65,000 Euros Into Share Capital, 16,000 for a Sole Trader, a Million for a Large Investor - and the Large Investor Need Not Live Here
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Cuba 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 Cuba to Estonia · Residency through investment
Estonia states its investment thresholds in the Act, which is unusual in this corpus: Finland names no amount anywhere. A shareholder applying for a business permit must have at least 65,000 euros invested in the share capital of an Estonian company, and the Act is narrow about what the money must have become - immovable property, machinery or equipment acquired with it and taken onto the books in Estonia as fixed assets. A sole trader needs 16,000 euros of capital invested in Estonia. Neither threshold applies to a start-up, nor to a company registered less than twelve months that is starting out on state or private investment. On top of the capital there is an income test at six times the subsistence limit, and a business plan description in Estonian or English. The large investor is a separate subdivision: a direct investment of at least 1,000,000 euros into an Estonian company investing mainly in the Estonian economy, or into an investment fund with the same policy, which must stay in place for the life of the permit. That permit comes with the single most striking exemption in the Act - section 197-4 disapplies the requirement of an actual place of residence in Estonia and the requirement to register an address in the population register. Estonia will give a residence permit to an investor who does not reside here. Neither the business permit nor the large investor permit counts against the immigration quota.
At a glance
- Shareholder threshold
- 65,000 euros into the share capital of an Estonian company
Section 192(2) of the Välismaalaste seadus, which requires the money to have been spent on immovable property, machinery or equipment recorded in Estonia as fixed assets.
- Sole trader threshold
- 16,000 euros of capital invested in Estonia
Section 192(3) of the Välismaalaste seadus. Subsection 3-1 disapplies it to a start-up.
- Large investor threshold
- 1,000,000 euros of direct investment
Section 197-3(1) of the Välismaalaste seadus, into an Estonian company investing mainly in the Estonian economy or into an investment fund with that policy.
- Must a large investor live in Estonia
- No - section 197-4 disapplies both the actual-residence and the registered-address requirements
Those requirements come from sections 117(1), 121 and 129(3) and bind every other permit holder.
- Income test
- Six times the subsistence limit for each month in Estonia - 1,320 euros a month in 2026CALC (calculated by us, not published)
Section 53(4) of the Minister of the Interior's regulation of 12 January 2017 no 7, applied to the 220 euros a month fixed by section 2(5) point 5 of the 2026 state budget act. The multiplier is the regulation's; the arithmetic is ours.
- Immigration quota
- A business permit and a large investor permit are both left out of the count
Section 115 points 16 and 17 of the Välismaalaste seadus.
- Permit length
- Up to five years, extendable by up to ten at a time
Sections 119(1) and 132(1) of the Välismaalaste seadus. The agency states the same two figures.
- State fee
- 350 euros, or 380 at a foreign mission
Section 273(3) of the Riigilõivuseadus - the highest residence permit fee in the schedule.
Figures marked CALC are our arithmetic, not a figure in any instrument. Where the law states a threshold as a multiple of something else, the amount shown is that multiple applied - and it moves when the underlying figure does.
Requirements
- A holding in a company entered in the Estonian commercial register, or registration as a sole trader
- At least 65,000 euros invested in share capital as immovable property, machinery or equipment taken onto the books as fixed assets, or 16,000 euros of capital for a sole trader, or 1,000,000 euros of direct investment for a large investor
- A business plan description in Estonian or English, except for a start-up
- Legal income at six times the subsistence limit for each month in Estonia
In detail
The investor who does not have to turn up
Section 117(1) makes an actual place of residence in Estonia a general condition of every temporary residence permit, and section 121 requires the address to be registered in the population register within a month and kept registered for the whole life of the permit. Section 197-4 switches both off for the large investor. That is not a drafting slip: section 197-7 goes on to disapply the ground for revoking a permit where the holder has no registered or actual dwelling in Estonia. Estonia's million-euro permit is, on the face of the Act, a right of residence that can be held from abroad.
