If a wage earner gets fired, then there’s a need for unemployment benefits. If the forest is dominated by young stands, a cash crisis will occur. Not to mention forest land bought with debt. So, the risk of forest ownership increases for the wage earner.
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Forest ownership has already been factored into the previous Labor Market Subsidy; a theoretical annual yield was calculated for my sapling stands as well. Optimizing these Kela benefits is a science of its own—whose name everything is in and who is registered as living where. You can have a billion-euro stock portfolio and the Labor Market Subsidy keeps running, as long as you don’t receive dividend income, etc…
With the introduction of the General Support (yleistuki), it seems that those over 55 will also face problems with forest assets, meaning the policy has tightened.
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That calculated forest growth is indeed an interesting element in, for instance, 24-hour care for the elderly; 85% of it is snatched for the service fee unless a certain service cost level, such as 5,000–6,000 EUR net, is reached.
Interest and dividends are also taken into account after-tax in a similar way. At least those are so-called real future money. But it’s worth shifting those into non-dividend-paying asset forms as well, and I’m not talking about First North here…
So if there is a frail forest owner in your inner circle, it might be timely to carry out some kind of generational transfer.
Additionally, if the forest changes ownership through a sale rather than inheritance (or gift), the forestry deduction (metsävähennys) will cut the tax base for timber sales by 75% starting from 2026. This means capital income tax is paid on only a 25% share.
For inherited forest, you first pay inheritance tax, and then capital income tax on timber sales. It’s double taxation, because the vast majority of a forest’s value—roughly 80%+—is the standing timber.
Summa summarum, there is a specific disadvantage in the tax system for those who do not know or realize it.
Client fees for elderly services | Varha Ikääntyneiden palveluiden asiakasmaksut | Varha
The forestry deduction is a significant tax benefit for forest owners - Forest Management Association Metsävähennys on metsänomistajalle huomattava veroetuus - Metsänhoitoyhdistys
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Not quite that drastic. The income limit for means-testing is 311 euros per month. If the income is higher, half of the income exceeding the limit is deducted from the general benefit.
In the tax authority’s table, the yield is per year. The highest yield is in Kärkölä. There, a forest larger than 17 ha leads to a cut in the general benefit. In Enontekiö, you can own 625 ha before the general benefit is cut.
The general benefit is €37.21/day, and it is paid 5 days a week. On average, it is €800.02/month.
This is the maximum amount without deductions. The benefit is reduced by earned income, capital income (such as forest income), and in certain situations, parents’ income if you live with them. A spouse’s income does not affect it.
If I interpreted correctly, a share in a jointly owned forest (yhteismetsäosuus) would not affect the general benefit, but it would affect service fees (hoitomaksut).
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It’s great that we got a knowledgeable clarification. I shouldn’t spread unnecessary panic, or perhaps it was worth it as it brought the facts to the table.
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LähiTapiola’s jointly owned forest is powering ahead. Apparently, LähiTapiola’s marketing channels and extensive customer base are driving this. It doesn’t seem to matter that the jointly owned forest has high management fees compared to many other large jointly owned forests, plus an exceptional 2.2% entry fee (subscription fee). In other words, you lose 2.2% of your forest assets upon joining. I’m not aware of such a fee existing elsewhere. A familiar and safe choice, but expensive for the shareholder. A bit like their other investment products 
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There are indeed costs involved, but if you want to invest in forest assets diversified across the whole of Finland, what are the options? OP, UB, S-Bank forest funds? Metsänhaltija jointly owned forest?
The costs for forest funds seem to be more than double compared to the Tapiola jointly owned forest. For example, OP has a 3% subscription fee, 1.5% management fee, and a 1% redemption fee. https://www.op.fi/en/private-customers/savings-and-investments/funds/all-funds/op-forest-owner
In Tapiola, there is a 2.2% “subscription” fee, ~0.7% management fee, and no redemption fee. https://core-public.editaprima.fi/lahitapiola/download/5835/10
The Metsänhaltija jointly owned forest seems to be the most affordable of these with a 0.6% management fee. Of course, it is still smaller in size. This is from memory; I couldn’t find a source right now.
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I would forget about forest funds immediately; in those, primarily only the fund company and the portfolio manager get wealthy because the management fee is outrageous. Up to 2% per year.
For example, in jointly owned forests (yhteismetsä) managed by UPM, the management fee has been 0.1–0.2% per year. Sometimes even below 0.1%. I also have forests in one jointly owned forest managed by UPM. The experience has been positive, and the forests are managed very professionally from an investor’s perspective. The price received for sold timber has been high compared to LUKE (Natural Resources Institute Finland) statistics, and there are clear economies of scale in maintenance costs.
UPM’s jointly owned forests are regional, so nationwide diversification is not possible with them. But personally, I considered the risk sufficiently diversified by the fact that Southern/Central Finland is divided into 4 regions, each with its own jointly owned forest.
