Finnish Translation

A document from Finland may not be in Finnish. The country has two official languages, and municipalities issue documents according to their own language status.

4 min readLast updated 2 September 2026

Short answer

Finland has two official languages, Finnish and Swedish. Whichever your document is in determines which oath record the translator needs. Because Finland is a party to the Convention, the apostille chain is valid.

Official languages: Finnish and Swedish
Grammatical cases: Fifteen
Surnames: Decline within a sentence
Apostille: Finland and Türkiye are both parties

Is your document in Finnish or Swedish?

Finland has two official languages, and this is directly visible on documents. Municipalities are classified as monolingual Finnish, monolingual Swedish or bilingual according to their population. A bilingual municipality may issue in either language; a monolingual one issues only in its own.

What determines the language of the document
Situation	Document language	Consequence for translation
Monolingual Finnish municipality	Finnish	A Finnish oath record is required
Monolingual Swedish municipality	Swedish	A Swedish oath record is required
Bilingual municipality	Either	Determined by looking at the document
The Åland Islands	Swedish	A Swedish oath record is required

What determines the language of the document

Surnames decline too

Finnish applies case endings to proper nouns as well. On a document, one person's surname can appear in several forms according to its function in the sentence. A reader without the language takes them for two different surnames.

The same surname across cases
Case	Finnish	What it expresses
Nominative	Virtanen	Who
Genitive	Virtasen	Whose
Allative	Virtaselle	To whom
Adessive	Virtasella	With whom
Ablative	Virtaselta	From whom

The same surname across cases

Note that the stem changes too (Virtanen → Virtase-). The ending is not simply appended; the body of the word transforms. In translation all these forms are reduced to a single nominative and used consistently, otherwise an institution reading in another language sees five surnames.

Fifteen cases and no prepositions

Finnish has fifteen cases, and relations expressed by prepositions in other languages are carried by endings. Much of a sentence's meaning therefore sits in its suffixes, and misreading one can reverse a relationship.

Cases that make a difference in legal texts
Case	Example	Meaning
Elative	talosta	Out of the house
Ablative	talolta	From beside the house
Illative	taloon	Into the house
Allative	talolle	To the house

Cases that make a difference in legal texts

grammatical cases in Finnish: 15grammatical cases in Finnish
official languages in Finland: 2official languages in Finland
grammatical gender and future tense: 0grammatical gender and future tense

Finnish documents and how we render them

Frequently seen documents
Document	What it is	Our approach
Virkatodistus	Certificate from the population register	May come from a church or the registry authority; the source is stated
Rikosrekisteriote	Extract from the criminal record	Its scope varies with the purpose applied for
Tutkintotodistus	Degree certificate	The scale may be 0–5 or 4–10; it is stated
Työtodistus	Certificate of employment	Issued by the employer; states duration and duties
Oleskelulupa	Residence permit	Its type and duration are always stated

Frequently seen documents

Frequently asked questions

My document is from Finland but in Swedish. Which translator do I need?

One with a Swedish oath record. Although issued in Finland, the document is in Swedish. Because its administrative terms belong to the Finnish system, the translator needs to know that too, so tell us which country it comes from.

My surname appears in different forms on the document. Is that an error?

No. Finnish applies case endings to proper nouns and the stem can change. Virtanen, Virtasen and Virtaselle are one surname. In translation we reduce them to a single nominative form and use it consistently.

Is an apostille enough for a document going to Finland?

Yes. Finland is a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, so sworn translation, notarisation and an apostille are valid. Because Finland has its own arrangements for authorised translators, we suggest confirming with the receiving institution.

Is Finnish similar to Hungarian? Can one translator handle both?

Both belong to the Uralic family, but the relationship is very distant; their vocabularies are almost entirely separate and there is no mutual intelligibility. A translator who knows Hungarian cannot read a Finnish document. Separate languages, separate oath records.