Residence Does Not Insure You in Estonia: Social Tax Does, and Cover Begins Fourteen Days After Your Employment Is Registered
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Antigua and Barbuda on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
172 exceptions recorded across 63 countries · none match Antigua and Barbuda to Estonia · Access to healthcare
Section 5(1) of the Ravikindlustuse seadus names three groups of people who can be insured - a permanent resident of Estonia, a person living here on a temporary residence permit or right of residence, and a person lawfully present on a temporary basis and working - and then qualifies all three with one condition: social tax must be payable for them by someone, or they must pay it themselves. Residence is the gateway, not the entitlement. That is the divergence from Finland, where a determination of kotikunta under a 1994 Act makes a person a resident of a wellbeing services county and the county's duty follows. In Estonia the question is whether a social tax obligation exists. For an employee it does from the start date entered in the employment register, and cover begins after a fourteen-day waiting period counted from that date; it ends two months after the registered end of the employment, and suspends two months after a registered suspension. A second list, in section 5(4), equates certain people with the insured although no social tax is paid for them - a pregnant woman, anyone up to 19, a person drawing an Estonian state pension, a person with reduced work ability, a dependent spouse or registered partner within five years of pension age, pupils and resident students, and monks and nuns. A student on a residence permit is expressly cut out of two of those: section 172 of the Välismaalaste seadus disapplies points 2 and 5 of section 5(4) to them. Everyone applying for a residence permit must instead hold private medical cover of at least 6,000 euros for an annual insurance period.
At a glance
- What makes you insured
- Social tax, not residence
Section 5(1) of the Ravikindlustuse seadus qualifies all three residence categories with the social tax condition.
- Waiting period for an employee
- 14 days from the start of employment entered in the employment register
Section 6(1) of the Ravikindlustuse seadus.
- When cover ends
- Two months after the registered end of the employment
Section 6(3) of the Ravikindlustuse seadus. Subsection 4 suspends cover two months after a registered suspension of work.
- Insured without social tax
- Nine categories in section 5(4) of the Ravikindlustuse seadus
Among them anyone up to 19, a recipient of an Estonian state pension, and a dependent spouse or registered partner within five years of pension age.
- Students
- Cut out of two of those categories
Section 172 of the Välismaalaste seadus disapplies section 5(4) points 2 and 5 of the Ravikindlustuse seadus to a holder of a study permit.
- Private cover required of a permit applicant
- At least 6,000 euros for an annual insurance period
Section 120(1) point 4 of the Välismaalaste seadus. Section 117(1) point 4 makes the contract a general condition of every temporary residence permit.
- Private cover for a visitor
- A contract covering treatment costs caused by illness or injury
Section 45(1) of the Välismaalaste seadus, with no sum stated for a temporary stay.
Requirements
- A permanent residence, a residence permit or right of residence, or lawful temporary presence with work
- Social tax payable for you, or paid by you, under the Sotsiaalmaksuseadus - or membership of one of the groups section 5(4) equates with the insured
- For a residence permit applicant, a medical insurance contract with a sum insured of at least 6,000 euros for an annual insurance period
In detail
Two Nordic-Baltic answers to the same question
Finland decides health care through a chain of three statutes that starts with kotikunta, a determination about where a person's home municipality is, made under a 1994 Act that is not about health at all. Estonia decides it through the social tax account. The consequence for a mover is different in kind: in Finland the question is whether the registration authority has made a determination; in Estonia the question is whether an employer has entered an employment start date and whether fourteen days have passed. A person with a residence permit and no work and no qualifying status is not insured in Estonia, and must carry the private cover that section 117(1) point 4 requires of every permit holder.
