FinlandDigi- ja väestötietovirasto (DVV)
Suomi.fi messages kept five years; deletion starts January 2027
Messages older than five years leave the service automatically from January 2027; holders must save what they need, and organisations' own retention duties stand unchanged.
By Taxxa AI OyPublished 12 November 2026
Industry: Across industries
Individuals, companies and public-administration organisations using Suomi.fi-viestit keep their messages in the service for five years from arrivalDVV. Early in 2027 the service introduces a statutory five-year retention period
DVV: once five years have passed since a message arrived, it leaves the service automatically
DVV.
The clean-up starts with the oldest mail. Messages already older than five years start disappearing automatically in January 2027DVV, and after that each message is removed as its own five-year period expires. In December 2026 the mailbox marks messages that are about to be deleted so holders can find them easily, and users who still hold messages older than five years are informed separately. Later the mailbox will show in one place which messages will be deleted over the coming months.
Anyone who wants to keep a received or sent message beyond five years must save or print it before it is deletedDVV; saving guidance is published on suomi.fi. Messages arriving in the service can include decisions, invoices, appointment details, requests for clarification and other information requiring attention. Anyone using the service on a shared computer, for example in a library, should not save messages on that machine but print them or save them only on a personal storage device such as a USB stick or personal cloud storage. Anyone who does not want to keep old messages need do nothing. Where a single decision carries a retention period longer than five years, the authority that sent it keeps the decision in its own systems after it leaves Suomi.fi-viestit, and holders can ask that authority for it.
For organisations the service retention changes nothing about their own statutory retention duties.DVV Different documents and matter groups in public-administration organisations can carry different retention periods, and organisations must make sure their own systems, records-management practices and service processes meet those requirements even after a message has left Suomi.fi-viestit
DVV. Where a message carries a retention period longer than five years, the sending organisation remains responsible for keeping it under its own records-management duties.
DVV Organisations should also prepare for contacts from citizens: after the change, citizens can ask the sending organisation for an old decision that has already left the service, so customer service, the registry and other units handling matters must be able to answer such contacts, and internal processes must support finding and delivering the documents once they are no longer available in Suomi.fi-viestit. Digi- ja väestötietovirasto is informing every individual using the service about the change and instructing them to save or print important messages before they disappear.
Legal basis: Digi- ja väestötietovirasto's two Suomi.fi-viestit retention notices, setting a five-year retention from arrivalDVV with automatic deletion starting in January 2027
DVV.
Save or print business-critical messages older than five years from Suomi.fi-viestit before January 2027, and keep longer-retained records in your own systems too.