Alcohol Act Amendment 2026: What Changed, and Why Marketing Is Off the Passport Test
Finland's Alcohol Act changed on 3 July 2026. Here's what changed in marketing, delivery and Alko hours, and why LVV recommends skipping marketing questions on the Anniskelupassi test for now.
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Finland's Alcohol Act changed on 3 July 2026, and it affects what the Anniskelupassi (Alcohol Passport) exam currently tests. If you're studying with PassiPRO's learning materials right now, here's what changed in the law and what LVV has said about the test in response.
What actually changed on 3 July 2026
The amendment's biggest shift for licensed premises is marketing. Strong alcoholic beverages could previously not be advertised online at all. Producers can now market them on websites and social media, within limits: television, radio, cinema, and print remain off-limits, and the existing bans on things like unlimited-drink packages, loyalty-card drink rewards, and alcohol-themed competitions are untouched.
Outside marketing, the amendment also opened up home delivery of alcohol under a new licence category, allowed Alko to open on Sundays and public holidays, and clarified the rules for cross-border online alcohol purchases from other EU/EEA countries. Delivery licences became applicable four months after the law took effect, with the first deliveries permitted roughly six months in.
Why marketing questions are off the passport test for now
The Anniskelupassi exam is drawn entirely from Chapters 1-3 of LVV's serving guideline, not from the Alcohol Act text directly. That guideline hadn't caught up to the amendment by the time it took effect, so the marketing chapter would have tested rules that were no longer accurate.
LVV's response was to recommend that institutions leave marketing questions out of the passport test until the guideline itself is updated to reflect the amended law. That's a statement about the exam's question bank, not about the underlying legal obligations, which still apply in full to anyone serving alcohol.
What this means if you're studying now
The serving bans, supervision duties, public order requirements, and serving hours that make up the rest of the guideline are unaffected and remain fully testable, exactly as covered in who you can't serve alcohol to and legal serving hours. Marketing rules, covered in Lesson 7 and Lesson 8 of PassiPRO's course, are worth knowing regardless of whether they're on your specific test: they're still the law, and anyone serving alcohol is expected to know them on the job even if a given institution's current test doesn't ask about them. If you're sitting the exam soon, it's still worth checking LVV's page directly, since guidance updates and institution practice can both move before this article does.
Sources: LVV: Alcohol passport; Alcohol Act 1102/2017 (Finlex, consolidated). Last reviewed 19 Aug 2026.
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