Where the Act and the agency part company
The Police and Border Guard Board tells a shareholder that the condition is 65,000 euros invested 'into that company's activity in Estonia'. The Act says the money must be in the share capital of an Estonian company and must have been spent on immovable property, machinery or equipment taken onto the books in Estonia as fixed assets. An applicant who reads only the agency page could invest 65,000 euros in working capital and satisfy the page while failing the section. The income side, by contrast, agrees exactly: six times the subsistence limit on both.
Country-level policy
Estonia is the only country in this corpus so far that caps settlement by a number rather than by conditions. Section 113(1) of the Välismaalaste seadus says the number of foreigners settling in Estonia is limited by the immigration quota, and section 113(2) caps the annual quota at 0.1 per cent of the Estonian permanent population. The Government sets it by regulation under section 114(1) - a power that was reworded from 'order' to 'regulation' with effect from 1 September 2026 - and the minister may divide it by permit purpose and across the year. For 2026 the Government fixed it at 1,292 by an order of 6 November 2025, in force from 1 January 2026, which is the statutory maximum. What makes the quota survivable is section 115, which lists twenty categories that are not counted against it. Most of the routes a reader of this site would use are on that list: study, and any later application by a former student; a business permit for a start-up and a large investor permit; short-term work and work in a growth company; information and communication technology posts; research posts; the family of an Estonian citizen, an ethnic Estonian or a resident foreigner; a permit for permanent settlement; and three nationalities outright, American, Japanese and British. What is left inside the quota is the ordinary work permit and the ordinary business permit.
No income threshold for an Estonian residence permit is written in euros in the Act that creates the permit. Section 117(1) point 3 of the Välismaalaste seadus asks for sufficient legal income and stops; section 139 asks for income securing the family's maintenance; section 232(1) point 3 asks for permanent legal income. The amounts are in section 53 of the Minister of the Interior's regulation of 12 January 2017 no 7, and every one of them is expressed as a multiple of the subsistence limit for a person living alone, for each month spent in Estonia: half for a weighty state interest or a treaty permit, one for permanent settlement and for the long-term resident's permit, two for a spouse or registered partner and for a parent, grandparent or ward, four for study and for a researcher's hosting agreement, and six for business, for a large investor and for the closed sufficient-income permit. The subsistence limit itself is fixed by the Riigikogu in the annual state budget act under section 13-1(3) of the Sotsiaalhoolekande seadus, and for 2026 it is 220 euros a month. So every threshold in Estonian immigration law moves when the budget moves, and the Act that creates the permit never mentions it.
Estonia issues an e-resident's digital identity card, and the only Act that creates it is the Isikut tõendavate dokumentide seadus. Section 20-5(1) defines it as a digital document issued to a citizen of a foreign state who does not hold, and is not simultaneously applying for, an Estonian identity card or residence permit card; section 3(3) defines a digital document as one intended for identifying a person and verifying identity in an electronic environment. Section 20-5(2) states the purpose: to promote the development of the Estonian economy, science, education or culture by creating a possibility to use e-services with an Estonian digital document. That is the whole of what it is. It is not a residence permit, because a residence permit is granted under section 118 of the Välismaalaste seadus on one of nine grounds and this is not one of them; it is not a legal basis for being in Estonia, because section 43(1) of that Act lists eleven legal bases for a temporary stay and this is not one of them; and it is not a visa, a right of residence or a right to work. It does not even guarantee a service: section 20-10 lets any public or private service provider refuse an e-resident, restrict the service's content or reach, or demand extra documents or a personal appearance. Since 6 July 2025 an application is returned unexamined if the applicant is a citizen of a state with a higher risk of money laundering or terrorist financing, or a state with which Estonia has no justice, security or law-enforcement cooperation, unless a ministerial regulation makes an exception for them.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Cuba
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
«Ettevõtluseks tähtajalise elamisloa andmise eesmärk on soodustada selliste äriühingute ja välismaa äriühingute filiaalide (edaspidi käesolevas alljaotises äriühing) asutamist Eestisse ja füüsilisest isikust ettevõtjate elama asumist Eestisse ning nende tegutsemist Eestis, mis aitavad oluliselt kaasa Eesti majanduse arengule.»Our translation - not official
The purpose of granting a temporary residence permit for business is to promote the establishment in Estonia of such companies and branches of foreign companies, and the settling in Estonia and operation in Estonia of such sole proprietors, as contribute substantially to the development of the Estonian economy.
