With the retrieval of tax cards, i.e., the retrieval of withholding tax information, the employer can electronically request the current tax card information of employees directly from the Tax Administration via an interface. This avoids the separate delivery of tax cards to payroll and their manual entry. The retrieval can be used throughout the year for both basic tax cards and change tax cards. Only tax cards for salary can be retrieved. The retrieval is done with the same Tax Administration certificate used for sending Income Register notifications. It is possible to prevent retrieval for certain employees.

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Withholding tax information is retrieved from the Tax cards listing.

You can open the view by selecting Pay > Personnel > Employee listing > Tax cards


Retrieving tax cards

The retrieval of tax cards fetches the employee's tax card for salary information, which is valid on the employee's next salary payment date. The employee's tax cards are automatically updated according to the received material.

How to perform the retrieval:

  1. Select employees or salary model by clicking the checkbox in front of the name.

  1. Start the retrieval by clicking the “Retrieve tax cards” button.

  1. Check that the “Retrieval from tax authority” column status changes to “Retrieval in progress“.

  1. When the retrieval is complete, you will see the retrieval status and date in the “Retrieval from tax authority” column. Additionally, the tax card information is updated in the Tax cards view if changes have been made to them.

The retrieval usually completes within a few seconds. If the “Retrieval in progress” status remains visible for a longer time, you can continue with other tasks and return later to check the retrieval status.


Updating tax cards

The withholding tax information obtained from the retrieval is compared to the employee's existing tax cards.

  1. If a new tax card is obtained in the retrieval, it is saved in the employee's information, and the previous tax card is terminated the day before the new tax card's start date. 
  2. If identical tax card information is obtained in the retrieval, which is already found in the employee's information, no changes are made to the tax cards.
  3. If manual changes have been made to the employee's tax card (e.g., increased basic percentage) and the original information of the same tax card is obtained in the retrieval, the information obtained in the retrieval is updated as the employee's tax card. Note! Manually made changes to the tax card are overridden according to the received information.

Retrieval status

After the retrieval is completed, the retrieval status appears in the “Retrieval from tax authority” column for each employee row. The status can be “Retrieved” or “Retrieval failed”. The retrieval date is displayed after the status.

  1. Retrieved status means that the information retrieval was successful and the tax card information has been updated if necessary. The retrieval may have obtained new change tax card information or the employee's current tax card information. Withholding tax information is not retrieved if the tax card for salary has not been formed by the tax authority.
  2. Retrieval failed  status is due to either an error in the retrieval material (e.g., due to an incorrect personal identity code) or the Tax Administration's service not responding to the retrieval request. If the Tax Administration's service does not respond, the retrieval is automatically retried several times, during which the retrieval status is displayed as “Retrieval in progress”.

Preventing retrieval

Manual prevention of retrieval

Prevent the retrieval of tax cards for an individual employee if you do not want their tax card for salary information to be automatically updated. Such tax cards include those with Maritime income, Limited tax liability, or Tax-at-source card.

You can prevent the retrieval from the menu that opens from the three dots at the end of the employee row:


Note that an orange warning triangle appears on the employee row if the employee has a tax card other than the tax card for salary and the retrieval has not been manually prevented.

Automatic prevention of retrieval

In the Tax cards view, there may also be employees for whom the retrieval of withholding tax information is automatically prevented.

  1. Such employees include companies and foreign employees who do not have a Finnish personal identity code.
  2. For such employees, the “Retrieval prevented” information opens additional information “The employee does not have a Finnish personal identity code”.

Note that without a Finnish personal identity code, tax card information cannot be retrieved via the interface. These employees must deliver the tax card themselves for payroll purposes, and the tax cards must be manually entered.

Retrieving tax cards on a specified date

See Community update: Retrieving tax cards effective from 1.2.2023


The tax card retrieval has a function that allows you to retrieve tax cards for a selected payment date. Proceed as follows:

  1. First, select the employees.
  2. After selection, the "Retrieve tax cards" button appears in the lower right corner of the view.
  3. Click the button. This opens a new window where you can retrieve tax cards using a date search (see image below).


Remember that the retrieval of tax cards only concerns tax cards for salary, so Tax at source, Maritime income, and Limited tax liability tax cards must still be delivered to payroll by the employee and the tax cards must be manually entered.

Access rights

The Tax cards view requires the Payroll accountant (P) role or Auditor (TT) role. From the payroll-specific rights, edit rights are required for Personal register > Tax card management.

Frequently asked questions

Why does retrieving tax cards take time or show delays?

Starting the retrieval of tax cards creates a retrieval request. Delays may occur in retrievals if multiple requests are made simultaneously. A "queue" is formed from the created requests, which is processed in order, one request at a time. A delay of a few hours may be possible during peak times. If the retrieval is not completed on the same day, contact support.

What is the scheduling of tax card retrieval and what benefit does it provide to the payroll accountant?

In the Tax cards view, it is possible to set a schedule for retrieving employees' tax cards. The schedule defines when the tax cards are to be retrieved so that the withholding tax information is ready and retrieved when the payroll accountant wants to start the payroll process. The retrieval takes place the night before the retrieval day, so the tax cards are ready for payroll the next day.

You can enable the scheduling through the "Scheduling settings" button in the Tax cards view. The scheduling is salary model-specific, as payment dates may vary by salary model.

Article keywords:

Tax cards, Retrieval, Withholding tax information, Employee, Tax Administration, Interface, Salary income, Change tax card, Preventing retrieval, Access rights, Payroll, Tax card scheduling


This article has been translated using an AI-based translation tool. The contents or wording of these instructions may differ from those in other instructions or in the software.


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