Finland · Startup Visa
Finland's Startup Visa asks for two founders, not one
Business Finland screens your team and your idea before Migri ever opens the file. Clear that, show about $16,700 of your own money, and a first permit runs two years.
Finland runs its founder route through two agencies, and the first one isn't the immigration service. Here's what Business Finland scores, what your savings have to cover, and the businesses it turns down flat.
Two agencies, in order
Business Finland judges the company, Migri judges you
The statement comes first
Migri's rule is blunt. Business Finland has to issue a positive Eligibility Statement before you're allowed to apply for the permit at all. You request it in Enter Finland, and one person files it for the whole team with everyone's passport and CV attached. Business Finland puts the average wait at about a month, longer in busy stretches. Then it ages out: the statement must be under four months old the day you submit the permit application, so a slow team can time itself out of its own approval.
What the team has to look like
Two founders is the floor. Business Finland's instructions call two the minimum and two to five the usual size, insisting that every founder needs a real role and must move to Finland. Together, the founders must hold at least 60 percent of the company and work at it full-time. Owning shares isn't enough. Enter Finland says flatly that you can't get this permit just because you own a company.
The bar, in figures
Two
Founders, minimum
And all of you have to move to Finland
$16,700
Savings per founder, one year
Twelve months at the capital-region threshold
About a month
Business Finland's average wait
This runs before Migri's clock starts
$750
Migri's online filing fee
650 euros online, 800 euros on paper
Startup Visa
For entrepreneurs establishing a startup in Finland with a solid, innovative business plan.
- Government cost
- $490
- Processing time
- ~90 days
- Timeline
- Up to 2 years (renewable)
- Difficulty
- Easy
About that data card
The timeline up there is right: a first permit can run two years. Less of the rest is. Migri's real online price is the $750 on the card above, not the $490 we print. And 90 days describes the standard route, not the two-week fast track this permit qualifies for. The difficulty word comes off a ten-point scale our data never passes five on, so it reads gentler than this route is. We've hidden our requirement list, too. Nothing on it's wrong, but it skips the Business Finland statement and two-founder rule, which are the tests that decide the case. All of it is filed as fixes. Euro amounts here convert at about $1.15, September 2026.
Savings, not salary
Your bank balance sets how long the permit runs
A year gets you in, two years gets you the long card
Migri wants net living funds of roughly $1,390 a month in the priciest municipality band, which is where Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen sit. The statutory euro figures for 2026 are 1,210, 1,090 or 1,030. A year of the top figure is about $16,700. Cover two years, roughly $33,400, and Migri can write the permit for the full two. On other founder routes, the money is a threshold and the length is fixed. Here the money is the dial.
Whose money counts
It has to sit in your own account. Savings qualify, so does startup revenue, funding already granted to the company, or rent that keeps paying. Business Finland is blunt that the permit carries no cash of its own: no investment, no grant, no support. And each founder clears the bar separately, because each files their own application.
Tax, once you're trading
A Finnish limited company pays 20 percent on profit, and a bill to cut that to 18 percent from 2027 reached parliament in September. VAT registration starts at 20,000 euros of turnover, and you keep filing a U.S. return throughout.
Inside the permit
A side job is allowed
The startup must be your main activity, but Migri says the permit also lets you work elsewhere alongside it.
The D visa moves you sooner
Apply alongside the permit and you can fly the moment the decision lands, before the card reaches Finland.
Family rides the same track
A spouse gets a fast-track number once you file, then two days to submit their own application.
It has to be an Oy
Business Finland wants a limited company headquartered in Finland. Not a sole trader, not a branch office.
An existing company moves
A business you run abroad has to relocate to Finland with its intellectual property. A subsidiary won't do.
Migri checks up afterward
Post-decision monitoring of these permits runs automatically, so the grant assumes you moved and kept building.
The turn-downs
Finland publishes the list of who doesn't qualify
Not a startup, in their words
The ineligible list is short and specific. Anything without an innovative competitive advantage is out, and the examples given are restaurants, consultancies, import and distribution, and other service businesses. A subsidiary or branch office of a foreign enterprise is out. So is a company aimed only at the Finnish market. The test isn't whether the idea is new to Finland. It's whether it's distinct in global markets, a harder bar than the Dutch scheme sets.
