Everyday practical information for Finland

Sauna

There are more saunas than cars in Finland. Being invited to one is ordinary hospitality, and declining is odd rather than rude.

• You go in naked in a single-sex sauna, including a public one. Swimwear is for mixed public saunas and hotel pools.
• You wash before you go in, properly, with soap.
• Sit on a towel or a small paper mat. Every sauna provides them.
• Throwing water on the stones is loyly, and you ask before you do it. Someone on the top bench is getting far more heat than you are.
• It is not a competition and there is no minimum time. Go out when you want to, cool off, go back in.
• The lake, the sea or the snow afterwards is the point. So is being quiet in there.

Alcohol

• Ordinary shops sell fermented drinks up to 8.0 percent - beer, cider, most long drinks - since the law changed on 10 June 2024. Distilled drinks are capped at 5.5 percent in shops.
• Anything stronger is sold only by Alko, the state monopoly, which has its own shops and its own hours.
• Alko closes early, at 21:00 on weekdays and 18:00 on Saturdays, and most branches are shut on Sundays. Friday evening after work is the classic mistake.
• Shops stop selling alcohol at 21:00 every day, and start at 09:00.
• The buying age is 18 for beer and wine, 20 for spirits. Identification is asked for routinely.

Manners

• Silence is comfortable here. A lull in conversation is not a problem to be solved, and small talk with strangers is not expected.
• Personal space is generous. The bus stop queue standing two metres apart is not avoiding you.
• Shoes come off at the door of any home, without being asked.
• Punctuality is taken seriously. Being 10 minutes late to a private arrangement requires a message.
• Queue by ticket. Pharmacies, post offices, shops and public offices all have a numbered ticket machine, and there is no visible queue to join.

Practical odds and ends

• Plugs are the European two-pin type F at 230 V, 50 Hz.
• Tap water is drinkable everywhere, including in Lapland.
• Recycling deposits are on almost every bottle and can, from EUR 0.10 to EUR 0.40, refunded by machines at supermarket entrances.
• Sunday closing is real outside the cities, and midsummer weekend closes almost everything in the country.
• English is spoken to a very high standard by nearly everyone under 60. Learning kiitos, thank you, is still worth doing.