Registering a new business? Prepare for months of waiting

The Patent and Registration Office (PRH) is suffering from a severe registration backlog.

Information received by Suomen Yrittäjät, the Finnish SME association, found that registration filings are severely backed up at the PRH. A representative of the PRH confirmed this to Yrittajat.fi.

“The oldest filings have now been waiting for processing for 72 days,” Registry Manger Ville Tornberg says.

Paper filings are proceeding particularly slowly at present. Tornberg recommends business owners make registration filings electronically.

The backlogs concern changes to company structure, company registrations, and registrations of auxiliary trading names.

Tornberg says the reason is a sharp increase in the numbers of applications.

“This year, we’ve received far more filings than last year. They’ve increased by about 10%. That’s roughly 30,000 more filings year-on-year. We’ve tried to process as many as we can, but we weren’t prepared for such a significant increase.”

In January–June 2025, the PRH received 9.1% company registration filings than last year.

Over 10,000 filings waiting

The PRH has hired summer interns to help tackle the processing backlogs. It also uses automatic decision making to help, a tool the PRH has expanded in several filing groups. Ville Tornberg says around 60,000 filings are automatically processed annually.

At present, around 10,500 filings are waiting to be processed. There are 5,500 electronic filings pending.

“We’re sorry about the delays and about not being able to process filings faster than this. Recruiting new employees doesn’t happen overnight and teaching them about the law and registration practices takes time,” Tornberg says. He says that the savings aims affecting state agencies are being seen in hiring.

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