EUR 2,000 support to sole entrepreneurs in the corona virus situation. The application period has expired!

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment confirmed the eligibility for applications for a new support to sole entrepreneurs due the corona pandemic on 8.4.2020. The Government decree enabling the support entered into force on Thursday 9.4.2020. In the first stage, the State  allocated EUR 100 million for the support to sole entrepreneurs, after which the total sum has been increased to EUR 250 million. A one-time payment of EUR 2,000 may be granted for costs incurred from 16 March 2020 onwards.

NOTE! The support can only be applied from the municipality of the business domicile registered in the Business Information System. You may check your company’s business domicile at www.ytj.fi/en/

The City of Porvoo will open the support to sole entrepreneurs for applications on Wednesday 22.4.2020 at 12 noon.

The application form for the support will be accessible at the bottom of this page. Applications will be processed in the order of receival.

Posintra Oy will process all support applications for the City of Porvoo, after which they will be forwarded to the governing authority for approval and disbursement.

The support to sole entrepreneurs is a one-time payment of EUR 2,000. The City of Porvoo has been allocated a maximum EUR 2 737 427 grant in the first stage, based on which the city can award the support to a maximum number of 1 368 sole entrepreneurs.

 

Who is eligble to apply for the support?

  • Any full-time entrepreneur operating in Finland who engages in economic activity alone is eligible to apply for the support.
  • To be considered a full-time entrepreneur, the person must be insured under the self-employed persons’ pension insurance (YEL) or able to produce records of an annual entrepreneurial income or invoicing of at least EUR 20,000. If the business was established less than six (6) months ago, the entrepreneur must be able to prove that the cash flow generated before the disruption would have accumulated a minimum of EUR 20,000 invoicing over a 12-month period.
  • The support is meant for an entrepreneur or a trade practitioner who engages in economic activity and has no employees on payroll, regardless of company form or funding method, including freelancers.
  • The support can also be granted for so-called “Light entrepreneurs” who employ themselves and operate entrepreneurially without, however, setting up a company.
  • A sole entrepreneur means a full-time entrepreneur who is engaged in economic activity alone and has no employees on payroll. Sole entrepreneurship will be evaluated based on the applicant’s situation at the time of application. If the entrepreneur employs 1-5 people in addition to him/herself but has temporarily laid off all employees, he/she is not a sole entrepreneur. If the entrepreneur has permanently laid off all employees and does not employ anyone at the time of application, he/she will be deemed as a sole entrepreneur.
  • Support to sole entrepreneurs will be granted to an entrepreneur personally. If an entrepreneur has multiple companies in which he/she is the only employee, the support will be granted to the company in which the entrepreneur works full-time.
  • If the company consists of several persons on an entrepreneur status who de facto work for the company, they may apply for funding from the ELY Centre (Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment).
  • The support is not available for companies operating in agriculture, fishing, forestry, or processing of agricultural products.

 

Requirements for eligibility for support

  • To be eligible for the EUR 2,000 support, the entrepreneur is required to prove that their financial situation and turnover have deteriorated after 16 March 2020 when the state of emergency was declared in Finland.
  • The applicant must be able to prove in their application that the significant deterioration of their business activity after 16.3.2020 is a result of the corona virus epidemic. The situation must be verified through copies of bookkeeping and/or account statements (costs and sales profit).
  • The financial situation of a company will be deemed as significantly deteriorated if the company’s sales profit has declined by over 30% after staying on approximately the same level over the past 12 months.
  • The basis for awarding the support is that the sole entrepreneur is deemed to have potential for profitable economic activity. Activity will be deemed as having potential for profitability if the economic activity has been profitable based on the company’s financial statement or filed tax returns for 2019.
  • The support is not available for companies that were in financial trouble before the start of the corona virus crisis.
  • If a sole entrepreneur has tax debt, he/she must have a payment plan approved by Tax Administration. The tax debt payment plan must have been approved by Tax Administration before applying for the support, and it must be included in the application.

 

For which purposes can the support be applied?

  • The support available to sole entrepreneurs is a lump-sum payment of EUR 2,000, which is intended to cover costs arising from the entrepreneur’s business activities. These include, for example, the costs of premises and equipment purchased for business purposes, as well as accounting and office expenses. Any salary payments the entrepreneur makes to him/herself will not count as a cost arising from business activities.
  • Eligible costs are those incurred from 16 March 2020 onwards.

