Alcohol delivery from 3 January 2027: what a restaurant can actually do

In January a customer opens a delivery app and orders a pizza and a bottle of the red from your wine list. The pizza can come. The wine cannot, and neither can a pint from the tap or a cocktail. What can come is a sealed can of beer or cider, carried by somebody with the right paper, and handed over in person to somebody who shows ID.

The change is act 589/2026, which amends the Alcohol Act. It was signed on 26.06.2026 and comes into force in stages.¹ On 30.09.2026 the Finnish Supervisory Agency, Lupa- ja valvontavirasto (LVV), published its guidance on delivery.³⁵ Here is what both say a restaurant may do, read from the statute and from LVV’s own documents.

The short answer

From 03.01.2027, alcohol may be delivered to a customer, but only alcohol bought in retail sale, from Alko or from cross-border distance selling. From a Finnish retailer, which includes a restaurant with a retail licence, a courier may take only fermented drinks of at most 8,0 % and other drinks of at most 5,5 %. Anything stronger may be delivered only from Alko or cross-border.¹

Applications for a delivery licence, toimituslupa, can be made at the earliest from 03.11.2026. LVV says it will add the instructions for applying to its guidance at a later stage.¹³

You can deliver what you could sell over the counter in a sealed can. Not what you pour.

Served is not retail

The act keeps two kinds of sale apart. Serving, anniskelu, is a drink sold to be consumed on your premises. Retail sale, vähittäismyynti, is a drink sold to be consumed somewhere else.¹ Delivery is allowed only for retail sale,¹ and retail alcohol may be sold only in closed packages filled in advance.² So the glass of wine, the pint and the cocktail stay in the restaurant. Only bottles and cans go out.

Most restaurants already have the licence that matters. A retail licence can be granted alongside a serving licence, for the drinks the restaurant serves, up to 8,0 % fermented and 5,5 % other, sold indoors at the premises.²⁴ LVV handles that application in its e-service Allu, either together with the serving licence or as a change to an existing one.⁴ Without it, a restaurant has nothing to hand to a courier.

The percentage is the hard edge. A bottle of wine at 12 % is over the 8,0 % line, so even a restaurant with both licences cannot send it out. LVV adds that the same limit holds for farm wine and craft beer sold under their own retail licences.³

Your own licence, or a licensed courier

Only the holder of a delivery licence and the people delivering on its behalf may hand delivered alcohol to a customer.¹³ LVV grants the licence; on Åland it is Ahvenanmaan valtionvirasto.¹ To get it, the applicant needs a self-monitoring plan, omavalvontasuunnitelma, and an account of how it will make sure every courier holds a delivery pass, toimituspassi.¹ A restaurant has two ways in.

Use a courier that holds the licence. You sell the drink and hand it over sealed. Two duties stay with you as the retailer: the delivery must be marked as containing alcohol, and you must be able to show afterwards the name and licence number of the licence holder that took it.¹ LVV can ask you for exactly that.¹ The retail hours of 9 to 21 do not apply to handing drinks to the courier, but the courier may hand them to the customer only from 9 to 21.¹³

Take your own licence. Then the courier’s duties are yours as well:¹³

• every person who delivers holds a toimituspassi, a certificate on a model approved by LVV, issued by an educational institution after an exam;
• you keep records of how new couriers were trained and how their passes were checked;
• you report the total number of deliveries to LVV every year by 31.01;
• you pay an annual supervision fee for delivery.

LVV keeps no register of passes, and a pass does not expire.³ LVV says it is preparing a template for the self-monitoring plan.³

At the door

The drink must be handed over in person. LVV spells out what that rules out: robot delivery, and leaving the bag at the door. The buyer and the recipient can be different people, so a drink can be sent as a gift.¹³

The recipient must prove their age to the courier with an official photo ID: an identity card, a driving licence, a passport or another reliable photo document issued by an authority.¹² LVV says a digital document can do, and a Kela card or a student card cannot.³ Nothing may be handed to anyone under 18, to anyone visibly intoxicated or behaving disruptively, or when there is good reason to think the drink is being passed on.¹

If the drink is refused because of age, it goes back to the seller and may not be tried again. For any other reason, such as nobody at home or an intoxicated recipient, it goes back or comes again later within the hours.¹³ A licence holder may not penalise a courier for refusing.¹

One rule touches your own staff. A person under 18 may not carry or hand alcohol to a customer.¹ A 16 year old may sell or serve alcohol under the direct supervision of the licence holder’s representative, but may not take the beer to the customer’s door.

Where it cannot go

Under section 37 and LVV’s guidance, alcohol may not be delivered to:¹³

• health care units, such as hospitals and health centres;
• substance abuse units and residential units of child welfare institutions;
• day care centres, places of pre-primary and basic education, and vocational and upper secondary schools;
• public playgrounds;
• restaurants, cafés and other places that sell food or drink to the public;
• an approved serving area while serving is going on there;
• public events, and public places where the police have banned drinking.

