Perittävästä

Perittävästä is a grammatical form in Finnish that arises from the adjective perittävä, which means something that can be demanded or collected. The word is formed from the verb perittää (to demand or to collect) and is used primarily in formal, legal, and financial texts to describe amounts, charges, or claims that are due and may be collected.

The core meaning of perittävä is “to be collected” or “chargeable.” In practice it describes a debt, fee, tax, or other claim that remains due and may be pursued for payment. The elative form perittävästä, which literally means “from the recoverable/collectible,” is used to specify the origin or source of the amount being discussed. For example, perittävästä velasta voidaan periä korkoa would translate roughly as “interest may be charged on the debt to be collected” and illustrates how the elative form links the concept to its source.

Grammatical note: perittävä behaves like a standard Finnish adjective of the -vä type and inflects to match the noun it modifies. The elative singular form is perittävästä, and related forms include perittävän velan (genitive), perittävää velkaa (partitive), and other case forms that align with the noun. The term is most common in contexts such as debt collection, taxation, and regulatory guidance, where precise language is required to distinguish what is due to be collected from what has already been collected.

Relation to related terms: perittävä is opposed by peritty (collected) or perimä (the act of collecting). In everyday language, people tend to say velka on maksettava or velka, jota voidaan periä, rather than relying on the formal perittävä/ perittävästä construction.