What changed on 1 July, in cents
Finland has moved data centres out of its reduced electricity tax category II and into the general category I, effective 1 July 2026. The reduced band charged 0.05 cents per kilowatt-hour; the general band charges 2.24 cents. That is a 2.19-cent increase on every kilowatt-hour a facility draws, a roughly 45-fold rise, and for a load that runs flat out around the clock it compounds fast.
The government frames it as a revenue and fairness measure: it expects about 47 million euros a year in additional electricity tax at 2026 levels, and because the change lands mid-year the 2026 figure is closer to 23.5 million. The decision was taken back in October 2025, so operators have had the date circled. What they did not get was certainty on relief.
Why Google and XTX hit pause
The clearest signal came from the buyers. Google, which acquired roughly 1,400 hectares in Kajaani and Muhos in late 2024 for a development it valued in the billions, has said it had not made a final investment decision and stressed that regulatory stability and predictable operating conditions are what it weighs. In plain terms, a 45-fold tax swing is exactly the kind of surprise that stalls a board sign-off. The trading firm XTX Markets, which had signed for a second Finnish site, said the increase would feed into its longer-term investment roadmap.
Finland is trying to close the door it just opened. The government says it will prepare a subsidy scheme based on a national data-centre roadmap, targeted for autumn 2026, but has capped that support at the current level of electricity tax subsidy. So the tax rises now, in full, while any offset arrives later, partial, and conditional. For a capital-intensive build with a multi-decade horizon, that ordering is the problem.
The Nordic siting map just redrew
The owner-level question is not whether Finland is still attractive in the abstract, but whether it is still the cheapest Nordic megawatt for a workload that never sleeps. Finland won a wave of AI capacity on abundant land, cold air and cheap firm power; the power was the pitch. Sweden and Norway keep industrial and data-centre electricity lightly taxed, so a hyperscaler comparing a 200-megawatt AI campus across the region now sees a Finnish line item measured in millions of euros a year that its neighbours do not carry.
The lesson for anyone siting compute in Europe is that the grid connection and the tax jurisdiction are now the same decision. A cheap kilowatt-hour of generation can be undone by the band it is taxed in, and that band can change on a government's fiscal timetable, not yours. Finland bet 47 million euros of annual revenue that its other advantages hold. Operators will answer that bet one build at a time, and the first answer, from the largest buyer, was to wait.
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