If the statement comes back negative
There's a second door, and Migri points at it on the same page. The ordinary entrepreneur permit turns on whether the business can make a profit, not on how fast it scales. Slower, less glamorous, open to exactly the consultancy the startup route just refused.
A warning from the agency itself
Business Finland says it has partnered with no consultants, that nobody can promise a positive statement, and that the founders you list must be genuine co-founders, not people paid to look like one. Finnish cities run free advisory services.
The clock nobody counts
Two weeks is Migri's promise and this permit is on that list, but the two weeks only starts once Business Finland has finished. Add the month or so for the statement, the five working days you get to prove your identity at a VFS center or a Finnish mission, and the ban on filing a first permit from inside Finland. Plan on a season, not a fortnight.
Who handles the parts you can't
Finconsult
Finland Relocation Services
Finconsult has worked inside Finland's permit system for over a decade. Ask them first whether your case is really a startup file or an entrepreneur file, because the answer decides which agency you start with.
MyExpatTaxes
U.S. Expat Tax Service
Owning a slice of a Finnish Oy usually pulls a US shareholder into Form 5471 territory on top of the ordinary expat return. Ask MyExpatTaxes what your stake triggers before you sign the shareholders' agreement, not after.
ExpatInsure
Global Health Insurance
A Finnish residence permit doesn't hand you public health care. That arrives with a municipality of residence from DVV, and it isn't automatic, so price private cover for the gap before you fly.
The parts people get wrong
What kind of business gets rejected?
The exclusions are published, and the two that catch Americans hardest are not about the idea. A subsidiary or branch of a company you already own abroad does not qualify: the business has to relocate with its intellectual property and be headquartered in Finland. A relocating company also has to be under five years old unless its operations change significantly. Restaurants, consultancies and import businesses are ineligible outright.
What happens when the first permit runs out?
You apply to extend from inside Finland. No fresh eligibility statement is needed if you already held a startup permit, because Migri asks Business Finland directly when it wants a view. An extension covers only the period you can prove continuous income, up to four years. Business Finland expects the same business idea it approved, still innovative and still aimed at global markets.
Can I apply for Finland's startup visa on my own?
No. Business Finland requires a team of at least two founders, and its instructions call two to five the normal size. Every founder needs a genuine role, works full time on the company, and moves to Finland. The founders also need a controlling stake of 60 percent or more between them. A solo founder's realistic route is Finland's ordinary entrepreneur permit instead.
Do I need to speak Finnish?
Not for this permit. Business Finland does expect the team to have solid written and spoken English, reasoning that you can't run an internationally scalable company without it. Finnish matters later: permanent residence normally asks for B1 in Finnish or Swedish, and the shorter route to citizenship wants a language certificate.
How much money do I need in the bank?
About $1,390 a month at the top of Migri's three 2026 bands, which is where the capital region sits. The two cheaper bands work out near $1,255 and $1,185. In euros the top figure is 1,210 net, and the money must be in an account of your own. A year at that band is roughly $16,700, and showing two years lets Migri write the permit for two.
Does the application have to be filed from outside Finland?
Yes, for a first permit. Migri takes extended applications only from inside Finland, and the fast track is closed to anyone already standing there. Visa-free Schengen days do not convert into a right to file. Book the identity appointment at a VFS Global center or a Finnish embassy the day you submit.
How long does the Finland startup permit take?
Budget it in two stages. Business Finland averages about a month on the eligibility statement, longer in peak periods, and that runs before any immigration clock starts. Migri then promises a fast-track decision in two weeks, if you apply online, pay online and prove your identity within five working days. Miss that window, or get asked for more documents, and the case falls back to standard processing.
Finland asks for a co-founder. Plenty of places don't.
Answer a few questions about your company, your runway and how much winter you can take, and the Expatsi Test will narrow the map for you.
Why not you?