[olegp]

That's certainly not the case in Finland, where you just need to have one Finnish resident on your board in order to incorporate. There's also the startup permit (https://www.businessfinland.fi/en/do-business-with-finland/s...), which lets you get that residence permit in the first place.

Coming back to the topic of the original post though, in order to work as a freelancer in Finland, you do not need to incorporate to begin with and you certainly don't need to set up an LTD right away as the guide suggests. In fact doing so, can be counter productive, since while setting up a company is easy, shutting own down and becoming an employee again is not simple around here.

I'm running Toughbyte (https://www.toughbyte.com/) and we act as one of the brokers for freelancers in Finland such as the ones mentioned in the guide. What I've been recommending to those wanting to go freelance is that they first try to become employed by a broker on a fixed term contract or work through a cooperative (osuuskunta in Finnish). After that, they can set up an individual entrepreneurship (toiminimi) and only once they've had consistent revenue for about a year, consider setting up an LTD (OY). The limited liability that an LTD provides isn't strictly speaking necessary when working as part of a team on a times and materials basis.