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Starting a business in Finland as a foreigner: six decisions

Published 26 September 2026

A foreigner can start a business in Finland. These are the six decisions to make, in the order they come up, each with the rule behind it: whether you may work for yourself here, how you will sign in and file, the form of the business, its registrations, the bank and the books, and YEL pension insurance and tax. For the Finnish Patent and Registration Office's residence rules, what counts is where you live permanently, not your citizenship.

1. May you work for yourself in Finland?

• EU, Liechtenstein or Swiss citizen. If you stay in Finland for more than three months at a time, register your right of residence with the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri); the fee is 53 euros. Nordic citizens register with the Digital and Population Data Services Agency (DVV) instead.
• Already holding a Finnish residence permit. A valid permit issued on any grounds lets you run a business, as long as you keep meeting the conditions of that permit; a student's studies, for example, must still progress.
• Coming to Finland to set up the business. You need a residence permit for an entrepreneur, and the first one is applied for from abroad. The business must be profitable enough to support you, and owning a company is not enough: you must work in it in Finland. In an Oy you count as an entrepreneur if you are its managing director or a board member and own at least 30 %. The regional Economic Development Centre gives a partial decision first, then Migri decides. The first permit costs 750 euros online and 900 on paper, and it is not available to light entrepreneurs who work through an invoicing service.
• A start-up team. The residence permit for a start-up entrepreneur requires a positive eligibility statement from Business Finland before you apply.

2. How will you sign in and file?

Registering a business online at ytj.fi requires that you are 18 or over, have a Finnish personal identity code, and have Finnish online banking codes, a mobile certificate or an electronic identity card. The service works in Finnish and Swedish only. Without those, you file the start-up notification on paper, on form Y.

A personal identity code is not the same as electronic identification, and neither is a residence permit. If you have no Finnish identity code, the Finnish Authenticator lets you use Suomi.fi e-Authorizations, for example to give your accountant a mandate; our guide to approving a Suomi.fi mandate shows how.

3. Toiminimi or Oy?

The two forms differ in bookkeeping and tax, which our article on toiminimi or Oy sets out. For a foreign founder they also differ in the residence rules:

• Toiminimi (sole trader). Its business ID requires a home registered in an EEA country. If you live permanently outside the EEA, you need a permit from the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH) before you file the start-up notification.
• Oy (limited company). No PRH permit is needed if at least one ordinary member of the board lives in the EEA. The managing director must live in the EEA or get a permit, and PRH does not grant one when, for example, the whole board lives outside it. An Oy can be founded with no share capital at all.

Registration costs 75 euros for a toiminimi. For an Oy it is 300 euros through the guided online process at ytj.fi and 400 euros otherwise, which includes paper.

4. Which registrations does it need?

The start-up notification registers the business, and on the same notification you can ask to join the Tax Administration's registers:

• Prepayment register, so that your customers do not withhold tax from what they pay you.
• VAT register, compulsory once your turnover in a calendar year passes 20 000 euros; you stay outside only while it is at most 20 000 euros in both the current and the previous calendar year. Ads and software bought from abroad also go on the return, under the reverse charge; see also our article on VAT return deadlines.
• Employer register, once you regularly pay wages to two or more employees.

An Oy must also notify its beneficial owners, anyone with more than 25 % of the shares or votes, to the Trade Register. It is a separate notification, free of charge, and required even for an inactive company; ignoring PRH's reminder costs a 300-euro negligence fee.

5. Bank and books

Open the business account early: a bank must identify you and understand the business before it takes you on as a customer, which is its duty under the Anti-Money Laundering Act.

A toiminimi and an Oy both have to keep books under the Accounting Act. What that means for receipts and records is in its own article.

6. YEL and the prepayment tax

• YEL pension insurance is compulsory once you live in Finland, are at least 18 and below the upper age limit, have been self-employed for four months without a break since turning 18 and have a YEL income of at least 9 423.09 euros a year in 2026, and it must be taken out within six months of starting. In an Oy it applies to a working owner in a leading position who owns more than 30 % of the shares or votes alone, or more than 50 % together with family members. If you come to Finland from another country, first establish which country's pension insurance covers you. Our article on YEL in 2026 has the costs.
• Prepayment tax. When you start, you estimate the income, expenses and profit of the business, and you pay tax in advance on that estimate. The Tax Administration sends a prepayment decision; keep an eye on the actual figures and ask for the prepayment to be changed when they differ from the estimate.

Where we come in

We work in English and Hindi and make the filings in Finnish. Our services and prices are published, and if language is the deciding question, our page on an English-speaking accountant in Helsinki covers how that works.

Sources

• Finnish Immigration Service: residence permit for an entrepreneur
• Finnish Immigration Service: business activities of residence permit holders
• Finnish Immigration Service: registration of an EU citizen's right of residence
• Finnish Immigration Service: residence permit for a start-up entrepreneur
• YTJ: filing notifications online, and who can
• Finnish Patent and Registration Office: private traders living permanently outside the EEA
• Finnish Patent and Registration Office: limited companies, persons living permanently outside the EEA
• Finnish Patent and Registration Office: starting a limited liability company
• Finnish Patent and Registration Office: start-up notification fees
• Finnish Patent and Registration Office: beneficial owner details, and the 300-euro fee (14.7.2026)
• Tax Administration: start-up notification and the registers
• Tax Administration: VAT liability and registration
• Tax Administration: prepayment register
• Tax Administration: employer register
• Tax Administration: payment of taxes for a new business, prepayment
• Työeläke.fi: when do I need YEL insurance
• Finnish Centre for Pensions: supervision of self-employed persons' insurance (in Finnish)
• Finlex: Accounting Act 1336/1997, chapter 1 (in Finnish)
• Finlex: Act on Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing 444/2017, chapter 3 on customer due diligence (in Finnish)

Please note: this is general information about Finnish rules, not advice for your own situation, and the rules change. Ask us before you act on it.

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