The purpose clause, which the Police and Border Guard Board weighs alongside the thresholds.
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) Välismaalasel, kellel on osalus äriühingus, peab olema vähemalt 65 000 eurot investeeritud Eesti äriühingu osakapitali, mille eest on soetatud ja Eestis põhivarana arvele võetud kinnisvara, masinaid või seadmeid.»Our translation - not official
A foreigner who holds a share in a company must have at least 65,000 euros invested in the share capital of an Estonian company, for which immovable property, machinery or equipment has been acquired and taken onto the books in Estonia as fixed assets.
The Act is narrower than the agency's summary: the money has to have become fixed assets, not merely to have been put into the business.
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) Välismaalasel, kes taotleb tähtajalist elamisluba ettevõtluseks füüsilisest isikust ettevõtjana, peab olema vähemalt 16 000 eurot Eestisse investeeritud kapitali.»Our translation - not official
A foreigner who applies for a temporary residence permit for business as a sole proprietor must have at least 16,000 euros of capital invested in Estonia.
The sole trader threshold.
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
«(5) Välismaalane peab esitama äriplaani kirjelduse, mille põhjal on võimalik hinnata, et talle elamisloa andmine vastab ettevõtluseks antava elamisloa andmise eesmärgile, ning tõendama lisaks teistele menetluses tähtsust omavatele asjaoludele, et tema suhtes ei esine asjaolusid, mis välistaksid tema nimetamist juhtorgani liikmeks, prokuristiks või olulise osaluse omandamist või keelaks olla tegelik kasusaaja.»Our translation - not official
The foreigner must submit a description of a business plan on the basis of which it can be assessed that granting him or her a residence permit corresponds to the purpose of granting a residence permit for business, and must prove, in addition to other circumstances relevant to the proceedings, that there are no circumstances in respect of him or her that would preclude his or her appointment as a member of a management body or as a procurator, or the acquisition of a qualifying holding, or that would prohibit him or her from being a beneficial owner.
Subsection 6 requires the description in Estonian or English; subsection 6-1 excuses a start-up from it.
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) Suurinvestor käesoleva alljaotise tähenduses on välismaalane, kes on teinud vähemalt 1 000 000 euro suuruse otseinvesteeringu Eesti äriregistrisse kantud äriühingusse, mis investeerib peamiselt Eesti majandusse, või investeeringu investeerimisfondi, mille investeerimispoliitika kohaselt investeeritakse fondi vahendeid peamiselt Eesti äriregistrisse kantud äriühingutesse.»Our translation - not official
A large investor for the purposes of this subdivision is a foreigner who has made a direct investment of at least 1,000,000 euros into a company entered in the Estonian commercial register which invests mainly in the Estonian economy, or an investment into an investment fund whose investment policy is to invest the fund's assets mainly into companies entered in the Estonian commercial register.
The threshold and the destination of the money.
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
«Suurinvestorile ettevõtluseks tähtajalise elamisloa andmise ja pikendamise tingimusena ei pea olema täidetud käesoleva seaduse § 117 lõikes 1 nimetatud tegeliku elukoha ning §-s 121 ja § 129 lõikes 3 nimetatud elukoha rahvastikuregistris registreerimise nõue.»Our translation - not official
As a condition for granting and extending a temporary residence permit for business for a large investor, the requirement of an actual place of residence referred to in section 117(1) of this Act and the requirement of registering the place of residence in the population register referred to in section 121 and section 129(3) need not be met.
