€75

sole trader registration

€300

limited company, guided setup

€0

minimum share capital for an Oy

~€3,300

first year, all costs included

The PRH fee is the only mandatory item

The Finnish Patent and Registration Office charges a handling fee for a trade-register notification, and it is the one sum you cannot avoid. The fees carry no VAT, and they changed at the start of 2026. At the same time the separate paper surcharge disappeared from the price list: a sole trader’s notification costs the same €75 whether it is filed in the YTJ service or on a form.

The gap between the two limited-company prices is not the difference between electronic and paper filing, although that is the common assumption. The guided setup package in YTJ costs €300, but it requires the share capital to be exactly zero, standard articles of association to suffice, and every shareholder and officer to hold a Finnish personal identity code and an authentication method. If a single condition fails — because you want to deposit capital right away, for instance — the standard start-up notification applies, at €400.

The real costs of the first year

Once registration is done, the running costs begin. They are not mandatory in the sense that the law demands them of everyone, but in practice few manage without accounting and nobody escapes YEL once their work income passes the lower limit.

For a limited company the same calculation lands at about €3,515, because registration costs €225 more. That gap is small compared with the fact that an Oy’s accounting is typically more expensive — the financial statements and tax return take more work than a sole trader’s light bookkeeping, and the price usually settles between €100 and €250 a month.

YEL is the biggest item, and it catches people out

The self-employed person’s pension contribution is 24.40 per cent of work income in 2026, the same at every age. A new entrepreneur gets a 22 per cent discount for the first 48 months, making the effective rate 19.03 per cent. The lower limit for work income is €9,423.09 a year; activity below that needs no YEL insurance at all.

The calculator’s default of €150 a month corresponds almost exactly to work income at the lower limit. If you are planning genuine full-time self-employment, that default is too low: at €20,000 of work income YEL costs €317 a month even with the discount, and €407 once the four years are up.

What you do not have to pay for

• ·Share capital is not required. A private limited company’s minimum is zero, and no bank demands it to open an account.
• ·VAT registration is not needed while turnover stays under €20,000 in a calendar year. You may register voluntarily, which pays off when purchases are large.
• ·A sole trader’s business name needs no separate protection. The trade-register entry grants the exclusive right to the name.
• ·An accounting firm is not compulsory. A sole trader’s light bookkeeping works fine in software when there are few receipts and the transactions are simple.
• ·The registration does not need a consultant. The guided form in the YTJ service takes about half an hour.

Sole trader or limited company — the price does not decide

The difference in setup cost is €225. That is far too small a sum to influence the choice of business form. What decides it is taxation, liability, and whether you intend to draw the money out immediately or leave part of it in the company.

In a sole trader business the whole result is taxed as the entrepreneur’s personal income, and the entrepreneur answers for debts with their own property. In a limited company liability is limited to the capital invested, the result is first taxed as corporate income and only taxed as the owner’s income when it is withdrawn. At small incomes the sole trader form is usually lighter and cheaper to run; once the result reaches a few tens of thousands, the company’s tax treatment starts to justify itself.