Municipal elections will take place on Sunday 13 April 2025.
Advance voting in Finland takes place 2–8 April and advance voting abroad takes place 2–5 April 2025.
According to Finland’s Local Government Act, municipal councils exercise the highest decision-making power in the country’s municipalities. Voters in the municipal elections elect city councillors and deputy councillors to serve a four-year term on the city council. In Helsinki, 85 councillors are elected to the Helsinki City Council, along with deputies for the councillors. The councillors operate from council groups.
The Helsinki City Council is responsible for the operations and finances of Helsinki, in addition to making decisions on shared city matters. Among other things, the council determines the city’s strategy and budget, which set the city’s operational objectives and distribute money to the city’s various functions. The council also makes decisions on the city’s municipal enterprises, including their composition and authority.
In municipal elections, residents that are eligible to vote can cast a ballot for candidates that are up for election in their city.
Unlike in other parts of Finland, the Helsinki City Council decides on the organisation and provision of health, social and rescue services. For this reason, elections for representatives to county councils are not organised in Helsinki. Voters residing outside Helsinki can, however, cast their ballot in their respective county elections at Helsinki’s general advance vote polling stations in concert with their municipal election vote.
On election day 13 April, eligible voters can only vote in their voting district’s official polling station. During the advance voting period, eligible voters can cast an advance vote at any time at any advance voting polling station. There are 35 general advance voting polling stations in Helsinki. At the polling station, voters must always present a valid form of ID before casting a vote.
Find more information on the municipal elections on the Ministry of Justice’s elections website Vaalit.fi(Link leads to external service)
Schedule for the municipal elections
- Date for collecting data for the voting register (determining the wellbeing services county and municipality in which each person has the right to vote): Friday 21 February 2025
- Registration for at-home voting ends: Tuesday 1 April 2025 at 16.00
- Advance voting in Finland: Wednesday 2 April to Tuesday 8 April 2025
- Advance voting abroad: Wednesday 2 April to Saturday 5 April 2025
- Election day voting: Sunday 13 April 2025, 9.00–20.00
- Election results confirmed: Wednesday 16 April 2025, at a meeting of the Helsinki Municipal Election Central Committee that begins at 18.00.
Right to vote
The right to vote in municipal elections is determined by the municipality of residence of the person in question.
A person who has reached the age of 18 no later than 13 April 2025 has the right to vote in the Helsinki municipal elections if the person is:
- A citizen of Finland, another EU Member State, or Norway or Iceland whose municipality of residence on 21 February 2025, 51 days before election day, is Helsinki, or
- A citizen of another country whose municipality of residence on 21 February 2025, 51 days before election day, is Helsinki and who has had municipality of residence on that date in Finland for an uninterrupted period of at least two years, or
- employed by the EU or an international organisation operating in Finland and their place of residence is in Helsinki on 21 February 2025, 51 days before election day, provided that their personal data has been entered in the Population Information System at their request and that the person has submitted a written notification to the Digital and Population Data Services Agency, stating that they wish to exercise their right to vote in the municipal elections, no later than 20 February 2025, 52 days before election day.
Each eligible voter is sent a notification of the right to vote (polling card), either electronically via the online Suomi.fi service or by post. This notification of the right to vote (polling card) is dispatched at the latest on 20 March 2025.
Residents of Helsinki are not eligible to vote in Finland’s county elections because Helsinki does not organise county elections.
Find more information on the right to vote on the elections website of the Ministry of Justice Vaalit.fi:Right to vote in county and municipal elections(Link leads to external service)