A residence permit that does not require residence. Every other permit in the Act does.
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
«17) välismaalane, kellele antakse tähtajaline elamisluba ettevõtluseks suurinvestorina;»Our translation - not official
17) a foreigner who is granted a temporary residence permit for business as a large investor;
One of twenty categories left out of the quota count; point 16 does the same for a start-up business permit.
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) Välismaalaste seaduse §-de 191, 1972 ja 198 alusel tähtajalise elamisloa andmiseks on legaalse sissetuleku määr kuuekordne sotsiaalhoolekande seaduse § 131 lõike 3 alusel kehtestatud toimetulekupiir iga Eestis viibitava kuu kohta.»Our translation - not official
For the grant of a temporary residence permit under sections 191, 197-2 and 198 of the Välismaalaste seadus, the rate of legal income is six times the subsistence limit established under section 13-1(3) of the Sotsiaalhoolekande seadus for each month spent in Estonia.
The income test that sits on top of the capital.
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
«Sul on osalus äriühingus ja sa oled selle äriühingu tegevusse Eestis investeerinud vähemalt 65 000 eurot»Our translation - not official
You have a holding in a company and you have invested at least 65,000 euros into that company's activity in Estonia
The agency restates section 192(2) more loosely than the Act does: the Act requires the investment to have been made into share capital and turned into fixed assets.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Police and Border Guard Board, the authority that decides every Estonian residence permit, registers short-term employment, issues the e-resident's digital identity card and runs the migration advisers. Its guidance pages at politsei.ee/et/juhend/... are the agency describing the law it applies, and they carry one thing no instrument does: the salary-criterion table for work permits. The Välismaalaste seadus sets the floor as the annual average gross wage last published by Statistics Estonia and names no figure; the agency publishes the resulting rate for a twelve-month window running from early March, with columns for the 0.8, 1.0, 1.24 and 1.5 multipliers. For 5 March 2026 to March 2027 the 1.0 rate is 2,092 euros a month. The agency also states processing times, the state fee steps and the list of grounds for each permit type.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It is not the instrument and must never be cited for what the law says. Two divergences were found on two pages read. Its work-permit page states the A2 Estonian requirement as applying where the applicant has lived in Estonia five years on a permit issued after 15 July 2018; section 187(2) of the Välismaalaste seadus attaches it to any extension of a work permit, and section 309-11 exempts anyone who held such a permit on 15 July 2018, with no five-year qualifier anywhere. Its business-permit page says the shareholder must have invested 65,000 euros 'into that company's activity in Estonia'; section 192(2) requires the money to be in the share capital of an Estonian company and to have been spent on immovable property, machinery or equipment taken onto the books in Estonia as fixed assets, which is narrower. The site also returns a soft 404 page with a 200-looking body for a mistyped guidance URL - politsei.ee/et/juhend/elamisluba-tootamiseks returns the error page while elamisluba-toeoetamiseks returns the guide - so a stored reading from this host has to be inspected before it is quoted.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
«Sul on piisav sissetulek (kuuekordne toimetulekupiir) Eestis toime tulemiseks, mida kinnitad taotluse allkirjastamisega. Toimetulekupiir kehtestatakse igal aastal riigieelarve seadusega»Our translation - not official
You have sufficient income (six times the subsistence limit) to support yourself in Estonia, which you confirm by signing the application. The subsistence limit is set every year by the state budget act
Rule and practice agree: the multiplier is section 53(4) of the regulation and the limit is the budget act's.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Police and Border Guard Board, the authority that decides every Estonian residence permit, registers short-term employment, issues the e-resident's digital identity card and runs the migration advisers. Its guidance pages at politsei.ee/et/juhend/... are the agency describing the law it applies, and they carry one thing no instrument does: the salary-criterion table for work permits. The Välismaalaste seadus sets the floor as the annual average gross wage last published by Statistics Estonia and names no figure; the agency publishes the resulting rate for a twelve-month window running from early March, with columns for the 0.8, 1.0, 1.24 and 1.5 multipliers. For 5 March 2026 to March 2027 the 1.0 rate is 2,092 euros a month. The agency also states processing times, the state fee steps and the list of grounds for each permit type.