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A conservatory is a glazed and roofed, room-like space that is connected to business premises and used for serving food and drinks either all year round or during summer. You must lease the land from the City of Helsinki to build one, if your conservatory will be located in a public area of the City. You will also require a permit from the building control services.
A conservatory must be designed and constructed according to the specific street location. The application process for conservatories differs from that of open outdoor seating areas, and conservatories always require a building or an action permit from the Building Control Department.
Submit an application to lease a glassed terrace area
Submit an application to lease an area for outdoor seating by using an electronic form and submitting it via the City's online services. Alternatively, you can use a PDF form. You can identify yourself through suomi.fi in order to log in to the service, either with a mobile ID or online banking credentials.
Additional information
If you are unable to use the electronic form, fill in the PDF form and send it together with the necessary appendices via email to ulkoilma@hel.fi(Link opens default mail program). You can check which appendices are required for an outdoor seating application from the list of appendices.
Use the online service
Fill in a form
Application appendices
Please submit all the listed appendices as PDF files. We will not be able to process your application without them.
A drawing of the seating area’s location on a map on a scale of 1:500. Map templates are available from the Map Service.(Link leads to external service)
A floor plan of the seating area on a scale of 1:50 or 1:100. Include the seating area’s dimensions (length and width), the placement of fixtures and furniture, access routes, entrances and the width of the free pavement area. An outdoor seating area may only take up to half of the width of the pavement.
Please note that you must always leave free space in the street area that is at least 150 cm in width and 220 cm in height.
Also note that the dimension rules for outdoor seating areas are different in the central pedestrian zone (PDF in Finnish, 5MB) and Keskuskatu (PDF in Finnish).
The building owner’s (usually a housing company) permission to use a public area outside of business premises for serving food and drinks outside. You can use e.g. the property owner’s consent form (PDF in Finnish) to request permission.
A trade register extract for the applicant company, which you can request from the National Board of Patents and Registration of Finland(Link leads to external service). The document may not be more than three months old.
Photographs of the street area and the wall in front of which the seating area is planned.
Photographs or drawings of all the fixtures, furniture and structures to be placed in the seating area.
If an agent is used to apply for a permit on behalf of the actual applicant, you will also require a power of attorney.
The building control services’ permit for outdoor seating
You can apply for a permit from the building control services via lupapiste.fi. In order to apply for a permit, you will need drawings created by a professional designer that can be archived, and the drawings must indicate the building location and the required measures in an unambiguous way. Submit the floor plan and an elevation drawing (1:100) that shows all fixtures, canopies, screens and other similar elements. If necessary, you must also include detailed drawings that show the structures and their connections to the surrounding structures, as well as the materials and colours to be used.
Attach the lease agreement, i.e. a statement of right of possession, for the land where the seating area will be to your application. In addition to that, the building control services will need to have the same appendices that you are submitting to the City in order to apply for permission to lease the land for your outdoor seating area. The building control services will collect a fee for processing the permit application according to the existing building control tariff.
Go to lupapiste.fi (in Finnish).(Link leads to external service)
When do I need a permit from the building control services?
You will need a permit from the building control services if your outdoor seating area or its structures
- will be attached to the ground or a building next to the seating area.
- will be covered with a roof, canopy, awning or similar.
- will include fixed walls.
- will be built on a raised deck due to sloping ground and the falling height off the deck will exceed 50 cm at any point.
- will include a serving station whose dimensions exceed 250 x 150 x 220 cm.
- will include sheds or other similar closed or semi-closed structures inside which customers will be.
- will have a lavatory, a stage or a similar structure.
- will include adverts larger than 60 x 60 cm on each wall, or other sales or
- advertising equipment.
- So-called dining pods, which resemble greenhouses and have glass or plastic windows, are treated as conservatories, and therefore they require a permit from the building control services. Dining pods may only be used in outdoor seating areas during the summer season of 1 April – 31 October.
A permit from the building control services is not required for
- parasols and awnings that are not attached to the ground.
- straight awnings that are open on the sides and attached to the building facade.
- small-scale equipment that contain a restaurant’s name or usual information about the prices and opening hours.