LVV says the authorities cannot keep a list of these places, so each case is judged on what can be seen at the time.³

Offers follow the drink out of the door

Section 51 already banned two kinds of offer in retail and serving: two or more packages or portions at a reduced joint price, and a credit on the price of alcohol that grows with what the customer buys. From 03.01.2027 both bans cover delivery too.¹ LVV’s examples for delivery:³

• no volume discounts: five ciders for the price of four is out;
• one can on its own may not cost more per can than the same can in a multipack, and a multipack may not be refused as single cans;
• the delivery fee may not fall, or delivery become free, because of how much alcohol is ordered, and alcohol does not count toward a free delivery threshold;
• benefits earned by buying other products may not be used to lower the price of alcohol;
• no free alcohol, and no alcohol as a free extra with another delivery.

Dates and fees

• 03.07.2026: the act comes into force.
• 03.11.2026: the delivery licence rules apply, and applications can be made at the earliest from this day.
• 03.01.2027: deliveries may start, and the rules on handover, hours, staff and offers apply.
• 31.01. every year: a licence holder reports its total deliveries for the past year.

The annual supervision fee is 100 EUR per licence holder, plus 0,10 EUR per delivery above 1 000 a year, rounded down to the nearest 10 EUR, and it is invoiced afterwards, by 30.04.¹ A restaurant that makes 3 000 deliveries pays 100 EUR plus 200 EUR, 300 EUR. A delivery is one order, and LVV counts an order that could not be handed over too.³ We found no published fee for the licence decision itself; LVV has not yet published how to apply.

The authority is LVV, which started on 01.01.2026 and took over the tasks of Valvira and the regional state administrative agencies.⁶ Articles that send you to Valvira for a delivery licence are out of date.

Before you put a beer on the delivery menu

• You hold a retail licence alongside your serving licence.Without it there is nothing to deliver.
• Only sealed drinks of at most 8,0 % fermented or 5,5 % other are on the delivery menu.No draught, no glass of wine, no cocktails, no bottle of wine at 12 %.
• For each delivery you can show which licence holder took the drink, and its licence number.LVV may ask the retailer for it.
• Bags with alcohol are clearly marked.So the courier knows what is in them.
• No multi-buy price, free delivery threshold or loyalty credit touches alcohol.Section 51 covers delivery from 03.01.2027.
• Nobody under 18 on your staff carries or hands over alcohol.Serving under supervision at 16 is a different rule.
• With your own licence: every courier has a delivery pass, and the self-monitoring plan says what happens when a handover is refused.Refused for age means back to you, with no second attempt.

What this means for your till

The new rules mostly fall on whoever stands at the door, but three things start at the till: knowing which products are alcohol and how strong they are, keeping alcohol out of the wrong offers, and keeping a trace of who took the drink.

Here is what Fizzy does. A product can be marked as an alcoholic drink, which gives it an age limit of at least 18. With the age check switched on, the till asks the cashier to confirm the age before the line is added, once per age per sale, and an order pulled in from the web shop or accepted from a guest’s QR menu cannot be paid until the age has been confirmed. The self-order kiosk does not sell age-limited products at all, and the web shop and the QR menu say the limit on the product and that ID is checked at the counter or at the table. The promotions engine keeps a drink out of every quantity offer, “cheapest free” and spend threshold, and loyalty points are not earned on it, while a plain price cut per unit, such as a happy hour, still applies. Fizzy takes Wolt orders in, but it does not record which licensed courier picked up a drink, so keep that trace from the delivery platform for now.

Sources

1. Act 589/2026 amending the Alcohol Act, signed 26.06.2026: section 3(1)(11) and (17) to (18) (retail sale, delivery, courier), 7 § (LVV grants the licence), 17 a § (delivery licence), 35 § (marking; name and licence number of the licence holder), 35 a § (8,0 % and 5,5 %; handover in person; return after refusal; no penalty for refusing), 37 § (refusals and places), 38 § (delivery pass; under 18s may not carry or hand over), 40 § 2 mom (age proof to the courier), 42 § 4 mom, 42 a § (9 to 21), 51 § 1 and 2 mom, 57 § 3 mom, 62 §, annex points 6 a and 7, and the entry into force clause. · finlex.fi (in Finnish)
2. Alcohol Act 1102/2017: 17 § 1 mom 3 kohta as amended by 305/2024 (retail licence alongside a serving licence, up to 8,0 % and 5,5 %), 40 § 1 mom (accepted ID), 41 § 1 mom (retail only in closed packages). · finlex.fi (in Finnish) · finlex.fi, 305/2024 (in Finnish)
3. Lupa- ja valvontavirasto, Alkoholijuomien toimitus, LVV-S/60079/2026, published 28.09.2026: sections 1, 2 and 3.1. Summarised in our translation. · lvv.fi (PDF, in Finnish)
4. Lupa- ja valvontavirasto, Alkoholijuomien vähittäismyynti, LVV-S/60081/2026, published 28.09.2026: section 5.2, retail licence alongside a serving licence, applied for in Allu. · lvv.fi (PDF, in Finnish)
5. Lupa- ja valvontavirasto, releases of 30.09.2026 (delivery guidance published; applications at the earliest 03.11.2026, deliveries from 03.01.2027) and 25.06.2026 (Parliament approved the amendments). · lvv.fi (in Finnish) · lvv.fi, 25.06.2026 (in Finnish)
6. Lupa- ja valvontavirasto, Tutustu Lupa- ja valvontavirastoon: operations began on 01.01.2026; tasks moved from Valvira, the regional state administrative agencies and the ELY centres. · lvv.fi (in Finnish)