Starting a business in Helsinki: Business Helsinki and permits

Karma Accounts · Published 8 October 2026

When starting a business in Helsinki, Business Helsinki, the City's own service, gives free and confidential advice in seven languages, on the different business forms and on light entrepreneurship. Helsinki residents apply for the start-up grant (starttiraha) to Helsinki Employment Services (Helsingin työllisyyspalvelut), and opening a café, restaurant or terrace also needs notifications and permits from the City. The national steps are listed at the end.

Business Helsinki: the City's free business advice

Business Helsinki is the City of Helsinki's service for founders and companies. The old NewCo Helsinki address, newcohelsinki.fi, now forwards to the City's business pages. The national network of enterprise agencies (uusyrityskeskus) lists Business Helsinki, together with Helsingin Uusyrityskeskus ry, as its Helsinki agency; there is no separate centre.

The City suggests an order:

Read its founding guide for new entrepreneurs.
Attend the Starting a Business Info Event (yritysinfo), held remotely on Teams.
Take the Business Plan and Business Calculations course (liiketoimintasuunnitelma ja laskelmat), also on Teams, and draft your plan.
Book a business advisory session (yritysneuvonta), where an advisor goes through your plan and tells you how to develop, improve or change it.

You can also book with a question about a business idea or an existing business without doing the courses first. The advice covers the different business forms, such as a sole trader (toiminimi) or a limited company (osakeyhtiö, Oy), and light entrepreneurship (kevytyrittäjyys).

What	How
Advisory session	online booking form on hel.fi
Phone advice, no booking	+358 9 310 36360, Mon, Tue and Fri 13–15, 20 minutes
Languages	Finnish, Swedish, English, Spanish, Estonian, Russian, Arabic
Events and training	free, registration usually required

Business Helsinki also keeps an Entrepreneur's Material Bank with document templates and has services for young entrepreneurs. If you are still abroad and developing the idea from outside Finland, the City points you to the Helsinki Partners business advisors instead.

Bring your calculations: Business Helsinki says a good business plan with calculations is a precondition for getting funding.

The start-up grant goes to Helsinki Employment Services

Employment services moved from the state to the municipalities at the beginning of 2025, and in Helsinki they are provided by Helsinki Employment Services. If you live in Helsinki, that is where your start-up grant application goes. The grant is discretionary: an application that has arrived is not yet an approval.

What the City says about the Helsinki side:

Apply electronically in the private customer services of Job Market Finland (Työmarkkinatori), logging in with Suomi.fi identification. A paper form is only for those who cannot use the online service.
The application must have reached Helsinki Employment Services before you start the business full-time. The City recommends applying about four weeks before your planned start.
Questions about the grant: starttiraha@hel.fi, or +358 9 310 36300 on weekdays 9–16.
Business Helsinki's advisory session is free, and the City says a plan finalised with a business advisor typically improves the chances of getting the grant significantly.

The amount, the conditions and the tax are national rules, and they are in our start-up grant article.

City permits you may meet

Check the notification, permit and land-use requirements that apply to your activity and your premises. These are the ones a new business meets most often in Helsinki.

A café, restaurant or food shop

A food business is notified to the City's Environmental Services, Food Safety Unit:

Submit the food business notification (ilmoitus elintarviketoiminnasta) at least four weeks before you start; the Food Act sets this deadline. Use the Ilppa service or the City's form, and attach a floor plan of the premises.
The City says it processes a notification within a week and emails you a certificate.
Processing and inspections are charged, and food control also carries an annual basic fee of 150 euros for premises on the control register at the start of the year. The Finnish Food Authority's basic fee guide sets out the fee's other conditions.
The City says the first inspection takes place within one to six months of starting.

If you handle food of animal origin before it goes on to retail, the City says you need an approval of the premises from the Food Safety Unit rather than a notification. Check which applies with food control before you sign a lease. Money matters for restaurants are in our restaurant accounting article.

A terrace

Outdoor seating on a public street or park area needs a permit from the City, applied for with an electronic form in the City's online services. The summer season runs from April to the end of October and the winter season from November to the end of March. The City estimates a week or two when demand is low, and six to eight weeks if the seating area needs structures requiring a building permit (rakentamislupa) or food control has to deal with it, for example through a change to your food business notification. Existing terrace agreements end by 31 March 2027 at the latest and new ones are needed from 1 April 2027; the City will publish updated instructions, prices and terms before then. Serving alcohol needs a separate licence from the Finnish Supervisory Agency (Lupa- ja valvontavirasto).

A sign on the pavement

A ground-floor business may put one A-frame stand on the pavement in front of the building during opening hours. The whole stand must stay within 80 centimetres of the wall, at least 1.5 metres of walking space must remain free, and it may not stand on a cycle path or roadway. There is no charge and the City lists no separate permit for a stand that follows these rules. The police can order a stand that gets in the way removed, at your cost if they remove it themselves.

The City's permit pages also cover food trucks and sales carts, sales spots, environmental permits, health protection notifications and tobacco sales licences.

The national steps, in short

These are the same as anywhere in Finland:

Choose the company form: toiminimi or Oy, or light entrepreneur or toiminimi.
Register the business and check what it costs: company registration costs in 2026.
Open a business bank account.
Check whether VAT registration is compulsory for you, or whether registering voluntarily makes sense.

If you are moving to Finland to start the business, our guide to starting a business in Finland as a foreigner covers permits and residence.

What we do

We are an accounting firm based in Helsinki, and we keep the books of new businesses from their first month, in English, Finnish and Hindi. We can also help with the company formation itself. Limited company bookkeeping costs 199 euros a month up to 240 000 euros of annual turnover and 249 euros above; a sole trader from 69 euros a month; payroll 15 euros per payslip; all plus VAT 25.5 %, with the software and the year-end included and no limit on receipts. More on our page about bookkeeping and accounting in Helsinki.

Sources

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.

Starting a business?

We compare a toiminimi and an Oy with your numbers, go through the start-up notification with you before you file it, and keep the books from the first month. See company formation.

Request a free introduction

Please don’t send bank credentials, personal identity codes or other sensitive data by email.

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