Company Formation in Finland for Foreigners: Set Up a Finnish Oy

PRH looks at where a person permanently lives, not at their citizenship. A Finnish citizen who lives in Singapore is assessed as living outside the EEA, and a Brazilian citizen who lives in Spain as living inside it.

PRH publishes the cases where it has granted board permits: people who live permanently in a Lugano Convention country, which outside the EEA in practice means Switzerland, and US citizens who live in the United States, under the friendship and commerce treaty between Finland and the US. For a managing director, PRH has granted permits when at least one ordinary board member lives in the EEA, and to US citizens living in the US. If your board falls outside these cases, plan for an EEA-resident board member rather than a permit.

The permit comes first, because a certified copy of PRH's permit decision is filed with the start-up notification. PRH's application form is filled in separately for each person. For a new company it goes with certified copies of the memorandum and articles of association, a passport copy for anyone without a Finnish personal identity code, and a Finnish or Swedish translation of any document in another language. A managing director permit also needs the board minutes that appoint them. PRH charges its own handling fee for the permit, and its permit page gives no processing time.

A permit has one follow-on effect. If nobody registered for the company (a board member, the managing director or another authorised signatory) lives in the EEA, the company must register a representative who lives in Finland and can receive summons on its behalf (Business Activities Act 565/2023, section 6).

We prepare the permit application as part of the formation work. The decision is PRH's, and we don't act as the company's representative.

Filing at ytj.fi normally requires Finnish strong electronic identification (online banking codes or a mobile certificate). Foreign founders without a Finnish ID can still register, but the practical route depends on whether you have a Finnish personal identity code and access to electronic identification. We tell you up front which path applies to your situation so there are no surprises mid-filing.

Opening a Finnish business bank account is a separate step from PRH registration and is handled by the bank, not by the authorities. Banks run their own know your customer checks, which can take time for non-resident owners. We prepare the company documents the bank asks for and coordinate the bookkeeping side, but the account approval decision stays with the bank.

Where the shareholders live doesn't affect registration. PRH confirms that owning shares in an ordinary business has no residence or citizenship restriction, apart from rare cases covered by the Act on the Monitoring of Foreigners' Corporate Acquisitions. What a non-EEA owner does meet is identification, first by us and later by the bank.

Accounting firms fall under the Finnish anti-money laundering act (444/2017), so before we start we identify each owner and the company's beneficial owners. When we identify someone remotely, the act requires one check on top of the passport copy. In practice that is usually the first invoice paid from an account in the owner's own name at a bank.

When the owner is a foreign company, we ask for a current extract from its home country's company register and the ownership chain up to the people at the top. The Finnish company's beneficial owners are the natural persons who ultimately own more than 25 percent of it, directly or through the parent, or who control it in another way (444/2017, chapter 1, section 5). They are reported to the Trade Register. If no one meets that test, the company reports that it has no beneficial owners, and PRH records that. A parent company can own all the shares, but it can't sit on the board, because a board member has to be a natural person (Limited Liability Companies Act, chapter 6, section 10).

The beneficial owners matter for the bank too. Before a bank opens an account for a Finnish company, it has to check that the company's beneficial owners are entered in the register (444/2017, chapter 3, section 2). Getting them right in the start-up notification removes one reason for the account opening to wait.

The order of the steps is fixed. How long they take depends mostly on the board and on PRH's queue.

1. Settle the board. If someone needs a PRH permit, it comes first, and PRH gives no processing time for permits.
2. Prepare the filing: check the name against the register at ytj.fi, draft the memorandum and articles of association, and collect the passport copies and the power of attorney for filing.
3. Sign the memorandum of association. The company must then be filed for registration within three months, or the formation lapses (Limited Liability Companies Act, chapter 2, sections 8 and 12).
4. File the start-up notification at ytj.fi. The company gets its Business ID (Y-tunnus) as soon as the notification has been signed, PRH's fee paid and the notification sent. The ID shows in the ytj.fi company search after two working days.
5. Wait for registration. PRH handles notifications in order of arrival and publishes its current queue weekly on its processing status page. A correction round adds to this. The company comes into existence only when it is registered (chapter 2, section 9).
6. Tax registrations. The Tax Administration estimates registrations at three weeks on average, PRH's processing included.
7. Open the business bank account. Each bank sets its own process and timetable, and it checks that the beneficial owners are in the register first.

Bookkeeping for a Finnish limited company (Oy) or a sole trader (toiminimi) starts at 99 euros per month with us. The price is a fixed tier by voucher volume: 99 euros up to 10 vouchers a month, 149 euros for 11-30, 199 euros for 31-60, 299 euros for 61-100 and 349 euros for 101-150. Over 150 vouchers is agreed separately. Pricing is fixed, with no per-voucher fees, so the price does not jump when your invoice volume grows. The figures are VAT 0, with Finnish VAT added on top of the firm's invoice.

The standard Finnish VAT rate is 25.5 percent in 2026. Most company income is subject to corporate income tax, and the company's tax return is due within 4 months of the end of its financial year. If you pay wages, each payment must be reported to the Incomes Register (tulorekisteri) within 5 calendar days of the payment date, which is one of the strictest deadlines a new employer meets.

We keep all of these deadlines on our side, file the VAT and tax returns, and report payroll to the Incomes Register so you stay compliant while you focus on the business.

The whole service runs in English and fully remotely across Finland. Tilitoimisto N.M is based in Nokia, Finland, and works with clients anywhere in the country, so you never have to visit an office or read a Finnish-only portal. You send documents digitally, and your accountant, Nita Mäkinen, handles bookkeeping, VAT, payroll and the annual accounts.

For a founder who is opening a company in Finland from abroad, the value is having one English-speaking point of contact who knows the PRH process, the EEA board rule and the Finnish tax calendar. We register the company, set up the books and run them month to month, so company formation and ongoing accounting are one continuous service rather than two disconnected problems.

Our formation service has a fixed price of 1,200 €, wherever you live. The price covers drafting the formation documents in English, filing the registration (as your agent by power of attorney when you can't sign in with Finnish credentials), identification and the KYC work an international ownership chain requires.

On top of that comes the PRH processing fee, paid directly to the registry: 300 € using the guided YTJ process (requires Finnish personal ID codes from everyone involved) or 400 € otherwise, which is the usual case for a foreign founder. Ongoing bookkeeping then starts at a fixed 99 €/month for a limited company. You pay what the price list says. Nothing else goes on the invoice unless we've agreed it with you first. The bookkeeping starts with a one-off 99 € onboarding fee.

The fixed formation fee covers the work from the documents to the filed notification:

• the memorandum of association and the articles of association, drafted in English
• the start-up notification at ytj.fi with the board, the shareholders and the beneficial owners, filed as your agent under a power of attorney when you can't sign in to ytj.fi yourself
• the tax registrations in the same notification: the prepayment register, the VAT register and the employer register, as your company needs them
• identification and KYC of a foreign owner or a foreign parent company, including remote identification
• a PRH permit application, drafted and filed, if a board member or the managing director needs one
• communication with us in English throughout

What it doesn't include:

• PRH's fees, which are paid to PRH: €400 for the start-up notification whenever someone involved has no Finnish personal identity code, and PRH's separate fee for a permit if one is needed
• a board seat or the role of the company's representative, which we don't take
• the bank's decision on the business account
• the outcome of a permit application: the fee covers the work, and PRH makes the decision

Bookkeeping is a separate service: a one-off €99 onboarding fee, then from €99 a month. Our prices are VAT 0, with Finnish VAT added where it applies.