For information on business opportunities in Estonia, bilateral economic cooperation, general economic framework, country risks, trade and investment flows, opportunities for Italian products, we suggest starting by consulting the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Info Mercati Esteri, which offers an innovative and completely free platform created to satisfy the request for information on foreign markets from national economic operators.
Estonia is one of the most advanced country with regard to IT. The use of new technologies in the business and banking sector, as well as in the public sector, is extremely widespread. It is possible to register a new company entirely online. From December 2014 foreign entrepreneurs can apply for “e-residency” (for more information please consult “e-estonia.com”). Roughly 60% of the population speak English; this percentage is much higher among younger generations. In Tallinn and Tartu there are university courses of Italian, whose graduate may be useful collaborators for Italian entrepreneurs.
Its geographical position makes Estonia a valuable starting point to get access to neighboring markets such as the Baltics, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. Such access is made easier by the presence of good infrastructure and transports.
In Estonia is a applied a single VAT of 20% for both natural and legal persons. There is no taxation on corporate earning in case of reinvestment. Contributions to be paid by the employer are equal to 33% of the gross salary (20% for the pension fund and 13% for healthcare). There is also a contribution to the unemployment fund equal to 0.8%.
In the last few years Estonia has reached the top places in the Index of Economic Freedom, a yearly ranking based on the economic freedom of 186 countries, created in 1996 by The Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation in Washington.
For more information, please contact our Commercial Office, (Tel. +372 6276160; commerciale.tallinn@esteri.it), the ITA Office in Stockholm whose jurisdiction covers also Estonia (Tel. +46 8 248960; stoccolma@ice.it), and consult the page “Estonia” of the following website: www.infomercatiesteri.it
If you need any assistance, NEXUS is the Customer Relationship Management application created by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation to promote support for Italian companies interested in operating on foreign markets. Requests for assistance can be sent to this Embassy by filling in this form.
For available tenders in Estonia, please consult the following website.