The Finnish economy is highly dependent on world trade. Due to its geographical location, maritime transport is our most significant form of transport – especially now that trade with Russia has decreased significantly.
In 2024, our foreign trade was worth 230 billion euros, of which almost exactly half was imports and half was exports. Of these exports and imports, just under a third are services. The most significant services are ICT services, business services such as planning and consulting, as well as information technology services, and transport services. Imports of services also include tourism.
When looking at the total foreign trade by value (€), maritime transport accounts for more than half of both exports and imports, and the share of other forms of transport is significantly smaller. The share of air transport is 8 percent.
Figure 1. Finnish exports and imports by different forms of transport (Source: Statistics Finland and Customs, 2025). Other includes, among others, electricity and independently operated ships sold, as well as the statistical difference due to the difference in cash flows and goods flows.
Finland’s seaborne exports and imports are now in decline. Exports (41 million tonnes) have dropped to the 2010 level and imports (45 million tonnes) have dropped to the 2020-21 level, before that imports were this low earlier in 2009. The total volume of seaborne transport of 85 million tonnes was last at this level in 2009.
Figure 2. Development of Finland’s seaborne foreign trade 1970-2024 (tonnes). Source: Statistics Finland
About 11 percent of this seaborne foreign trade was trucks, 7 percent trailers, 12 percent containers and 70 percent solid and liquid bulk cargo.
Imports of consumer goods and exports of higher-value goods usually travel in units such as containers, trucks or bulk carriers. Of these, containers usually come from outside Europe, such as China, trailers directly from Germany and trucks either from Sweden or Estonia. In contrast, raw materials such as oil, grain, ores, fertilizers travel in bulk or tanker ships, i.e. usually on the same ship for the entire journey, and thus move all over the world.
Figure 3. Finnish maritime transport modes 2023. Source: Statistics Finland
The size of Finnish ports can be measured in many ways. Measured by cargo value, Helsinki is the largest port in Finland, and most of the more expensive unit goods pass through it. Measured by cargo volume, Sköldvik is in a class of its own, followed by Helsinki and then HaminaKotka.
Figure 4. Finland’s largest ports measured by cargo volume. Source: Statistics Finland
The most valuable cargo is transported by trucks and lorries across the sea. They are practically only loaded from Helsinki, Naantali, Turku and Vaasa. Some of these routes are operated by passenger car ferries and some by ro-ro vessels without passengers. The traffic between Helsinki and Tallinn is overwhelming in this transport sector, almost two-thirds of heavy traffic enters Finland via Vuosaari or the West Port. The ports of Turku and Naantali are also significant routes for truck traffic.
Figure 5. Truck traffic between Finland and foreign countries by port pair. The numbers of vehicles under 10,000 have been excluded from the statistics. Source: Traficom.
The volumes of traffic to Estonia are not yet on the growth path they were before the pandemic. Passenger numbers have not yet recovered and the traffic volumes for truck traffic have remained stable.
Figure 6. Truck traffic between Helsinki and Tallinn 1993-2024. There was already ro-ro traffic from Vuosaari to Muuga in Estonia as early as 2015, but Traficom statistics only distinguished them from 2019. Source: Traficom and its predecessors.
However, the overall growth of traffic to Estonia in recent decades has been astonishing. The traffic is fast and has a high frequency, which helps transport companies to get an efficient rotation of their fleet and thus a lot of revenue. Traffic on the route is divided into “twin city” traffic between Helsinki and Tallinn, traffic between Finland and Estonia, and transit, where trucks travel between Finland and Central Europe.
Figure 7. Passenger traffic between Helsinki and Tallinn 1993-2024 (Source: Traficom and its predecessors)
Figure 8. Passenger car traffic between Helsinki and Tallinn 1993-2024 (Source: Traficom and its predecessors)
Tales of Talsinki 