Why the private cover is not a formality
Section 117(1) point 4 makes a medical insurance contract meeting section 120 a general condition of every temporary residence permit, and section 120(2) requires it to be held for the whole life of the permit. Section 120(3) lets the contract exclude chronic and congenital conditions diagnosed before it started, pregnancy and childbirth, dental care, and treatments outside the Health Insurance Fund's list. So the 6,000 euros is a floor on a policy that may lawfully exclude a great deal.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«(1) Kindlustatud isik käesoleva seaduse tähenduses on Eesti alaline elanik, tähtajalise elamisloa või elamisõiguse alusel Eestis elav isik, ajutise viibimisalusega Eestis seaduslikult viibiv ja töötav isik, kelle eest sotsiaalmaksu maksja on kohustatud maksma sotsiaalmaksu või kes iseenda eest maksab sotsiaalmaksu sotsiaalmaksuseaduses sätestatud korras, suuruses ja tähtaegadel, samuti nende isikutega käesoleva seaduse alusel või käesoleva seaduse § 22 lõigetes 1 ja 2 nimetatud lepingu alusel võrdsustatud isik.»Our translation - not official
An insured person for the purposes of this Act is a permanent resident of Estonia, a person living in Estonia on the basis of a temporary residence permit or right of residence, or a person staying and working lawfully in Estonia on the basis of a temporary basis of stay, for whom the payer of social tax is obliged to pay social tax or who pays social tax for himself or herself in the manner, amount and by the dates provided for in the Social Tax Act, and also a person equated with such persons on the basis of this Act or on the basis of an agreement referred to in section 22(1) and (2) of this Act.
One sentence that makes social tax the operative condition for every residence category.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Estonia's state gazette, published by the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs, and unusual in this corpus because its consolidated texts are official by statute rather than by convention. Section 1(1) of the Riigi Teataja seadus makes it the official online publication of the Republic of Estonia; section 2(1) says acts are published in it as official original texts; and section 3(1) says that alongside the original text it publishes the official consolidated texts - ametlikud terviktekstid - of Acts, presidential decrees, government, ministerial and Bank of Estonia regulations, Riigikogu resolutions, government orders and local authority regulations. Section 3(2) requires the publisher to add validity-period data to each consolidated text, which is why every act page here carries a line of the form 'Kehtiv sõnastus 30.09.2026 - 30.12.2026': the wording in force, with the day it took effect and the day a later redaktsioon replaces it. That makes the cut-off a published fact rather than an inference, and it also makes future law visible in advance, because a redaktsioon that starts in 2027 already exists at its own address. Each act is addressed as /akt/<id>, where the id is the publication date and sequence number of the redaktsioon, so a cited address is pinned to one wording rather than redirecting to whatever is current. The site also runs an abbreviation index at /api/v1/akt/lyhendid mapping each statute's Estonian abbreviation to its current redaktsioon id, and a full-text search at /api/v1/otsing/tervik-tekst, both of which were used to find instruments for this country.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The English translations are not the instrument and must never be quoted as one. Section 6 of the Riigi Teataja seadus provides only that the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs arranges translation 'to the extent determined by the minister responsible for the area', that translations are made available in Riigi Teataja, and that a sworn translator is competent to translate an Act into a foreign language; nowhere does the Act call a translation official, which is the contrast with sections 2(1) and 3(1), where it does use that word of the Estonian texts. Translations carry their own cut-offs and lag the Estonian redaktsioon. Two further traps. First, a subdivision of an Act can outlive the ground that created it: sections 198 to 200 of the Välismaalaste seadus still describe a residence permit for sufficient legal income, with no repeal marker and with amendments dated 2013 and 2017, although section 309-2(1) stopped the permit being granted on 1 July 2012 - so a repealed ground shows only as a bracketed note against a point number in the list of grounds, eleven chapters away from the sections that describe it. Second, the site is an Angular single-page application behind Cloudflare: a plain fetch returns a 62 kB shell and no law at all, so a reading must be taken through a renderer. It cannot be cited for anything that is not published in Riigi Teataja - agency practice, application procedures, money figures the agency publishes on its own pages - and it is not a source for what any instrument means.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«(1) Käesoleva seaduse § 5 lõike 2 punktides 1 ja 2 nimetatud isikute kindlustuskaitse tekib maksukorralduse seaduse §-s 251 sätestatud töötamise registrisse (edaspidi töötamise register) kantud töötamise alustamise kuupäevast arvestatava neljateistkümnepäevase ooteaja möödumisel.»Our translation - not official
The insurance cover of the persons referred to in section 5(2) points 1 and 2 of this Act arises on the expiry of a fourteen-day waiting period calculated from the date of commencement of employment entered in the employment register provided for in section 25-1 of the Taxation Act.
