Estonia is an EU leader in the digitalization of public services. In 2014, it was the first country in the world to launch the e-Residency program for people from outside its territory. The digital identity issued by the Estonian government allows entrepreneurs, freelancers and start-ups to run their business 100%. remotely, from anywhere in the world. So far, just over 130,000 people have obtained an e-residency card. people, including 2.6 thousand From Poland.
– The Estonians have excellently prepared and implemented an electronic state administration system. When they implemented it entirely in Estonia, they thought that it was also an export product, so they started offering the e-residency system to other countries. The system has been operating for several years now and with great success. For example, after Brexit, many entrepreneurs from Great Britain who were thinking about doing business in the European economic zone became e-residents, but not only that. In Poland, this program is also quite popular – says Daniel Bajer, export advisor from Enterprise Estonia, in an interview with the Newseria agency.
The e-Residency program is an initiative of the Estonian government launched in 2014. Its goal was to build an innovative environment for entrepreneurs from around the world, and thus ensure a positive return on investment for the Estonian economy, education system and culture. The program is financed by the Estonian state, and more specifically, from fees charged for issuing the e-Residency digital identity card, company and license registration, as well as from taxes paid in the country.
– What is the key to the success of this program is not so much the technology, because it is unique but also quite easy to implement in other countries, but the ease of use. Every entrepreneur can not only simply but also quickly register an enterprise in Estonia and then operate from it in the territory of the European Union. Also tax transparency, ease of reporting from a tax point of view in Estonia and later in the European Union – says Daniel Bajer.
The process is not complicated
Obtaining e-residency requires completing an electronic application and paying a fee. Decision decision on granting an e-residency card is made within 30 days from its submission. Then you have to wait from two to five weeks to collect the card in person at one of the Estonian diplomatic missions – in Poland, it can be done at the Estonian Embassy in Warsaw. The card is activated within 24 hours of its receipt and requires installation of identification software – DigiDoc.
– The basic thing that this program offers to start-ups is that start-ups do not have to worry about the formal part of running a business. It is minimized as much as possible, i.e. setting up a company takes five minutes, then completing documentation and tax reporting takes about two-three minutes, as long as it takes us to read the finished financial report and only click to send it to the state administration, confirming the data that the state administration has already prepared for us. Everything is done online – explains the representative of Enterprise Estonia.
Number of all e-residents registered in Estonia as of October 13 this year. amounted to 130,857, and the Estonian companies registered by them as of October 1 this year. – 37,933. In September alone, almost 1.1 thousand were received. new applications to the program, and the number of new companies amounted to 519.
The most e-residents are: Ukraine (8,281), Germany (8,065), Spain (7,462), Finland (6,817) and France (5,792). Poland has 2,625 of them. In terms of the number of registered companies in Estonia, Spain is the leader (3,297), followed by Ukraine (3,004) and Germany (2,837). Thanks to the e-Residency program, Poles have so far registered 806 companies in Estonia.
According to the Estonian Tax and Customs Office, quoted by the EC, local start-ups in 2024 achieved record turnover of over EUR 3.9 billionwhich is an increase of 14.7%. compared to 2023, when they amounted to EUR 3.4 billion. According to the European Commission report “European Innovation Scoreboard 2025. Country profile Estonia”, This small country boasts the largest number of unicorns (companies valued at over USD 1 billion) per million inhabitants in Europe – 7.7. There are 10 of them in total.
– Estonia's success in terms of the number of unicorns is not due to its population, as only 1.3 million people live in this country, but to itsunique education system that was implemented in the late 1990s. It was called the “leap of the tiger” and aimed to change the entire system of children's thinking about entrepreneurship, mathematics, innovation and technology – says Daniel Bajer. – The second element is that Estonians from the first day of running a business, i.e. from the moment they have an idea, immediately think about global export of this idea. And what can be exported faster and logistically easier than technology, software, modern innovative solutions? Innovative solutions combined with export give this unicorn success.
Experts from Enterprise Estonia talked about the e-residency program in Estonia and its benefits for startups dealing with innovations in the Central and Eastern European region, as well as other factors influencing the country's innovation during Deep Tech CEE Summit 2025, the largest event in the region for entrepreneurs, startup founders, investors and scientists from the sector, which took place at the end of October this year. in Warsaw.
