Factors influencing the choice of business structure include the expected turnover, investment needs, hiring employees, and whether you plan to operate alone or with partners. It’s worth taking the time to carefully consider these decisions.
Anyone can grow into an entrepreneur. Your entrepreneurial journey can be flexible and experimental—you can start small. Entrepreneurship is best learned by doing, but you can also study it. Entrepreneurship training provides information on starting a business and on various aspects of running one
-
Starting a business involves many decisions. The foundation of entrepreneurship is a business idea, which forms the basis for operations. After that, you’ll need to consider, for example, which type of business structure suits you best.
The choice of business form depends on factors such as expected turnover, investment needs, hiring employees, and whether you plan to operate alone or with partners. It’s important to take time to carefully consider these decisions.
Read more:
-
If you want to work as an entrepreneur in Finland and you are a citizen of an EU country, a Nordic country, Liechtenstein, or Switzerland, you do not need a residence permit for Finland. However, you must register your right of residence as an EU citizen. Read more on InfoFinland’s page EU Citizens.
If you want to work as an entrepreneur in Finland and you are a citizen of a country outside the EU or the Nordic countries, you will need a residence permit. You can find more information about residence permits on InfoFinland’s page Entrepreneur in Finland.
-
Once you’ve decided to start a business and made all the necessary decisions, it’s time to take action. The first step is to register your business in the Trade Register by submitting a start-up notification.
The notification can be submitted electronically via the Business Information System (YTJ).
With the same notification, you can also register for the necessary Tax Administration registers, such as:- the VAT register
- the prepayment register
- the employer register – if you will be hiring employees
The prepayment register is voluntary. Being in this register means that the business is responsible for handling its own advance taxes. If your business is in the prepayment register, your customer can apply for a household deduction (if applicable).
If your business is not in the prepayment register, the responsibility for withholding tax from your invoice falls on the customer.
In this case, the customer must deduct tax according to your tax card, just as they would for an employee. The customer must then pay the withheld tax to the Finnish Tax Administration.As an entrepreneur, you must also register for VAT liability yourself. You are required to register if you expect your annual turnover to exceed €20,000.
You may also voluntarily register for VAT even if your turnover is lower. If you are not VAT-liable, you cannot add VAT to your invoices. -
Entrepreneurs have different eligibility conditions for unemployment benefits compared to employees. Normally, the right to unemployment benefits ends if full-time business activity lasts more than two weeks.
To maintain your right to unemployment benefits, your business activity must be part-time.
The Employment Services will assess whether your business is considered full-time or part-time. The key factor is not your income, but the amount of work required—measured in total weekly hours. As a part-time entrepreneur, you must continue to actively look for full-time work and cannot refuse courses or jobs offered by Employment Services.
This assessment is always individual and case-specific.
A change to the Unemployment Security Act in 2018 means that during the first four months after starting your business while unemployed, the status of your business (full-time or part-time) is not evaluated.
If you’re considering entrepreneurship and unsure whether it will be considered part-time or full-time, check with Employment Services in advance.
Note: Light entrepreneurship (e.g., invoicing services without your own business ID) is not the same as part-time entrepreneurship. You may still be considered a full-time entrepreneur.