Fourteen days, counted from a register entry rather than from the first day worked.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Estonia's state gazette, published by the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs, and unusual in this corpus because its consolidated texts are official by statute rather than by convention. Section 1(1) of the Riigi Teataja seadus makes it the official online publication of the Republic of Estonia; section 2(1) says acts are published in it as official original texts; and section 3(1) says that alongside the original text it publishes the official consolidated texts - ametlikud terviktekstid - of Acts, presidential decrees, government, ministerial and Bank of Estonia regulations, Riigikogu resolutions, government orders and local authority regulations. Section 3(2) requires the publisher to add validity-period data to each consolidated text, which is why every act page here carries a line of the form 'Kehtiv sõnastus 30.09.2026 - 30.12.2026': the wording in force, with the day it took effect and the day a later redaktsioon replaces it. That makes the cut-off a published fact rather than an inference, and it also makes future law visible in advance, because a redaktsioon that starts in 2027 already exists at its own address. Each act is addressed as /akt/<id>, where the id is the publication date and sequence number of the redaktsioon, so a cited address is pinned to one wording rather than redirecting to whatever is current. The site also runs an abbreviation index at /api/v1/akt/lyhendid mapping each statute's Estonian abbreviation to its current redaktsioon id, and a full-text search at /api/v1/otsing/tervik-tekst, both of which were used to find instruments for this country.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The English translations are not the instrument and must never be quoted as one. Section 6 of the Riigi Teataja seadus provides only that the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs arranges translation 'to the extent determined by the minister responsible for the area', that translations are made available in Riigi Teataja, and that a sworn translator is competent to translate an Act into a foreign language; nowhere does the Act call a translation official, which is the contrast with sections 2(1) and 3(1), where it does use that word of the Estonian texts. Translations carry their own cut-offs and lag the Estonian redaktsioon. Two further traps. First, a subdivision of an Act can outlive the ground that created it: sections 198 to 200 of the Välismaalaste seadus still describe a residence permit for sufficient legal income, with no repeal marker and with amendments dated 2013 and 2017, although section 309-2(1) stopped the permit being granted on 1 July 2012 - so a repealed ground shows only as a bracketed note against a point number in the list of grounds, eleven chapters away from the sections that describe it. Second, the site is an Angular single-page application behind Cloudflare: a plain fetch returns a 62 kB shell and no law at all, so a reading must be taken through a renderer. It cannot be cited for anything that is not published in Riigi Teataja - agency practice, application procedures, money figures the agency publishes on its own pages - and it is not a source for what any instrument means.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«(3) Käesoleva seaduse § 5 lõike 2 punktides 1 ja 2 nimetatud isikute kindlustuskaitse lõpeb kahe kuu möödumisel töötamise registrisse kantud töötamise lõppemise päevast.»Our translation - not official
The insurance cover of the persons referred to in section 5(2) points 1 and 2 of this Act ends two months after the date of termination of employment entered in the employment register.
The tail of cover after a job ends.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Estonia's state gazette, published by the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs, and unusual in this corpus because its consolidated texts are official by statute rather than by convention. Section 1(1) of the Riigi Teataja seadus makes it the official online publication of the Republic of Estonia; section 2(1) says acts are published in it as official original texts; and section 3(1) says that alongside the original text it publishes the official consolidated texts - ametlikud terviktekstid - of Acts, presidential decrees, government, ministerial and Bank of Estonia regulations, Riigikogu resolutions, government orders and local authority regulations. Section 3(2) requires the publisher to add validity-period data to each consolidated text, which is why every act page here carries a line of the form 'Kehtiv sõnastus 30.09.2026 - 30.12.2026': the wording in force, with the day it took effect and the day a later redaktsioon replaces it. That makes the cut-off a published fact rather than an inference, and it also makes future law visible in advance, because a redaktsioon that starts in 2027 already exists at its own address. Each act is addressed as /akt/<id>, where the id is the publication date and sequence number of the redaktsioon, so a cited address is pinned to one wording rather than redirecting to whatever is current. The site also runs an abbreviation index at /api/v1/akt/lyhendid mapping each statute's Estonian abbreviation to its current redaktsioon id, and a full-text search at /api/v1/otsing/tervik-tekst, both of which were used to find instruments for this country.