I don’t know the level of management fees for other jointly owned forests, as I don’t have access to their financial statements.
You can explore jointly owned forests in your area here:
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Have you tried taping off seedling stands to prevent moose from foraging there?
Uittokalusto sells tape for this purpose relatively cheaply. Perhaps a moose doesn’t like to go through it unless the tape is already broken.
You definitely shouldn’t buy that yellow plastic hazardous waste. It’s really tough, yet it still snaps on its own and gets left on the ground or wrapped around trees, and it’s a huge hassle to clean up.
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Right. Uittokalusto’s moose repellent tape is LDPE, i.e., polyethylene. I was wondering what kind of job it would be to collect it afterwards and if it even lasts a single winter. Some people believe that moose won’t enter the area because of it, but it’s somewhat hard to believe.
I only just noticed that the “fiber tapes” used for marking logging boundaries etc., are also polyester/viscose, meaning they aren’t some organic material either, even though I thought they were.
I have experimented quite a bit with yellow moose tape. The largest area was 4 hectares. In that area, the pines mostly survived the moose. But whether the reason was the moose tape, I doubt it. The moose were constantly breaking the tape. I often had to repair the broken sections. There was some browsing of the pines, but fortunately, it was minimal. Whether the situation would have been worse without the moose tape is hard to say. However, the tape did not prevent the moose from passing through; they broke it often. In the best-case scenario, one could think that the tape reduced the traffic to the seedling stand. Collecting the tape afterwards was quite easy to do. Over the years, the tape becomes quite brittle and fragile.
I don’t bother playing around with tapes anymore. Nowadays, I use Trico moose repellent. It seems to work.
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Am I allowed to post a link here?
I’m considering making an offer. Any guesses on where the final price might land? Are these still going for the forest valuation plus an extra twenty percent?
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I’m not really familiar with the northern forest markets. And soon, probably not the southern ones either.
But you shouldn’t pay too much. If you use the value development of shares in the Kuusamo Collectively Managed Forest (Kuusamon Yhteismetsä) as a comparison, they have been declining for 2 years now. The general rise in interest rates seems to have finally hit the market for collectively managed forest shares with a delay of about 2–3 years; forest investors’ yield requirements have risen, and therefore the market value of the share (manttaali) has fallen. See the blue line in the image. (Source: omallamaalla.fi)
The average selling price per share (manttaali) in 2025 was 1,910,000 Euros. The 2025 tax-free distributed surplus was 60,000 Euros. Grossed up with a 30% capital gains tax, the yield is thus (60,000/1,910,000)/0.7 = 4.49%
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Thank you very much for the comment. I was thinking that if the asking price is €65k, the winning bid will likely land somewhere between €70k–80k. It could probably even go over €80k. I don’t think these make any sense in an economic sense yet. I’d be interested in the convenient location and good road access. It would give me a chance to mess around with the saw a bit. It would probably be wisest to wait a while longer, as trends seem to be pointing downwards rather than upwards.
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I went for a drive in the area; it’s easy to get to know the place since a good gravel road runs along the plot. Now the plan is to make a solid offer, as I’m cashing out some profit from AI firms anyway. If I get the plot, the idea is to sell off more than half of it. A hobby plot of under 10 hectares would be enough for me to keep the tied-up capital reasonable. It’s an enticing prospect since it’s less than a 20-minute walk from my cabin 
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If you sell a portion of it, the parceling costs (lohkomiskulut) will eat into the money.
Quite a small amount of sawlogs, but if there’s smaller timber about to enter the “fattening” growth phase, the value could rise significantly.
The price per cubic meter doesn’t ultimately differ that drastically from equivalents in the south, but there is still a difference for sure.
I wonder if there is much demand out there; should one just list it at some €5,000–€7,000 above the appraisal?
There is a surprisingly high demand for all kinds of forest plots here, and people seem to have plenty of cash to burn on them. There are retiring guys who want a “hobby forest,” many have ATVs and yard tractors they want to go mucking around with, and a large group of buyers are those desperate to join a hunting club. And regarding the latter, some are ready to pay quite significant sums!! None of these buyer groups primarily care about financial returns. That’s how I’ve been looking at it. Or whatever the reason may be that almost every single plot finds a buyer here; in open auctions, the price rises at least 20% above the forestry appraisal. There is a forest-bubble-hype going on right now!!! Maybe some have inheritance money or something similar, and the family doesn’t dare to invest in other instruments, and any old forest feels safer than some security.
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Oh, so there’s high demand there as well. Everything seems to be selling pretty well here in the south too, or at least nothing seems to come back on the market. I’ve been following the situation in my own province at that level for years now, and they feel damn expensive compared to what I paid 15 years ago.
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Normally, when selling a parcel of land, the buyer is the one who pays the partitioning costs. After all, financial return isn’t exactly the number one priority when buying recreational plots.
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