Vaatainen, K., Asikainen, A., Sikanen, L., Ala-Fossi, A. 2006. The cost effect of forest machine relocations on logging costs in Finland. - Forestry Studies|Metsanduslikud Uurimused 45, 135-141. ISSN 1406-9954. Abstract. In Finland, 70 to 80% of all logging contractors have their own truck fleet for relocation of their forest machines. Some of the smaller contractors - usually having less than 3 machines - are relying on outsourcing for ma- chine relocation. Even though the cost of machine relocation carried out by machine relocation service companies can often be cheaper than the use of contractors' own relocation trucks, contractors prefer to have their own trucks. The explanation for that is that contractors need to carry out the machine relocation at specific times with minimum machine delays. A cost calculator for forest machine relocations was formulated and the most relevant issues related to forest machine relocation in Finland are presented in the paper. On average, the relocation cost of forest machines was about 6 to 10% of the total logging (cutting and forwarding) costs. In the case of a logging contractor with one low-bed truck and one harvester-forwarder system, the machine relocation cost was 0.80 €/m³ (Based on 35 000 m 3 of annual harvesting). Whereas, in the case of a contractor with one truck and two harvester-forwarder systems the cost of machine relocation was 0.52 €/m 3 (Based on 70 000 m 3 of annual harvesting). The study found that the annual use of logging contractors' machine relocation trucks is relatively low. The low annual use of truck results in a higher share of the capital costs, and thus, results in high relocation costs. In the future, bigger contractors with larger harvesting amounts and control over several forest machines will improve the cost-competitiveness of machine relocations.