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The English translations are not the instrument and must never be quoted as one. Section 6 of the Riigi Teataja seadus provides only that the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs arranges translation 'to the extent determined by the minister responsible for the area', that translations are made available in Riigi Teataja, and that a sworn translator is competent to translate an Act into a foreign language; nowhere does the Act call a translation official, which is the contrast with sections 2(1) and 3(1), where it does use that word of the Estonian texts. Translations carry their own cut-offs and lag the Estonian redaktsioon. Two further traps. First, a subdivision of an Act can outlive the ground that created it: sections 198 to 200 of the Välismaalaste seadus still describe a residence permit for sufficient legal income, with no repeal marker and with amendments dated 2013 and 2017, although section 309-2(1) stopped the permit being granted on 1 July 2012 - so a repealed ground shows only as a bracketed note against a point number in the list of grounds, eleven chapters away from the sections that describe it. Second, the site is an Angular single-page application behind Cloudflare: a plain fetch returns a 62 kB shell and no law at all, so a reading must be taken through a renderer. It cannot be cited for anything that is not published in Riigi Teataja - agency practice, application procedures, money figures the agency publishes on its own pages - and it is not a source for what any instrument means.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«2) isik kuni 19-aastaseks saamiseni;»Our translation - not official
2) a person until he or she reaches 19 years of age;
One of the categories equated with the insured without social tax - and one of the two that section 172 of the Aliens Act takes away from a student.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Estonia's state gazette, published by the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs, and unusual in this corpus because its consolidated texts are official by statute rather than by convention. Section 1(1) of the Riigi Teataja seadus makes it the official online publication of the Republic of Estonia; section 2(1) says acts are published in it as official original texts; and section 3(1) says that alongside the original text it publishes the official consolidated texts - ametlikud terviktekstid - of Acts, presidential decrees, government, ministerial and Bank of Estonia regulations, Riigikogu resolutions, government orders and local authority regulations. Section 3(2) requires the publisher to add validity-period data to each consolidated text, which is why every act page here carries a line of the form 'Kehtiv sõnastus 30.09.2026 - 30.12.2026': the wording in force, with the day it took effect and the day a later redaktsioon replaces it. That makes the cut-off a published fact rather than an inference, and it also makes future law visible in advance, because a redaktsioon that starts in 2027 already exists at its own address. Each act is addressed as /akt/<id>, where the id is the publication date and sequence number of the redaktsioon, so a cited address is pinned to one wording rather than redirecting to whatever is current. The site also runs an abbreviation index at /api/v1/akt/lyhendid mapping each statute's Estonian abbreviation to its current redaktsioon id, and a full-text search at /api/v1/otsing/tervik-tekst, both of which were used to find instruments for this country.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The English translations are not the instrument and must never be quoted as one. Section 6 of the Riigi Teataja seadus provides only that the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs arranges translation 'to the extent determined by the minister responsible for the area', that translations are made available in Riigi Teataja, and that a sworn translator is competent to translate an Act into a foreign language; nowhere does the Act call a translation official, which is the contrast with sections 2(1) and 3(1), where it does use that word of the Estonian texts. Translations carry their own cut-offs and lag the Estonian redaktsioon. Two further traps. First, a subdivision of an Act can outlive the ground that created it: sections 198 to 200 of the Välismaalaste seadus still describe a residence permit for sufficient legal income, with no repeal marker and with amendments dated 2013 and 2017, although section 309-2(1) stopped the permit being granted on 1 July 2012 - so a repealed ground shows only as a bracketed note against a point number in the list of grounds, eleven chapters away from the sections that describe it. Second, the site is an Angular single-page application behind Cloudflare: a plain fetch returns a 62 kB shell and no law at all, so a reading must be taken through a renderer. It cannot be cited for anything that is not published in Riigi Teataja - agency practice, application procedures, money figures the agency publishes on its own pages - and it is not a source for what any instrument means.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«3) isik, kes saab Eestis määratud riiklikku pensioni;»Our translation - not official
3) a person who receives a state pension granted in Estonia;
The pensioner's route into cover.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Estonia's state gazette, published by the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs, and unusual in this corpus because its consolidated texts are official by statute rather than by convention. Section 1(1) of the Riigi Teataja seadus makes it the official online publication of the Republic of Estonia; section 2(1) says acts are published in it as official original texts; and section 3(1) says that alongside the original text it publishes the official consolidated texts - ametlikud terviktekstid - of Acts, presidential decrees, government, ministerial and Bank of Estonia regulations, Riigikogu resolutions, government orders and local authority regulations. Section 3(2) requires the publisher to add validity-period data to each consolidated text, which is why every act page here carries a line of the form 'Kehtiv sõnastus 30.09.2026 - 30.12.2026': the wording in force, with the day it took effect and the day a later redaktsioon replaces it. That makes the cut-off a published fact rather than an inference, and it also makes future law visible in advance, because a redaktsioon that starts in 2027 already exists at its own address. Each act is addressed as /akt/<id>, where the id is the publication date and sequence number of the redaktsioon, so a cited address is pinned to one wording rather than redirecting to whatever is current. The site also runs an abbreviation index at /api/v1/akt/lyhendid mapping each statute's Estonian abbreviation to its current redaktsioon id, and a full-text search at /api/v1/otsing/tervik-tekst, both of which were used to find instruments for this country.