The best saunas in Helsinki
Last reviewed September 2026
Helsinki is the rare capital where the sauna question is not whether there is a public one, but which of them you have time for. An 1880s room in a hospital park, a free shack on the Sompasaari shore that nobody owns, an architect's timber lattice with steps into the Baltic.
#1 · Löyly Helsinki
The one people mean · Helsinki
The sauna people mean when they say they went to one in Helsinki. A timber lattice on the Hernesaari shore, with a smoke room and a wood-heated room beside each other and the Baltic reachable from both. There is a restaurant for afterwards. Being the obvious choice has not made it a worse one.
Finnish · Smoke · €€ · Session-booked
#2 · Kotiharjun Sauna
The last wood-fired room in the city · Helsinki
Kallio has kept this going since 1928, and it is the last public wood-fired sauna in Helsinki — not one of the last, the last. Expect a fierce löyly, benches worn smooth by a century of use, and regulars with no intention of making conversation. Nothing here was designed. It is only heat.
Finnish · € · Drop-in
#3 · Kulttuurisauna
Birchwood, 2013, straight into the sea · Helsinki
A 2013 public sauna on the waterfront by Tuomas Toivonen and Nene Tsuboi, birchwood inside and the sea directly outside. It is the rare sauna that earns the word beautiful without apology. Summer evenings get busy, which adds to the place rather than spoiling it, but book ahead.
Finnish · €€ · Drop-in
#4 · Lähteen Sauna
Helsinki's oldest, from the 1880s · Helsinki
An 1880s sauna in the Lapinlahti hospital park by the sea, reckoned to be the oldest public sauna still working in the city. Mixed, women's and men's shifts run through the month with no booking at all — turn up, pay at the door. The beach is under a hundred metres away.
Finnish · € · Drop-in
#5 · Sompasauna
Free, unstaffed, open all night · Helsinki
No staff, no booking, no rules beyond basic sauna etiquette, and no charge either. Volunteers keep it running on the Sompasaari waterfront, built out of salvaged materials and open around the clock through the summer. Bring your own towel and an open mind. Helsinki at its most democratic.
Finnish · € · Drop-in
#6 · Kuusijärvi Outdoor Sauna
Smoke sauna, forest, frigid lake · Helsinki
A lakeside complex in the Sipoonkorpi forest, half an hour out from the centre, with a smoke sauna heated for hours and birch trees in every direction. The lake is the plunge and it is properly cold. Winter weekend smoke sessions are the ones to aim for: dark sky, snow underfoot, hot smoke.
Smoke · € · Drop-in
#7 · Saunasaari
Island smoke, skyline across the water · Helsinki
Two traditional smoke saunas on the northern tip of Vasikkasaari, with the Helsinki skyline sitting across the water from you. Sea swimming and a hot tub are alongside, and the RÖK summer kitchen cooks over open fire and smoke. A boat runs out from the Market Square at summer weekends.
Smoke · €€€ · Session-booked
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That's the shortlist. See every curated sauna in Helsinki in the full Helsinki guide.