Self-employed health care professionals
Self-employed health care professionals who wish to provide health care or nursing services in the private sector must first notify the competent Regional State Administrative Agency. You must submit your notice before you begin to provide services.
If your business is a limited company or a limited partnership, if you work through a cooperative or a foundation, or if you employ other health care professionals, you cannot register as a sole trader. Instead, you must apply for a private health care licence.
Your details, including information about your health care qualifications, must be included in the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health’s central register of health care professionals.
Registration notices
Self-employed health care service providers need a sole trader’s business ID.
Are you planning on working, or are you already working, as a so-called light entrepreneur? If so, you need a business ID for yourself or for your business name to be able to offer private health care.
You can request a business ID and check your details through The Business Information System:
The Business Information System YTJ
Your notice must also include
- your contact information,
- information about the local authorities and locations where you intend to provide services,
- the date on which you intend to begin providing services,
- a description of the services that you intend to provide, and
- how you intend to keep records of your patients
- attachments:
- doctors or dentist: a report on practical work experience
- physiotherapist, psychologists, and family doctors who work in occupational health care: a certificate for specialization in occupational health
Read more about how you may offer private health services as a light entrepreneur:
Kevytyrittäjänä toimiminen (Valvira.fi, in Finnish)
You can register your business, report changes in your information and notify the authorities if you discontinue your business through the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health’s online customer service portal. You need online banking details or a mobile certificate to sign in. If you are offered alternatives to log in, choose login with a personal identity code.
The online customer service portal automatically forwards your submissions to the correct Regional State Administrative Agency. You can find the link to the online customer service at the bottom of this page.
You can use the online customer service portal to
- view and edit your information,
- notify the authorities that you are starting a business,
- report changes in your business,
- notify the authorities if you decide to discontinue your business,
- track the progress of your submissions, and
- view the authorities’ decisions and register entries.
Please always use the online customer service portal if you can. Alternatively, you can print out the relevant forms and send them to the registry of the competent Regional State Administrative Agency. Be careful with paper forms, as forms that are filled in incorrectly or that do not include all the required information take longer to process. Please also read our instructions for setting yourself up as a self-employed health care provider. The competent Regional State Administrative Agency is the one in whose jurisdiction you primarily intend to operate.
We aim to process all notices within two months of receipt. However, we get a large number of notices, and there may be delays. Filing your notice online speeds up the process. The processing time also depends on how carefully you fill in the notice form and whether you include all the necessary supporting documents.
Our permit processing is occasionally busy.
The processing fee is EUR 290. The corresponding fee for a notification that has not been made in the e-service is EUR 345. The processing fee charged by Regional State Administrative Agencies includes entering your details into the national register of private social welfare and health care providers. Once your registration is complete, you get a bill from the Finnish Government’s Shared Services Centre for Finance and HR.
A fee of EUR 100 is charged for new registrations. The corresponding decision fee for notices that are not submitted through the online customer service portal is EUR 115. You can notify us of several changes at the same time for the same price.
There is no charge for reporting changes to self-employed persons’ basic information or the geographic scope of service provision. Closing down a location or discontinuing a business altogether can also be reported free of charge.
The same fee applies regardless of whether or not a registration request is successful. If you disagree with the Regional State Administrative Agency’s bill, you have six months from the date of the bill to contest it.
The Regional State Administrative Agencies fees are based on The Finnish Government’s decree on charges payable for services of the Regional State Administrative Agency.
Registration of private social welfare and health care providers (Valvira)
Once your notice has been processed, the competent Regional State Administrative Agency enters your details into Finland’s national register of private social welfare and health care providers. More information about the register and the associated privacy policy is available from Regional State Administrative Agencies.
You need to let the competent Regional State Administrative Agency know of any material changes in your business. Examples include closing a location or opening a new one, expanding into a new local authority or a new discipline and changes in the way you keep patient records. If you decide to discontinue your business, you have 30 days from the day on which you stop trading to report it.
Information about activity reports
Self-employment in health care must be reported annually. You must send an annual report on your activities to us at the Regional State Administrative Agency.
From the report, we verify that your activities as a self-employed person in healthcare are in accordance with the registration. With the help of the reports on your activities, we also check that the information in the Valve-register is correct and up-to-date.
In the report on your activities, you must report the activity information on health and medical care services concerning the health-care self-employment.
Send us the activity report
- separately for each active business site
- for business sites where activities have ended during the previous year
- for business sites where activities have been reported as interrupted, regardless of the date of interruption.
Any possible changes to the activities or business sites will not be updated automatically through the activity report into the Valveri-register. Report them separately in Valvira's e-services.
At the beginning of the year, we will send you an email about the submission of the activity report.
You can send the report electronically in the e-service. Log into e-services with your personal online banking credentials, mobile certificate or certificate card.
The electronic activity report form is pre-completed with your basic information and business sites.
To submit the activity report, you need:
• online banking credentials, a mobile certificate or certificate card
• the number of patients and the number of patient visits from the previous year by business site.
What should I do if the electronic transmission of the activity report is not successful?
If it is not possible to submit the annual report electronically, you can use a form. You can find it on the Forms page under Health Services.
Fill in the form electronically or print it and send it to the Registry of the Regional State Administrative Agency in your region, either by e-mail or by post. If you cannot find the correct form or cannot send it, please contact the registry.