Affairs of Fin­land now has an oper­a­tional portable pass­port sys­tem that will first be avail­able at the Finnish Embassy in Ottawa, then it will travel to the Finnish Con­sulate in Van­cou­ver and lastly to the Con­sulate in Toronto.

The portable pass­port sys­tem will be avail­able in Van­cou­ver this fall, towards the end of Sep­tem­ber or early Octo­ber. The date will be con­firmed early August on the embassy web site www.finland.ca and in the Finnish news­pa­pers in Canada.

Instruc­tions

The appli­ca­tion process is vir­tu­ally the same as at the Embassy in Ottawa.

A pass­port appli­ca­tion form is no longer in use. The pass­port sys­tem gen­er­ates the appli­ca­tion and with the portable sys­tem the photo will be taken as part of the appli­ca­tion process (this is dif­fer­ent from the process at the Embassy in Ottawa, where the appli­cant pro­vides a pho­to­graph). The appli­cant signs on an elec­tronic tablet, and a fin­ger­print scan is taken. As the fee is set in euros, it may chance with exchange rate fluc­tu­a­tion. Valid fees are posted in the Ser­vices sec­tion of the Embassy web­site ($137.00 in May 2010).

The appli­ca­tion can only be processed if the applicant’s per­sonal data (name, date and place of birth) in the Finnish pop­u­la­tion reg­is­ter is up-to-date (fur­ther infor­ma­tion: www.vaestorekisterikeskus.fi or www.maistraatti.fi). For exam­ple name changes due to a mar­riage or divorce can­not be processed in the pass­port sys­tem. These have to be updated in the pop­u­la­tion reg­is­ter ahead of time. Also, chil­dren born out­side of Fin­land can­not be issued a Finnish pass­port until their birth and cit­i­zen­ship details are entered into the Finnish pop­u­la­tion register.

Future use of the portable pass­port sys­tem in Canada

The Embassy will inform the Finnish com­mu­nity of the cir­cu­la­tion of the portable pass­port sys­tem at suit­able venues within the Finnish Com­mu­nity via press releases and on the Embassy web­site. The costs involved in bring­ing the portable pass­port sys­tem to events and cities within Canada will cre­ate con­straints on avail­abil­ity. There­fore, the portable sys­tem might be in a spe­cific area only for few days in any given year.

Pass­port appli­ca­tions can be made in Fin­land at the local police sta­tion. The pass­port can be for­warded to the Embassy in Ottawa (by request) if it can­not be issued by the end of the stay in Fin­land. In fact, a pass­port appli­ca­tion can be made at any pass­port issu­ing point in the world and the pass­port for­warded to Canada. Check the For­eign Min­istry web site www.formin.fi for loca­tions and con­tact infor­ma­tion for Finnish mis­sions. The Embassy in Ottawa will then make arrange­ments to for­ward the pass­port to the appli­cant, who should get in touch with the embassy upon return to Canada with their con­tact infor­ma­tion. A pre-paid courier or Canada Post Xpress enve­lope must be pro­vided by the applicant.

Con­tact for the media: Embassy of Fin­land, Head of Con­sular Affairs Tanja Neu­vo­nen,
tel. (613) 288 22 40, Email