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The English translations are not the instrument and must never be quoted as one. Section 6 of the Riigi Teataja seadus provides only that the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs arranges translation 'to the extent determined by the minister responsible for the area', that translations are made available in Riigi Teataja, and that a sworn translator is competent to translate an Act into a foreign language; nowhere does the Act call a translation official, which is the contrast with sections 2(1) and 3(1), where it does use that word of the Estonian texts. Translations carry their own cut-offs and lag the Estonian redaktsioon. Two further traps. First, a subdivision of an Act can outlive the ground that created it: sections 198 to 200 of the Välismaalaste seadus still describe a residence permit for sufficient legal income, with no repeal marker and with amendments dated 2013 and 2017, although section 309-2(1) stopped the permit being granted on 1 July 2012 - so a repealed ground shows only as a bracketed note against a point number in the list of grounds, eleven chapters away from the sections that describe it. Second, the site is an Angular single-page application behind Cloudflare: a plain fetch returns a 62 kB shell and no law at all, so a reading must be taken through a renderer. It cannot be cited for anything that is not published in Riigi Teataja - agency practice, application procedures, money figures the agency publishes on its own pages - and it is not a source for what any instrument means.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«4) kindlustussumma aastase kindlustusperioodi kohta on vähemalt 6000 eurot;»Our translation - not official
4) the sum insured for an annual insurance period is at least 6,000 euros;
One of six conditions the private medical insurance contract must satisfy.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Estonia's state gazette, published by the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs, and unusual in this corpus because its consolidated texts are official by statute rather than by convention. Section 1(1) of the Riigi Teataja seadus makes it the official online publication of the Republic of Estonia; section 2(1) says acts are published in it as official original texts; and section 3(1) says that alongside the original text it publishes the official consolidated texts - ametlikud terviktekstid - of Acts, presidential decrees, government, ministerial and Bank of Estonia regulations, Riigikogu resolutions, government orders and local authority regulations. Section 3(2) requires the publisher to add validity-period data to each consolidated text, which is why every act page here carries a line of the form 'Kehtiv sõnastus 30.09.2026 - 30.12.2026': the wording in force, with the day it took effect and the day a later redaktsioon replaces it. That makes the cut-off a published fact rather than an inference, and it also makes future law visible in advance, because a redaktsioon that starts in 2027 already exists at its own address. Each act is addressed as /akt/<id>, where the id is the publication date and sequence number of the redaktsioon, so a cited address is pinned to one wording rather than redirecting to whatever is current. The site also runs an abbreviation index at /api/v1/akt/lyhendid mapping each statute's Estonian abbreviation to its current redaktsioon id, and a full-text search at /api/v1/otsing/tervik-tekst, both of which were used to find instruments for this country.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The English translations are not the instrument and must never be quoted as one. Section 6 of the Riigi Teataja seadus provides only that the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs arranges translation 'to the extent determined by the minister responsible for the area', that translations are made available in Riigi Teataja, and that a sworn translator is competent to translate an Act into a foreign language; nowhere does the Act call a translation official, which is the contrast with sections 2(1) and 3(1), where it does use that word of the Estonian texts. Translations carry their own cut-offs and lag the Estonian redaktsioon. Two further traps. First, a subdivision of an Act can outlive the ground that created it: sections 198 to 200 of the Välismaalaste seadus still describe a residence permit for sufficient legal income, with no repeal marker and with amendments dated 2013 and 2017, although section 309-2(1) stopped the permit being granted on 1 July 2012 - so a repealed ground shows only as a bracketed note against a point number in the list of grounds, eleven chapters away from the sections that describe it. Second, the site is an Angular single-page application behind Cloudflare: a plain fetch returns a 62 kB shell and no law at all, so a reading must be taken through a renderer. It cannot be cited for anything that is not published in Riigi Teataja - agency practice, application procedures, money figures the agency publishes on its own pages - and it is not a source for what any instrument means.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Välismaalase suhtes, kes on saanud tähtajalise elamisloa õppimiseks, ei kohaldata ravikindlustuse seaduse § 5 lõike 4 punkte 2 ja 5.»Our translation - not official
Section 5(4) points 2 and 5 of the Ravikindlustuse seadus do not apply to a foreigner who has been granted a temporary residence permit for study.
