Notification in accordance with the Health Protection Act.

An operator must make a notification about any operations that may be harmful to health customer's. It is not, however, necessary to submit a notification if the operations require an environmental permit.

The obligation to notify applies to, for example, the following:

• accommodation providers
• public gyms, saunas, spas, beaches as well as indoor and open-air swimming pools
• nursery schools and day clubs
• educational institutions that provide pre-school or basic education, vocational training, general upper secondary education or higher education
• social welfare services and refugee reception centres that provide constant care
• beauty shops, tattoo or solarium businesses and other facilities for treatment of skin
• other institutions or facilities for operations that may be harmful to a user’s health.

Submit a notification via the ilppa notification e-service of the Finnish Food Authority.

You can submit the notification also in writing to the health protection control authority of the municipality in which you are located.

Include the following details in the notification:

- your contact details

- an account on the location of the place of your operations

- a ground plan and a furnishing plan of the business premises

- an account of the practised operations

- other information required for preventing health hazards.

Particular attention will be paid to ventilation and disinfection of instruments as well as the furniture, equipment and surface materials required for the operations, when processing the notification. If needed, turn to the municipal health protection authority for advise on what should in particular be taken into account in the operation and premises from the perspective of health protection.

The municipal health protection authority inspects the written notification and sends you a letter of receipt. The authority will also inspect your operations if needed.

Before commencing operations, submit a notification primarily through the ilppa online service (see e-services). Attach at least a floor plan, information on the use of the premises from the building control authority and ventilation measurement details (can be submitted afterwards) to the notification.

If you are unable to submit a notification through the ilppa online service, contact the Rovakaari environmental health care.

Case process:

1 The notification arrives at environmental health care, where a supervisor reads it. The supervisor checks that the information is sufficient to register the item and asks you for more information if necessary.

2 The activities you report are registered and the supervisory unit sends a certificate of processing the notification which is subject to a fee. If you submitted the notification in ilppa, you will see the details of the location your notification concerns and any changes made to it after it is processed. You will also see details of the activities you have previously reported.

You should also primarily use the ilppa online service to submit a notification if the activities change essentially or end. If you are unable to submit a notification through the ilppa online service, contact the Rovakaari environmental health care. No fee is charged for processing notifications of interruption or cessation of activities, nor will you receive a separate certificate for their processing.

The requirements of the Public Health Act concern activity and premises that can cause health hazards to customers. The premises must be suited for the activities to be carried out and the activity must not cause health hazards to customers. The requirements are not related to the operator.

The operator must notify also there is a change in the activity or the operator changes.

If the operator is established in another EEA state and provides services in Finland on a temporary basis, they are required to have the same notifications as the traders established in Finland.

The notification obligation applies equally to private and public operators.

Before submitting a notification in the ilppa system, you will need a Suomi.fi e-Authorization for the company (concerns public operators as well) for which you want to submit a notification.

You can log in to the ilppa application directly with Suomi.fi e-Identification if you are a private entrepreneur or company signatory, i.e., an official representative of a company. If you are another kind of user of ilppa, you will need a mandate issued by an official representative of the company. Mandates are granted and applied for in the Suomi.fi service.

You always need a personal token for identification in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations and ilppa. For that, you need a banking ID, certificate card or mobile certificate, for example.