The Salary Floor Is Estonia's Own Average Wage, the Unemployment Fund Has to Agree the Post, and the Only Place the Number Appears Is a Police Table
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 work
A work permit in Estonia is built out of four things the Act states and one it does not. The employer must be entered in the Estonian commercial register and must have had real economic activity in Estonia for at least six consecutive months immediately before the application. The Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund must have given permission for the post, on the ground that it cannot be filled by an Estonian, a Union citizen or a foreigner already resident here, and that filling it with a foreigner is justified by the labour market - a permission that is attached to the job rather than to the person, and that is not required again when the permit is extended. The employer must pay at least the annual average gross wage last published by Statistics Estonia, regardless of the hours agreed, with 1.5 times that for a top specialist and 80 per cent of it for an employee of a growth company. And the Act never says what that wage is. The figure lives on a table published by the Police and Border Guard Board, which puts the rate at 2,092 euros a month for applications taken into proceedings between 5 March 2026 and March 2027. Every multiplier in the Act checks out against that table to the euro. On extension, the applicant must have reached A2 Estonian, with four exceptions and a permanent carve-out for anyone who held a work permit on 15 July 2018.
At a glance
- Salary floor
- The Estonian annual average gross wage last published by Statistics Estonia
Section 178(1) of the Välismaalaste seadus, which adds 'regardless of the working time agreed' - a part-time post does not give a pro-rated floor.
- What that is in money
- 2,092 euros a month for applications taken into proceedings from 5 March 2026 to March 2027
The Police and Border Guard Board's salary-criterion table. No instrument read here states a figure; the Act points at Statistics Estonia and stops.
- Top specialist
- 1.5 times that rate - 3,138 euros a month on the same table
Section 178(1-1) of the Välismaalaste seadus, for a permit granted under section 181(2) point 3. The table's 1.5 column matches the Act's multiplier exactly.
- Growth company
- 80 per cent of that rate - 1,674 euros a month on the same table
Section 178(1-4) of the Välismaalaste seadus. The table's 0.8 column matches.
- Labour market test
- Permission from the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund for the post
Section 177(1) of the Välismaalaste seadus. Subsection 1-1 attaches it to the post rather than to the person; subsection 3 drops it on extension.
- Employer's trading history
- Six consecutive months of real economic activity in Estonia
Section 176(4) of the Välismaalaste seadus, in force from 1 January 2026. Subsection 5 excepts posted workers and teaching or research posts.
- Permit length
- Up to five years, extendable by up to ten years at a time
Sections 119(1) and 132(1) of the Välismaalaste seadus.
- Language on extension
- Estonian at A2
Section 187(2) of the Välismaalaste seadus. Section 309-11 exempts anyone who held a valid work permit on 15 July 2018, permanently and with no five-year qualifier.
- How long you may be out of work
- Three months, or six if you have held the permit for at least two years
Section 189-3(1) of the Välismaalaste seadus. Beyond three months subsection 2 requires sufficient legal income.
- State fee
- 250 euros, or 280 at a foreign mission
Section 273(2) of the Riigilõivuseadus. An extension is 225 euros under section 274(1).
- Decision time
- 90 days
Section 26(1) of the Minister of the Interior's regulation of 12 January 2017 no 7. The Act itself only caps a processing deadline at six months, in section 33(3).
Requirements
- An employer entered in the Estonian commercial register, with six consecutive months of real economic activity in Estonia immediately before the application
- Permission from the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund for the post, unless one of the exceptions in section 181 applies
- Pay of at least the last published Estonian annual average gross wage, regardless of the hours agreed
- A place within the immigration quota, unless the ground is one of those section 115 leaves out of the count
- On extension, Estonian at A2 level
In detail
Where the number actually lives
Finland's work records found the two salary floors outside the Aliens Act - one borrowed from the unemployment benefit statute, one from a government decree. Estonia goes a step further: the figure is in no instrument at all. Section 178 points at the last annual average gross wage published by Statistics Estonia, and Statistics Estonia publishes a statistic rather than a rule. What a reader can actually use is a table on the Police and Border Guard Board's guidance page, which fixes the rate for a twelve-month window running from early March. Every multiplier in the Act reproduces exactly on that table, which is worth stating: rule and practice agree here, and the only thing missing from the law is the number itself.