A student is cut out of both the under-19 route and the student route into cover.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Estonia's state gazette, published by the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs, and unusual in this corpus because its consolidated texts are official by statute rather than by convention. Section 1(1) of the Riigi Teataja seadus makes it the official online publication of the Republic of Estonia; section 2(1) says acts are published in it as official original texts; and section 3(1) says that alongside the original text it publishes the official consolidated texts - ametlikud terviktekstid - of Acts, presidential decrees, government, ministerial and Bank of Estonia regulations, Riigikogu resolutions, government orders and local authority regulations. Section 3(2) requires the publisher to add validity-period data to each consolidated text, which is why every act page here carries a line of the form 'Kehtiv sõnastus 30.09.2026 - 30.12.2026': the wording in force, with the day it took effect and the day a later redaktsioon replaces it. That makes the cut-off a published fact rather than an inference, and it also makes future law visible in advance, because a redaktsioon that starts in 2027 already exists at its own address. Each act is addressed as /akt/<id>, where the id is the publication date and sequence number of the redaktsioon, so a cited address is pinned to one wording rather than redirecting to whatever is current. The site also runs an abbreviation index at /api/v1/akt/lyhendid mapping each statute's Estonian abbreviation to its current redaktsioon id, and a full-text search at /api/v1/otsing/tervik-tekst, both of which were used to find instruments for this country.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The English translations are not the instrument and must never be quoted as one. Section 6 of the Riigi Teataja seadus provides only that the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs arranges translation 'to the extent determined by the minister responsible for the area', that translations are made available in Riigi Teataja, and that a sworn translator is competent to translate an Act into a foreign language; nowhere does the Act call a translation official, which is the contrast with sections 2(1) and 3(1), where it does use that word of the Estonian texts. Translations carry their own cut-offs and lag the Estonian redaktsioon. Two further traps. First, a subdivision of an Act can outlive the ground that created it: sections 198 to 200 of the Välismaalaste seadus still describe a residence permit for sufficient legal income, with no repeal marker and with amendments dated 2013 and 2017, although section 309-2(1) stopped the permit being granted on 1 July 2012 - so a repealed ground shows only as a bracketed note against a point number in the list of grounds, eleven chapters away from the sections that describe it. Second, the site is an Angular single-page application behind Cloudflare: a plain fetch returns a 62 kB shell and no law at all, so a reading must be taken through a renderer. It cannot be cited for anything that is not published in Riigi Teataja - agency practice, application procedures, money figures the agency publishes on its own pages - and it is not a source for what any instrument means.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The Tervishoiuteenuste korraldamise seadus, which governs how health services are organised and who must provide them, was not read. This record says who is insured, not what the insurance buys.
The Sotsiaalmaksuseadus was not read, so nothing here states the minimum social tax obligation that section 5(2) points 4 and 5 refer to.
Estonia's agreements under section 22 of the Ravikindlustuse seadus, which equate people covered by foreign schemes with the insured, were not read.
The European Health Insurance Card and Regulation (EC) 883/2004 are not covered here.
