Finland’s scrappage grant has paid out less than €3 million
Tuesday 6th October 2026 on 10:00 in
Finland
More than 1,200 people have received Finland’s scrappage grant, but nearly €17 million of the €20 million budget remains unused, Yle reports. The grant offers €2,000 to €2,500 towards buying a new electric or low-emission car in exchange for scrapping an old one.
Applications have been slow, according to Tero Kallio, chief executive of the Finnish automotive industry association Autotuojat ja -teollisuus. He says strict eligibility rules have held people back: applicants must have owned or controlled the car continuously for 12 months before scrapping it, and it must have been in road use for at least 10 months of that period.
The rules have meant some cars left unused in yards had to be put back on the road for 10 months before they could be scrapped under the scheme. Kallio expects applications to pick up from October as more cars meet the requirements. He estimates that €5 million will be spent this year and the remaining €15 million next year.
Figures from Traficom show that applicants have been about 50 years old on average, ranging from 20 to 90. The scrapped cars have averaged 20 years old. The oldest was a 37-year-old Toyota, while the youngest was an Opel from 2015; cars newer than that are not eligible.
Nearly half of the replacement cars bought with the grant have been new electric vehicles, and Toyota has been the most common make. Hybrids account for about a third of purchases, most of them self-charging models. Plug-in hybrids make up five per cent. Residents of Helsinki, Espoo, Tampere, Vantaa, Oulu and Turku have bought the most new cars using the grant.
The scheme has also increased business for scrap yards. Toni Keinänen, a scrap dealer at Romu Keinänen, says the company has received about a third more end-of-life cars than at the same time last year. Cars are stripped of fluids, fuel, tyres and batteries before being crushed. Metals are separated for recycling, tyres go to tyre recycling, and waste from crushing is sent to Vantaa Energy for use in energy production.
The grant is being offered for the fourth time. The first campaign took place in 2015, and the government says the scheme is intended to reduce emissions from transport.