One divergence, and it is about language
Section 187(2) makes A2 Estonian a condition of extending a work permit, full stop, with exceptions for researchers, Blue Card holders, intra-corporate transferees and academic staff, and a permanent carve-out in section 309-11 for anyone who held a work permit on 15 July 2018. The agency page states the requirement differently: it says you must meet it if you have lived in Estonia for five years on a permit issued after 15 July 2018. Five years is the maximum length of a first permit under section 119(1), so the two descriptions coincide for most people - but not for someone whose permit was granted for one or two years, who reaches extension earlier and whom the Act catches.
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.
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
«(4) Tööandjal, kelle juures töötamiseks tähtajalist elamisluba taotletakse, peab olema vahetult enne elamisloa taotluse esitamist vähemalt kuue järjestikuse kuu jooksul olnud tegelik majandustegevus Eestis.»Our translation - not official
An employer with whom a temporary residence permit for employment is applied for must have had real economic activity in Estonia for at least six consecutive months immediately before the submission of the residence permit application.
In force from 1 January 2026, and the newest of the conditions.
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) Tähtajalise elamisloa töötamiseks võib anda välismaalasele töötamiseks Eesti äriregistrisse kantud tööandja juures töökohal, mille täitmiseks välismaalasega on Eesti Töötukassa andnud loa, sest töökohta ei ole võimalik täita töökohale esitatavatele kvalifikatsiooni- ja kutsenõuetele vastava Eesti kodaniku, Euroopa Liidu kodaniku ega Eestis elamisloa alusel elava välismaalasega ning töökoha täitmine välismaalasega on põhjendatud tööturu olukorda arvestades ning Eesti Töötukassa andmetele tuginedes.»Our translation - not official
A temporary residence permit for employment may be granted to a foreigner for working for an employer entered in the Estonian commercial register in a post for the filling of which with the foreigner the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund has given permission, because the post cannot be filled with an Estonian citizen, a citizen of the European Union or a foreigner living in Estonia on the basis of a residence permit who meets the qualification and professional requirements set for the post, and because filling the post with a foreigner is justified having regard to the labour market situation and relying on the data of the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund.
The labour market test, as rewritten with effect from 1 January 2026.
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) Töötamiseks antud tähtajalise elamisloa pikendamisel ei kohaldata Eesti Töötukassa loa nõuet.»Our translation - not official
The requirement of permission from the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund does not apply to the extension of a temporary residence permit granted for employment.
The test is an entry condition only.
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) Tööandja on kohustatud maksma välismaalasele tasu, mille suurus on vähemalt võrdne Statistikaameti viimati avaldatud Eesti aasta keskmise brutopalgaga olenemata kokkulepitud tööajast.»Our translation - not official
The employer is obliged to pay the foreigner remuneration the amount of which is at least equal to the Estonian annual average gross wage last published by Statistics Estonia, regardless of the working time agreed.
The floor, and the clause that stops a part-time contract from lowering 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
«(11) Tööandja on kohustatud maksma välismaalasele, kellele on antud elamisluba töötamiseks käesoleva seaduse § 181 lõike 2 punkti 3 alusel, tasu, mille suurus on vähemalt võrdne Statistikaameti poolt viimati avaldatud Eesti aasta keskmise brutokuupalga ja koefitsiendi 1,5 korrutisega.»Our translation - not official
The employer is obliged to pay a foreigner who has been granted a residence permit for employment under section 181(2) point 3 of this Act remuneration the amount of which is at least equal to the product of the Estonian annual average gross monthly wage last published by Statistics Estonia and the coefficient 1.5.
The top specialist multiplier.
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
«(14) Tööandja on kohustatud maksma välismaalasele, kellele on antud elamisluba töötamiseks kasvuettevõttes, tasu, mille suurus on 80 protsenti Statistikaameti viimati avaldatud Eesti aasta keskmisest brutokuupalgast.»Our translation - not official
The employer is obliged to pay a foreigner who has been granted a residence permit for employment in a growth company remuneration the amount of which is 80 per cent of the Estonian annual average gross monthly wage last published by Statistics Estonia.
The growth company multiplier.
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
«05.03.2026 - märts 2027 | 1674 | 2092 | 2594 | 3138»Our translation - not official
05.03.2026 - March 2027 | 1674 | 2092 | 2594 | 3138
The row of the Police and Border Guard Board's salary-criterion table in force from 5 March 2026. The columns are the multipliers 0.8, 1.0, 1.24 and 1.5. 2,092 times 0.8 is 1,673.6 and the table prints 1,674; times 1.5 is 3,138, which the table prints exactly.
