2019 brings changes to Estonian legislation

Happy new year in your business and personal life from us. New year usually brings new laws and amendments to existing laws and some of them we have already covered previously (we will recap the important ones below). As Estonia has elections coming this spring then maybe there are no radical changes in taxes etc but still, if you are doing business, starting a business, employing people and so on, have a look at the list below. It is short and will not take a long time to read.

1. From the 1st of January, any bank account or payment institution in the EEA (European Economic Area) region can be used for share capital payment for an Estonian company. This is pretty revolutionary and especially helpful for non-residents and e-residents how are really struggling to open a bank account in an Estonian bank. In addition to actually opening an account, the banks now charge high opening fees and monthly maintenance fees if you do manage to open an account;

2. The minimum wage is now 540 euros per month but none of the employment related taxes change (elections!). The rise took place in excise duty on tobacco (10%), liquid gas and also household gas (25%).

3. From 2019, it is possible to apply an income tax reduction to dividend payments from a company to another company.

4. Regular health check is not compulsory to all the employees anymore (people sitting behind the desk and computer still need to go) and instead it will be based on a risk assessment.

5. The employment register (kept in the Tax and Customs Board website/portal) needs updating. Information about the amount of working time needs to be added (for most it is full-time) and the existing information needs to be updated by June 2019. Also, from June, you need to add a place of work and name of the position. It is possible that all informationalready exists in the register but take a few moments to check.