Finland to move passport production to Poland

Finland is planning to end domestic production of its passports and instead print them in Poland, resulting in the loss of 160 jobs, according to Finnish media reports.

By doing so, it will join the list of countries that produce their passports in Poland, which includes the United Kingdom, Armenia and Lithuania.

Thales, the French company currently responsible for printing Finland's passports, told Taloussanomat, a Finnish business daily, that it will improve efficiency and reduce operating costs by moving production to its facility in Tczew in northern Poland.

However, around 130 employees will remain at the Finnish facility in Vantaa, where Thales has been producing passports since 2017. That is because personalization (adding the passport holder's personal details) as well as sales, marketing, and research and development activities will continue in the Nordic country.

Finnish passports were formerly made in the Netherlands until domestic production resumed in 2017.

Finland will join the UK in having its passports produced in Poland, where Thales has printed the country's post-Brexit blue passports since 2020. Similarly, those documents are personalized in the UK for security reasons.

Meanwhile, the Polish Security Printing Works (PWPW) – a state company responsible for producing Poland's banknotes, passports and ID cards, among other documents – announced in December 2024 that it had taken over production of Lithuania's passports and excise tax stamps.

In recent years, the PWPW has manufactured passports for Armenia, Bangladesh, Honduras, Moldova and Iceland. It formerly printed Lithuanian passports between 2007 and 2009.

Main image credit: Santeri Viinamäki/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 4.0 )