Culture-related differences in psychopathic traits have been reported for adults, but for adolescents such knowledge is lacking. The aim of this cross-national study was to compare self-reported psychopathic traits between Finnish and Dutch samples of mid-adolescent community youth. Methods The Youth Psychopathic traits Inventory (YPI) was filled in by 372 Finnish and 474 Dutch 15- to 16-year-old pupils. As gender-specific differences exist in psychopathic traits, we analyzed the data separately for boys and girls. Results Dutch boys scored significantly higher than Finnish boys on total and all dimensional scores of the YPI as well as on most sub-dimensional scores. Dutch girls scored significantly higher than Finnish girls on the Affective dimension and on the two corresponding sub-dimensions: remorselessness and callousness. Finnish girls scored significantly higher on grandiosity, which loads to the Interpersonal dimension of the YPI. Conclusions Our findings suggest that culture influences the manifestation of psychopathic traits already in adolescence and that this relation is more prominent in boys. ; BioMed Central open access