Incentives & Useful Documents

Investment and foreign direct investment facilitation and incentives

Finland encourages investment and welcomes foreign direct investment. Today 100% foreign ownership is recognised in most sectors and there is no discrimination against foreign owned companies in favour of domestic ones.

All companies registered in Finland (regardless of domestic or foreign ownership) have access to government assistance under special business aid development programs as well as to the EU Structural Funds.

Finland encourages businesses through grants, tax reductions, loans, loan guarantees, regional incentives, support for exports (e.g. market research, brochures) and support (grants and loans) for research and development. In practical terms, the final investment funding/financing scheme of a investment may combine various instruments.

As part of our soft-landing services, the Invest in Lieksa team will assist any registered Finnish company to identify appropriate incentive packages and the initial engagement with the relevant decision making authorities.

Grants for new investments

The Ministry of Employment and the Economy (TEM) provides subsidies for investments in the form of regional investment aid, aid for small businesses or development aid for small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) and aid for the improvement of the operational environment of the undertaking. Up to 35% of the total costs of an investment may be covered by this grant. Grant percentages are differentiated according to the type of business and development area:

Highest funding support goes to SMEs (less than 250 employees and/or less than 40M€ annual turnover and/or total assets value less than 27M€). (24.3.2021, subject to conditions)

Lieksa and the province of North Karelia belong to the special support area for sparsely populated areas. SMEs companies located in Lieksa will benefit significantly from this special position in the allocation of EU funds. This type of support is handled by the regional Centre for Economic development, Transport and the Environment (ELY-keskus).

Incentives for technological research investments

Investments that include technological research and product development may benefit from additional sources of support. It is granted in the form of grants or loans, to all types of companies, including large companies and academic institutions. The grant may reach 50% of the cost of the payroll, the cost of purchasing raw materials, machinery and the purchase and registration of patents and more. (24.3.2021, subject to conditions)

This type of support is handled by BUSINESS FINLAND.

Process

In Finland, establishing a company is not complicated. All public administrative work is done either in Finnish or Swedish. Private financial agreements and transactions may also be in English. Once the company is established, and provided that there is a detailed business plan, the investor will need to visit and present to all the necessary local actors before the funding scheme is finalised and granted. Requesting investment support is very much a local, personalised process throughout which Invest in Lieksa soft-landing services can assist the applicant. The investors team must be prepared to collaborate with local experts of both the private and the public sector.

Applying for incentives can be a complex process, subject to many detailed criteria. Invest in Lieksa will endeavour to ensure that any investor understands the criteria.

Useful Documents

There are a number of documents / publications that we hope can prove to be useful for investors / operators and developers that have been translated into English. Links to these documents are available here.

Invest in Lieksa takes no liability for the currency or validity of information contained within these documents and would remind any party to ensure that they conduct their own validation or due diligence process before any decisions are based upon this information.