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It is not the instrument and must never be cited for what the law says. Two divergences were found on two pages read. Its work-permit page states the A2 Estonian requirement as applying where the applicant has lived in Estonia five years on a permit issued after 15 July 2018; section 187(2) of the Välismaalaste seadus attaches it to any extension of a work permit, and section 309-11 exempts anyone who held such a permit on 15 July 2018, with no five-year qualifier anywhere. Its business-permit page says the shareholder must have invested 65,000 euros 'into that company's activity in Estonia'; section 192(2) requires the money to be in the share capital of an Estonian company and to have been spent on immovable property, machinery or equipment taken onto the books in Estonia as fixed assets, which is narrower. The site also returns a soft 404 page with a 200-looking body for a mistyped guidance URL - politsei.ee/et/juhend/elamisluba-tootamiseks returns the error page while elamisluba-toeoetamiseks returns the guide - so a stored reading from this host has to be inspected before it is quoted.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
«(3) Ettevõtluseks antava tähtajalise elamisloa taotluse läbivaatamise eest tasutakse riigilõivu 350 eurot ja välisesinduses 380 eurot.»Our translation - not official
A state fee of 350 euros is paid for the review of an application for a temporary residence permit granted for business, and 380 euros at a foreign mission.
The dearest residence permit application in the schedule.
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
Section 192(7) offers an alternative to keeping the 65,000 euros in place after the first year - turnover of at least 200,000 euros a year, or monthly social tax for the company's employees at least equal to five times the average wage remuneration - and that alternative was read but is not stated as a key fact here, because the second limb depends on a figure no instrument read here publishes.
The start-up route has its own definition and its own committee, neither of which was read.
Nothing read here says how the Police and Border Guard Board assesses 'substantial contribution to the development of the Estonian economy' under section 191.
- 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
- administersPolitsei- ja Piirivalveamet, Elamisluba ettevõtluseks
Politsei- ja Piirivalveamet
About this source
The Police and Border Guard Board, the authority that decides every Estonian residence permit, registers short-term employment, issues the e-resident's digital identity card and runs the migration advisers. Its guidance pages at politsei.ee/et/juhend/... are the agency describing the law it applies, and they carry one thing no instrument does: the salary-criterion table for work permits. The Välismaalaste seadus sets the floor as the annual average gross wage last published by Statistics Estonia and names no figure; the agency publishes the resulting rate for a twelve-month window running from early March, with columns for the 0.8, 1.0, 1.24 and 1.5 multipliers. For 5 March 2026 to March 2027 the 1.0 rate is 2,092 euros a month. The agency also states processing times, the state fee steps and the list of grounds for each permit type.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It is not the instrument and must never be cited for what the law says. Two divergences were found on two pages read. Its work-permit page states the A2 Estonian requirement as applying where the applicant has lived in Estonia five years on a permit issued after 15 July 2018; section 187(2) of the Välismaalaste seadus attaches it to any extension of a work permit, and section 309-11 exempts anyone who held such a permit on 15 July 2018, with no five-year qualifier anywhere. Its business-permit page says the shareholder must have invested 65,000 euros 'into that company's activity in Estonia'; section 192(2) requires the money to be in the share capital of an Estonian company and to have been spent on immovable property, machinery or equipment taken onto the books in Estonia as fixed assets, which is narrower. The site also returns a soft 404 page with a 200-looking body for a mistyped guidance URL - politsei.ee/et/juhend/elamisluba-tootamiseks returns the error page while elamisluba-toeoetamiseks returns the guide - so a stored reading from this host has to be inspected before it is quoted.
We re-read it every 45 days. More about this source
- consolidatesRiigilõivuseadus, consolidated text in force from 31 July 2026
Riigi Teataja · consolidated to 2026-07-31
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