 

Impact of the support on other on other potential benefits

  • Entrepreneurs can apply for both the support to sole entrepreneurs and unemployment security. These will not be coordinated; in other words, being eligible for one form of support will not affect entitlement to or amount of the other.
  • The business voucher support awarded by the City of Porvoo does not exlude this support

 

Information required in the application form

In order to apply, the applicant must fill out an electronic application form in the ePorvoo service that includes the following information:

  • Basic information of the applicant
  • Description of business activities
  • Any de minimis support granted to the applicant in the current and previous tax years (if any support has been granted)
  • Plan for stabilizing business activities (how you plan to spend the support)

Required (electronic) attachments to the application:

  • Financial Statement 2019 / latest financial statement / latest filed tax returns. If your business operations started after 31 December 2019, you must submit another reliable statement, such as a copy of your accounting. If you do not have a financial statement, or you are not obligated to have one (you have a “micro company”), please send us the company’s latest profit and loss account. The information submitted by you will be used to assess the company’s viability and whether the entrepreneur is working full-time for the company.
  • Copies of bookkeeping and/or account statements to prove development of sales and costs in 2020 and how the corona epidemic has weakened your company’s financial situation since March 16, 2020 with a decrease in turnover (sales) of at least 30%. In some cases, proving the situation through accounting documents is only possible retroactively. One way to verify your situation is to send us the sales report of your cash register system, which shows the sales of 2020, itemised on a monthly basis. If your business is seasonal, you can also send a report that shows your sales from March 2019 compared to sales from March 2020. In your application, you need to personally declare that the information sent by you is correct. If your accounting is done more infrequently, and you do not have an electronic sales management system, you can verify your business operations by submitting bank statements.
  • Tax liability certificate. You can order and print a tax liability certificate (Verovelkatodistus in Finnish) for yourself from the Tax Administration’s MyTax service. Please see the instructions on the Tax Administration’s website. 
  • Possible tax liability plan approved by the Tax Administration
  • A photo identification (identity card or a passport)

If you intend to file an application, we recommend requesting the necessary attachments from your accountant in advance. The entrepreneur must upon applying affirm that the submitted information is accurate. If the entrepreneur keeps the company books him/herself, the information does not need to be verified by a professional accountant, but the entrepreneur must solemnly affirm that the information is accurate.

Also check in advance if your company has received de minimis aid. More information on de minimis support can be found on our website.

 

Other notable items:

  • Municipalities will report all support disbursed to sole entrepreneurs to the Tax Administration.
  • Support applicants should note that if the municipality approves the application, an agreement is formed between the applicant and the municipality under Section 7, Paragraph 3 of the Act on Discretionary Government Transfers. The agreement will be formed once the municipality decides to award the support and the entrepreneur accepts the terms of awarding the support.
  • If any misconduct is suspected, the municipality is entitled to claim a refund of the support.
  • The support receiver commits to providing necessary information to the support grantor to prove that the support has not been sought against the terms, if needed.
  • The municipality granting the support and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment reserve the right to later verify how the support was spent.


Please fill in the application carefully. The application will be considered as delivered only after all the necessary information and attachments have been received. 

 

Application form and its completion

The application form opens in the ePorvoo service. Instructions for using ePorvoo can be downloaded here (in Finnish). 

  • If you are a registered user of ePorvoo, log in by using your email address and password.
  • If you have not used the ePorvoo service before or you do not have a password, click the button “Forgot your password?”. Instructions for changing your password will be sent to the email address you have used.
  • If you are a new user, create a username for yourself and register as an ePorvoo user. Instructions can be found on the ePorvoo website

Instructions for completing the form later e.g. with attachments:

  • If you need to complete your application with the missing attachments, you can easily do so by logging in to the ePorvoo service and then going to: Oma asiointi / avustushakemukset (in the navigation bar).
  • Click to open your application and add the attachment
  • After adding the attachment, you will see the attachment you added in the browser, after which you can log out of the service.
FILL IN THE APPLICATION FORM (in Finnish) >>

 

See the most common questions and answers (In Finnish). 

Do not hesitate to ask for help from Posintra’s business advisors, tel. 050 597 3887 (weekdays 9-16) or email:

 

This article has been updated as follows:
– article originally published on 15.4.202 after the support search opens
– 22.4: Photo ID information updated
– 24.4: instructions for adding attachments to the e-Porvoo service updated
– the article has been moved to the front page again 10.8. as application period continues.


					

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