Sort out your debt situation

‍Debts include loans taken out from banks and other credit institutions, hire purchase agreements and other consumer credits. Any outstanding amount on your credit card is also a debt. Bills turn into debt when their due date has passed. Even if no debt is being collected at the moment, you may still have some debt left.

Your debts may be dealt with by different operators depending on the stage of collection. Sometimes the same debt can be dealt with by more than one operator at the same time. The date of judgment of the district court, the case number of the debt and the name of the creditor or collection agency may help you determine whether two statements are for the same debt. The amount of the debt may vary from one debt balance statement to another, as different costs may have incurred on the debt at different stages.

Find out about your debt situation

You can check any outstanding debts you have in the Positive Credit Register maintained by the Finnish Tax Administration. The register contains the consumer credits in your name (housing and car loans and consumer credits) and the guarantees you have provided. The objective of a Positive Credit Register is to prevent over-indebtedness and improve the management of one's own finances.

• You can log in to the Positive Credit Register using strong identification. 
• The information entered in the Positive Credit Register can also be requested by filling in a paper form and sending it to the Tax Administration. The form and instructions on filling in the form can be found at Tax Administration's site .

You can find information about other debts, for example at:

• A Register of Fines maintained by the Legal Register Centre.
• You can check the sum of your tax debts in the MyTax e-service.
• You can find out the sum of debts being charged by Kela in the OmaKela e-service.

Unpaid invoices become a debt after the due date, but this information cannot be found in the positive credit information register. For more information about invoices, see your bank statements or contact the invoicer.

• The largest debt collection agencies have e-services in which you can log into and check your debt situation. You can request that debt collection agencies send balance statements on any debts.
• If your debts have been transferred to enforcement, you can find the information sheet for debtors on enforcement in the National Enforcement Authority Finland's e-service. The information sheet contains information about your debts that are subject to enforcement and the debts that the enforcement authorities have returned to the creditor. Please note that the same debt may appear on the information sheet more than once.

The financial and debt counselling services will help you find out the total amount of your debts.

Making a list of debts helps in moving forward

To understand your overall situation, you can e.g. list your various debts on paper. For example, add the name of the creditor, the amount of the debt, information for identifying the debt, the actual annual interest rate and the monthly instalment.

You can use our free tool to help you list your debts. 

The most important thing is to get an overall picture of your debt situation. Once you have a grasp of the overall picture, you can consider different options for your situation.

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Financial self-help ‍