Hello!
My spouse is going to be posted for work to the USA for the next 3-4 years, and I will be moving with him. We knew we would go abroad at some point, but this is earlier than expected.
My original plan was to start a coaching business before moving, and continue it while abroad (we didn’t know the destination until very recently and the post starts quite soon).
While we are abroad, the kotikunta stays in Finland. According to ETK, https://www.etk.fi/en/international-affairs/working-abroad/insurance-for-working-abroad/self-employed-person-and-grant-recipient-working-abroad/if a person has a business, they must have paid YEL for four months before moving to the USA, and then they would be covered for 12 months by Finnish social security.
Now, I am facing some doubts:
– Does it make sense to move later than him to pay YEL for four months, while most likely do very little activity as I still have a full-time job, to be covered for 12 months by social security system and pay taxes in Finland?
– What happens if I have a company, whether toiminimi or OY, I don’t register for YEL right away, and exceed the YEL yearly treshold but they won’t allow me to register because I live abroad?
– Would it be easier to just open a LCC in the USA, even though most of clients would be in Finland?
Any comment/experience is highly appreciated!
Advice on freelancing business when moving 3-4 years to the USA
byu/Any_Sympathy_6601 inFinland
Posted by Any_Sympathy_6601
4 Comments
This sounds like it’s way beyond the scope of Reddit, and you should find a tax-advisor specialised in international tax issues to figure this out. Cause it’s not just what happens on the Finnish side, what you’re supposed to do on the other side also matters.
Few additional things you need to consider is GDPR and how would you handle payments.
ETA: I just checked and you can’t run TMI from overseas, you need to be based in ETA. I’m overall bit confused what are the exact reasons you are planning to do this? Sounds like huge PITA trying to run small company in Finland from overseas. If the company is based here, it has to follow all local rules. Including that GDPR. If you are planning to run some web-shop/ rely on online payments, I’d say just don’t.
I have no particular expertise in the “YEL abroad” matter. Just a simple OY entrepreneur. However, I would say that if you are a citizen in Finland, and If you have not yet opened the OY, you should be pretty well covered if something serious would happen. That is necessarily not the case when you have business owner status. Also YEL will incur a lot of costs each month so would it be better just to move without YEL. It is still a mess for some time.
You may also want to be mindful of the US side of things as well. You are typically obliged to pay taxes in the US if you live and work from there over 183 days a year. Things get complicated if you have a co in Finland (tax statuses get mixed up), you may need to pay taxes in both. Not sure ab YEL side of things in Finland, but typically cleaner to do US based setup if you live there.