Auctioning a firearm handed over to the police

You have handed over to the police an item you own, governed by the Firearms Act, and you want the item to be sold at a public auction by the police. Further information about the auctioning process follows.

The police department will deliver the items, handed over for a public auction, to the National Police Board’s Firearms Administration. The Firearms Administration organises an auction approximately six (6) times a year, in which approximately 500–700 items governed by the Firearms Act are sold each time. 

Your address details or bank account number may change after you have handed over the items. Any changes should be reported to the Firearms Administration’s official email address asehallinto@poliisi.fi to facilitate the processing of the matter and ensure the fluent flow of information. Please include in the email message your complete contact information, and any changed information. In addition, you must mention whether you are submitting the information as the representative of a deceased person’s estate. Any other enquiries and contact requests can be sent to the same email address. If you wish, you can submit the information in encrypted format to the secure email of the police.

After the auction

KWhen an item has been included in an auction, a letter will always be sent to the party who handed over the item. The letter will inform whether the item was sold at the auction, and the price, or whether the item remained unsold. For reasons of logistics, items handed over by the same party may be auctioned at different times.

The upset price of an item to be sold at auction is always EUR 50. For items sold pursuant to the Firearms Act, the police is entitled to deduct the costs necessary to conduct the auction. The amount of these costs is EUR 50, the same as the upset price of the item.

If the item you handed over is sold at the upset price, there will be no proceeds to account for. If the price at which the item is sold exceeds EUR 50, expenses will be first deducted from the price, and the remaining proceeds will be paid to the bank account the number of which you have submitted to the police or the Firearms Administration. Remember to check the bank account details carefully when you receive a letter from the Firearms Administration concerning the auctioning of the item and the proceeds to be accounted for (the bank account number you have given is included in the letter). 

Please note that if the item you handed over is not sold at the auction, there will be no second attempt to sell it and the item will not be returned, but transferred to State ownership without compensation (Firearms Act 1/1998, section 100, subsection 2). In this case, too, you will be informed by letter.

Once the item you handed over has been submitted to the Firearms Administration for auctioning, the item or any accessories delivered with it cannot be returned. Auction is the only way in which items submitted for auction can be handed over by the Firearms Administration to a new owner.

Further information

Dates for firearms auctions, terms and conditions and actual sale prices

National Police Board Firearms Administration asehallinto@poliisi.fi