The term light entrepreneur refers to people who perform assignments and invoice their principals – the customers who ordered the jobs – through invoicing service companies. Light entrepreneurs must find their customers themselves. In other words, light entrepreneurs work like entrepreneurs, but legally they are not entrepreneurs because they are not required to have a Business Identification Code (Business ID).
Light entrepreneurs work like freelancers. The difference is that light entrepreneurs’ statutory payments and notifications are handled by invoicing service companies. For an independent freelancer, these obligations are at the responsibility of the principal or the freelancer (or their bookkeeper). For this reason, principals may not prefer commissioning freelancers working without a business ID for small jobs – it is easier for the principal to just pay the invoice for a job well done and not worry about payroll administration.
Light entrepreneurs using invoicing services can also use the service for starting a real, registered company. This type of light entrepreneurship could be called “registered light entrepreneurship”. However, in this Guidebook, light entrepreneurship mostly refers to self-employment without a company and a business ID.
The term light entrepreneur is not official; it is not mentioned in Finnish legislation. The term was coined by invoicing service companies, and it is so fitting that it has taken root in spoken language to refer to private people who use invoicing services and work like entrepreneurs without having a registered company.
Nevertheless, light entrepreneurship is not necessarily always “light”. In a sense, it is part-time entrepreneurship or experimenting with running a business, and it has its own rules.
In other sections of The Gig Work Guidebook, you can find information on taxation, tax deductions, value-added tax, full-time and part-time entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs’ social security, such as unemployment benefits policies and pension security.