Entrepreneurship in Finland

There are 443,731 companies in Finland (Statistics Finland, Suomen Yritysrekisteri 2022), excluding agriculture, forestry and fishing. They employ 1.45 million people and pay taxes which are used to fund services everyone uses. Ninety-five per cent of companies employ less than 10 people.

Throughout the 21st century, new jobs have been created in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

SMEs generate more than half (54.2%) of the 553 billion euro in total turnover for companies in Finland, and their share of the GDP is slightly more than 40%.

  • Companies with fewer than 10 employees are micro enterprises.
  • Companies with fewer than 50 employees are small enterprises.
  • Companies with between 50–249 employees are medium-sized enterprises.
  • SME = an enterprise with under 250 employees.
  • Companies which employ at least 250 people are large enterprises.

Of all companies, 95,5 % or 423,948, are smaller than 10 people. There are 16,011 (3,6%) small enterprises, 3,105 (0.7%) medium enterprises and 667 large enterprises (0.2%).

Further information:

Business statistics slideshow

The Business Statistics slideshow contains information about the development of the number of businesses by size, staff numbers and turnover.

The data are based on Statistics Finland data from 2019.