- consolidatesRavikindlustuse seadus, consolidated text in force from 30 September 2026
Riigi Teataja · consolidated to 2026-09-30
About this source
Estonia's state gazette, published by the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs, and unusual in this corpus because its consolidated texts are official by statute rather than by convention. Section 1(1) of the Riigi Teataja seadus makes it the official online publication of the Republic of Estonia; section 2(1) says acts are published in it as official original texts; and section 3(1) says that alongside the original text it publishes the official consolidated texts - ametlikud terviktekstid - of Acts, presidential decrees, government, ministerial and Bank of Estonia regulations, Riigikogu resolutions, government orders and local authority regulations. Section 3(2) requires the publisher to add validity-period data to each consolidated text, which is why every act page here carries a line of the form 'Kehtiv sõnastus 30.09.2026 - 30.12.2026': the wording in force, with the day it took effect and the day a later redaktsioon replaces it. That makes the cut-off a published fact rather than an inference, and it also makes future law visible in advance, because a redaktsioon that starts in 2027 already exists at its own address. Each act is addressed as /akt/<id>, where the id is the publication date and sequence number of the redaktsioon, so a cited address is pinned to one wording rather than redirecting to whatever is current. The site also runs an abbreviation index at /api/v1/akt/lyhendid mapping each statute's Estonian abbreviation to its current redaktsioon id, and a full-text search at /api/v1/otsing/tervik-tekst, both of which were used to find instruments for this country.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The English translations are not the instrument and must never be quoted as one. Section 6 of the Riigi Teataja seadus provides only that the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs arranges translation 'to the extent determined by the minister responsible for the area', that translations are made available in Riigi Teataja, and that a sworn translator is competent to translate an Act into a foreign language; nowhere does the Act call a translation official, which is the contrast with sections 2(1) and 3(1), where it does use that word of the Estonian texts. Translations carry their own cut-offs and lag the Estonian redaktsioon. Two further traps. First, a subdivision of an Act can outlive the ground that created it: sections 198 to 200 of the Välismaalaste seadus still describe a residence permit for sufficient legal income, with no repeal marker and with amendments dated 2013 and 2017, although section 309-2(1) stopped the permit being granted on 1 July 2012 - so a repealed ground shows only as a bracketed note against a point number in the list of grounds, eleven chapters away from the sections that describe it. Second, the site is an Angular single-page application behind Cloudflare: a plain fetch returns a 62 kB shell and no law at all, so a reading must be taken through a renderer. It cannot be cited for anything that is not published in Riigi Teataja - agency practice, application procedures, money figures the agency publishes on its own pages - and it is not a source for what any instrument means.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
- consolidatesVälismaalaste seadus, consolidated text in force from 30 September 2026
Riigi Teataja · consolidated to 2026-09-30
About this source
Estonia's state gazette, published by the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs, and unusual in this corpus because its consolidated texts are official by statute rather than by convention. Section 1(1) of the Riigi Teataja seadus makes it the official online publication of the Republic of Estonia; section 2(1) says acts are published in it as official original texts; and section 3(1) says that alongside the original text it publishes the official consolidated texts - ametlikud terviktekstid - of Acts, presidential decrees, government, ministerial and Bank of Estonia regulations, Riigikogu resolutions, government orders and local authority regulations. Section 3(2) requires the publisher to add validity-period data to each consolidated text, which is why every act page here carries a line of the form 'Kehtiv sõnastus 30.09.2026 - 30.12.2026': the wording in force, with the day it took effect and the day a later redaktsioon replaces it. That makes the cut-off a published fact rather than an inference, and it also makes future law visible in advance, because a redaktsioon that starts in 2027 already exists at its own address. Each act is addressed as /akt/<id>, where the id is the publication date and sequence number of the redaktsioon, so a cited address is pinned to one wording rather than redirecting to whatever is current. The site also runs an abbreviation index at /api/v1/akt/lyhendid mapping each statute's Estonian abbreviation to its current redaktsioon id, and a full-text search at /api/v1/otsing/tervik-tekst, both of which were used to find instruments for this country.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The English translations are not the instrument and must never be quoted as one. Section 6 of the Riigi Teataja seadus provides only that the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs arranges translation 'to the extent determined by the minister responsible for the area', that translations are made available in Riigi Teataja, and that a sworn translator is competent to translate an Act into a foreign language; nowhere does the Act call a translation official, which is the contrast with sections 2(1) and 3(1), where it does use that word of the Estonian texts. Translations carry their own cut-offs and lag the Estonian redaktsioon. Two further traps. First, a subdivision of an Act can outlive the ground that created it: sections 198 to 200 of the Välismaalaste seadus still describe a residence permit for sufficient legal income, with no repeal marker and with amendments dated 2013 and 2017, although section 309-2(1) stopped the permit being granted on 1 July 2012 - so a repealed ground shows only as a bracketed note against a point number in the list of grounds, eleven chapters away from the sections that describe it. Second, the site is an Angular single-page application behind Cloudflare: a plain fetch returns a 62 kB shell and no law at all, so a reading must be taken through a renderer. It cannot be cited for anything that is not published in Riigi Teataja - agency practice, application procedures, money figures the agency publishes on its own pages - and it is not a source for what any instrument means.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source