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
«Tööandja maksab sulle töötasu, mis on vähemalt võrdne Eesti keskmise brutopalgaga (üldtingimus, sellele on erandid).»Our translation - not official
The employer pays you remuneration which is at least equal to the Estonian average gross wage (a general condition, to which there are exceptions).
The agency's statement of the rule, which matches section 178(1).
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
«(2) Töötamiseks antud tähtajalise elamisloa pikendamisel peab taotleja olema omandanud eesti keele oskuse vähemalt A2-tasemel.»Our translation - not official
On the extension of a temporary residence permit granted for employment, the applicant must have acquired Estonian language proficiency at least at level A2.
The Act attaches this to extension as such.
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
«Vähemalt A2-tasemel eesti keele oskust ei nõuta välismaalaselt:»Our translation - not official
Estonian language proficiency at least at level A2 is not required of a foreigner:
The two conditions that follow are that the foreigner held a valid temporary residence permit for employment on 15 July 2018 and that he or she applies for such a permit or its extension. There is no five-year qualifier anywhere in the Act.
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
«Alates 15. juulist 2018 kehtib A2-taseme keeleoskuse nõue. Pead täitma selle nõude, kui oled Eestis elanud viis aastat tähtajalise elamisloa töötamiseks alusel, mis on väljastatud pärast 15. juulit 2018, ning taotled elamisloa pikendamist või uut elamisluba töötamiseks.»Our translation - not official
From 15 July 2018 the A2-level language requirement applies. You must meet this requirement if you have lived in Estonia for five years on a temporary residence permit for employment issued after 15 July 2018 and you apply for an extension of the residence permit or for a new residence permit for employment.
The agency adds a five-year condition the Act does not contain. A permit granted for one or two years comes up for extension sooner, and section 187(2) bites then.
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
«1) kuni kolm kuud, kui tal on see elamisluba olnud alla kahe aasta;»Our translation - not official
1) up to three months, if he or she has held that residence permit for less than two years;
The unemployment allowance on a work 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
«2) kuni kuus kuud, kui tal on see elamisluba olnud vähemalt kaks aastat.»Our translation - not official
2) up to six months, if he or she has held that residence permit for at least two years.
The longer allowance, which the agency page read here does not mention.
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) Töötamiseks antava tähtajalise elamisloa taotluse läbivaatamise eest tasutakse riigilõivu 250 eurot ja välisesinduses 280 eurot.»Our translation - not official
A state fee of 250 euros is paid for the review of an application for a temporary residence permit granted for employment, and 280 euros at a foreign mission.
The highest ordinary residence permit fee after the 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
«(1) Taotlus vaadatakse läbi ja otsus tähtajalise elamisloa andmise või selle andmisest keeldumise kohta tehakse 90 päeva jooksul taotluse esitamise või käesoleva määruse § 2 lõikes 3 nimetatud puuduste kõrvaldamise päevast arvates.»Our translation - not official
The application is reviewed and the decision to grant or to refuse to grant a temporary residence permit is made within 90 days from the date of submission of the application or from the date of elimination of the deficiencies referred to in section 2(3) of this regulation.
The 90 days is the regulation's, not the Act's.
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) Määrusega kehtestatav ega haldusorgani määratav menetlustähtaeg ei tohi ületada kuut kuud.»Our translation - not official
A processing deadline established by a regulation, or determined by an administrative authority, may not exceed six months.
All the Act itself says about how long a decision may take.
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
Statistics Estonia was not read. The euro figures here come from the Police and Border Guard Board's table, which is the agency applying the rule rather than the instrument stating it.
The table's 1.24 column is not accounted for by anything in the current Act, and no instrument explaining it was read; the page itself notes that the 2.0 column stopped applying to new permits on 24 May 2022.
Section 181 lists thirteen cases in which neither the Unemployment Insurance Fund permission nor the salary requirement applies, and six more in which only the permission is dropped. They were read but are not set out fact by fact here.
The EU Blue Card, intra-corporate transfer and short-term-employment registration regimes are separate chapters of the Act and were not written up.
Nothing here covers what the Unemployment Insurance Fund actually does with a permission application; no page of the Fund's own was read.
- 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 töötamiseks
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
- consolidatesSiseministri määrus 12.01.2017 nr 7, consolidated text in force from 21 May 2026
Riigi Teataja · consolidated to 2026-05-21
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