In 2025, municipal Helsinki will spend €3.2 billion on organising services and €985 million on investments towards the growing city. In this article, we will share some of the spending targets in Helsinki’s budget for 2025.
In the budget for 2025, Helsinki will continue its policy of responsible financial management, investing particularly in children and young adults, key services and the prevention of segregation. In the 2025 budget, resources will also be channelled to areas such as arts and culture grants, winter maintenance of streets and measures to make the city centre more pleasant.
On 4 December, Mayor Juhana Vartiainen hosted an economic evening for city residents. In his opening statement, Mayor Vartiainen focused on the many reasons for why Helsinki’s finances and budget are important. Helsinki’s share of Finland’s gross domestic product is 20 per cent.
“Helsinki grows and invests in itself. We build houses, bridges, infrastructure and schools. This is not something we would do if we didn’t believe in the growth forecasts and in that Helsinki will grow to be bigger in the future,” said the Mayor.
Listen to the Mayor’s opening statement here.(Link leads to external service)
The recording of the economic evening is subtitled in English, Finnish and Swedish.
After the reform of the Social Services, Health Care and Rescue Services Division, it is necessary to separate the social services, health care and rescue services, which is state-funded, from the rest of the city. In the budget, the entity that comprises the city’s other divisions is called municipal Helsinki. In 2025, the municipal tax rate of this ‘municipal Helsinki is 5.3 per cent, remaining unchanged from 2024. On the national level, municipal Helsinki has a fairly low tax rate. Helsinki funds its municipal services with taxes, state subsidies, and through other income, such as land leases.
The budget is a guiding tool for the city’s operations and finances that is prepared every year. Preparing the budget is a long, multi-stage process in Helsinki. The final budget for 2025 was approved by the City Council in late November.
Municipal Helsinki spends 72 per cent of its 2025 budget on organising services such as education, training, culture and physical education, as well as on maintenance of its roads and environment. In 2025, all of the City of Helsinki’s divisions are receiving increased appropriations.
City Manager Jukka-Pekka Ujula says that the budget ensures functional services for the residents as well as significant investments.
Listen to what Jukka-Pekka Ujula’s had to say here.(Link leads to external service)
According to the city strategy, Helsinki wants to be a green and attractive city. Helsinki does its part in reducing emissions and improving energy efficiency. According to the Head of the Urban Environment Division, Ville Lehmuskoski, the most significant measure to reduce emissions in 2025 is that the wholly city-run energy company, Helen, is shutting down its last coal power plant in spring 2025. To provide a boost in its greenery and attractiveness, Helsinki will continue to establish new nature reserves in 2025. There are also plans for new parks and playgrounds. In summer 2025, Kallio will see new summer street trials, which has been specifically requested by the local residents.
In 2025, Helsinki is introducing a stream caretaker. This is a completely new task.
Lehmuskoski also talks about winter maintenance, which is also receiving a larger appropriation in this budget.
There are tens of thousands of children and young adults in Helsinki’s daycare centres, schools and educational institutes. Head of the Education Division Satu Järvenkallas says that Helsinki is focusing significantly more effort in its daycare centres, schools and educational institutes in 2025. The Education Division is receiving a further appropriation of €93 million, i.e. over six per cent more compared to 2024.
Personnel are the largest expense item for the Education Division, taking up significantly over half of the division’s entire appropriations.
“Our personnel is our greatest strength. They are the key for us to provide high-quality education and training,” said Järvenkallas at the economic evening.
In 2025, Helsinki is also spending money on re-introducing printed textbooks at schools.
There are also additional investments into the Culture and Leisure Division in the 2025 budget. Head of the Culture and Leisure Division Juha Ahonen says that 2025 will see an additional of €2.5 million to support the cultural network and operators. Grants for culture have gone up by €4 million in this Council term, which is a significant investment.
In 2025, there are also appropriations for the maintenance of sports facilities. Libraries, in turn, are seen as a service that introduces and facilitates reading to people of all ages. Youth services will be able to hire more youth instructors in 2025 and focus on the Finnish model for leisure activities.
Listen to what Juha Ahonen had to say here.(Link leads to external service)
Helsinki is responsible for health care, social welfare and rescue services, but they are funded by the central government. In other parts of Finland, this responsibility is borne by the larger wellbeing services counties. Director of Health and Substance Abuse Services Leena Turpeinen represented the social services, health care and rescue services at the event and said that Helsinki organises these services for its 650,000 residents on its own because Helsinki is a large enough unit to meet the criteria of the national health and social services reform.
In 2025, Helsinki will not be introducing health station fees. Helsinki is the only municipality in Finland to take this stance.
