Christmas markets in Christmas Markets in Finland

Christmas markets in Finland open between mid-November and early December, and most of them close between 20 and 24 December, ahead of a Christmas Eve that Finns spend with family, in the sauna and then at the table. Helsinki, Tampere and Turku hold the markets of the south; Lapland adds the Levi market and the Santa Claus villages. The stalls sell crafts made by the people who sell them, and glögi; on seasonal tables, joulutorttu filled with prune jam. You pay in euros.

Christmas markets in Finland, city by city

The Helsinki Christmas market, Tuomaan Markkinat, occupies Senate Square from 27 November to 22 December 2026, from 11am to 7pm, until 8pm on Fridays and Saturdays. The City counted more than 650,000 visitors in 2025 and more than 100 artisans. Two other markets round off the capital’s season: the Mantan joulutori and its covered ice rink, around the Havis Amanda statue, from 4 December 2026 to 6 January 2027, and the Vanhan Joulutori, an indoor designers’ market in the Old Student House, from 15 to 22 December.

The Tampere Christmas market sets up on the Keskustori, between the theatre and the city hall: partial opening on 21 November with the glögi restaurant and the doughnut café, full market from 28 November to 22 December 2026, every day from 11am to 7pm. The Tallipiha courtyard, in the Finlayson district, holds its own Christmas from 14 November to 23 December.

The Turku Christmas market is a weekend market: four Saturdays and Sundays from 28 November to 20 December 2026, from 11am to 5pm, on the Old Great Square and in the Brinkkala courtyard. It is from the balcony of this house that the Christmas Peace is declared every 24 December at noon.

Other towns have their own market, shorter or smaller. Oulu holds the Tiernatori on Kauppurienaukio, in front of the Valkea shopping centre (from 6 to 21 December in 2025). Rauma celebrates the lace town’s Christmas on the Kauppatori of Old Rauma, a Unesco-listed site: in 2026, the market opens at weekends from 21 November, on several weekdays in December, then every day from 16 to 24 December (from 10am to 1pm on the 24th). Porvoo, an hour from Helsinki according to Visit Porvoo, held a market at the Art Factory from 13 to 15 December 2024 and a Christmas trail of kiosks along Jokikatu from 1 to 22 December 2024.

Lapland: Levi, Santa Claus and the snow hotels

In Lapland, the Levi Christmas market is held at the foot of the resort’s slopes, in the municipality of Kittilä, where Santa’s cabin, up on the fell, can be reached all year round. In Rovaniemi, where Santa Claus has kept an office since 1985, Santa Claus Village and SantaPark, his cave, each have their own listing. The Arctic SnowHotel in Sinettä, around thirty minutes’ drive from Rovaniemi, opens on 15 December 2026, every day from 10am to 8pm, with visits at €35 per adult. The SnowVillage and the Sampo icebreaker complete the picture; our Christmas in Lapland guide gathers their 2026 dates and the direct flights to the far north.

Glögi, joulutorttu and crafts: what the markets sell

In Helsinki, the stalls on Senate Square are run by the artisans themselves: gifts, decorations, local produce, fish, meat and ready-made dishes, according to Visit Finland; the Vanhan Joulutori adds ceramics, jewellery, clothing and design, the Mantan joulutori its hot drinks around an open-fire pavilion. Turku focuses on crafts, Christmas sweets and glögi, the Finnish mulled wine, which Finns pair with piparkakut, the gingerbread biscuits. Tampere has its glögi restaurant and its doughnut café, and Visit Finland describes glass-blowing and blacksmithing demonstrations there. On seasonal tables, the joulutorttu, puff-pastry turnovers filled with prune jam and dusted with icing sugar once cooled.

Christmas traditions in Finland

The Finnish Santa Claus is called Joulupukki, “the Christmas goat”: the name comes from the nuuttipukki, a horned figure dressed in furs who visited homes after Christmas to claim the leftovers of the feast, according to thisisFINLAND, the website of the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. His companion is the joulumuori. His home is Korvatunturi, a remote peak in Lapland: the claim dates from 1927, launched on the radio by the presenter Markus Rautio. His mail arrives in Rovaniemi, where his office opened in 1985; Santa’s post office there has received 17 million letters from 198 countries, according to a Ministry for Foreign Affairs page updated in 2020.

24 December is the main day of the celebration. At noon, Turku declares the Christmas Peace from the Brinkkala balcony, in Finnish and in Swedish, a tradition the City traces back to the 14th century, broadcast on the radio since 1935 and live on television since 1983; Porvoo reads its own in the afternoon on the Old Town Hall square (4pm in 2025), and Rauma and Naantali have theirs too. In the afternoon, the family moves on to the Christmas sauna, the joulusauna, cleaned for the occasion and inhabited, so they say, by its elf, the saunatonttu; in Helsinki, most public saunas open on 24 and 25 December according to myHelsinki. The evening is quiet, between a visit to the cemetery and a trip to church.

The Christmas table brings together the oven-baked ham, the kinkku, fish, casseroles such as lanttulaatikko, made with swede, and salads, according to thisisFINLAND and Visit Espoo. At breakfast on Christmas Eve, the riisipuuro, rice porridge with cinnamon and sugar, hides an almond: whoever finds it makes a wish. During Advent, Finns hold one pikkujoulu after another, the “little Christmases”, often tied to Independence Day on 6 December, with riisipuuro, glögi and gingerbread. On 13 December, Lucia is crowned at Helsinki Cathedral and then parades through the centre, a tradition carried by Folkhälsan, an association of the Swedish-speaking minority. In Finnish, December is joulukuu, the month of Christmas.

Getting to Finland and travelling between the markets

Helsinki has most of the direct flights: for winter 2026-2027, Finavia’s list gives Paris-CDG (Air France, Finnair), Nice (Finnair), Brussels (Finnair), Charleroi (Ryanair), Zurich and Geneva (Finnair), London Heathrow (Finnair), Gatwick (Norwegian) and Stansted (Ryanair), Madrid and Rome (Finnair). Turku, Tampere and Oulu have no direct flights from France, Belgium, Switzerland or the United Kingdom: Turku receives Gdańsk, Riga and Stockholm, Tampere Málaga and Riga, Oulu no international route at all. Lyon, Orly and Beauvais serve Rovaniemi or Ivalo, not Helsinki. Frequencies depend on each airline: check them before you book.

From Helsinki, the train reaches Tampere in 1 hr 40 min to 1 hr 55 min, Turku in around 2 hours and Oulu in 5 hr 30 min to 6 hr 30 min by day or 9 hours overnight, according to VR’s timetables on vr.fi. Porvoo is around an hour from Helsinki according to Visit Porvoo. For Lapland, the direct flights to Rovaniemi and Ivalo, and the rest of the journey, are in our Christmas in Lapland guide.

Practical tip

The three southern markets are open together from 28 November to 20 December 2026, Turku at weekends only; Helsinki and Tampere close on 22 December, Tallipiha on the 23rd. For a stay that takes in Christmas itself, Helsinki’s Mantan joulutori runs until 6 January 2027 (check whether it opens on 24 and 25 December), and Lapland takes over, with the Arctic SnowHotel open from 15 December. On 24 December, be in Turku before noon for the declaration of the Christmas Peace; the evening is spent with family.