Estonian company share capital after 1 February 2023
On 1 February 2023, a new Estonian Commercial Code came into force. This law regulates the share capital requirements of Estonian limited companies.
The minimum required share capital of 2500 euros was deleted and the clause that allowed you to postpone your share capital deposit when registering a company was also removed. In this article, I will explain the details and provide some suggestions to the founders who had an Estonian company registered before 1 February.
Generally, the changes add a lot of flexibility for the e-resident founders even though one controversial aspect is detected by e-Residency experts. Not worrying about depositing and registering share capital of 2500 euros makes it much easier to start a limited company for residents and e-residents alike.
You can now have a foreign legal address for your Estonian company
On 1 February 2023, there will be regulatory changes to the registered legal address of Estonian companies and the requirement to have a contact person.
The Commercial Register Act, which enters into force on 1 February 2023, changes the regulation of the registered office address of a legal person and specifies when it is necessary to designate a contact person for the company.Read more
Estonian Business Register data is now free
Starting from 1 October 2022, Estonian e-Business Register data is available to everyone free of charge. Previously fees had to be paid to view data that was not part of the company registry card. This included for example data on company shareholders, articles of association, beneficial owners, and annual reports. The fees were 1 or 2 euros per item, so having a complete picture of any Estonian company could have cost you tens of euros.
There is also now an option for downloading bulk data files and making free automatic queries via XML API. Visit the Estonian Business Register Open Data page for more information. This potentially enables businesses to build new automatic client management processes when working with Estonian companies.
How Unicount virtual office rental service works
Unicount is the simplest way to register an Estonian company. You can register a company in a few minutes with a virtual office address in Estonia. Unicount can only offer that fast formation service thanks to our virtual office rental and contact person service that is integrated into the process.
Unicount virtual office service is designed to match the needs of e-resident founders setting up an Estonian company online, but the service is also used by citizens and residents of Estonia, who prefer a professional business address for their companies. In this article, we explain how virtual office service works.
Read moreEstonian income tax deductible business expenses
While working with Estonian company founders, the same business expenses-related questions come up after their Estonian company is registered. We put together this article with the most typical Estonian income tax deductible expenses you should know as a business owner and company board member.
Those e-resident founders who are not hiring a professional accountant might miss out on the benefits and opportunities provided to them in the Estonian tax laws because they simply do not have sufficient knowledge.
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Why you should submit your annual report in time
Every Estonian company has to submit an annual report (annual accounts) to the Estonian Business Register once a year. This document is an overview of your company’s finances and activities in its previous financial year. All Estonian companies are subject to the same rules, although the reports are simplified for micro and small enterprises. Even if your company hasn’t started trading yet then submitting the annual report is the one thing you need to do to ensure your company and its board is compliant with Estonian laws and does not get fined.
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e-Residency and Unicount support Ukraine
In April 2022 Estonian e-Residency programme and selected service providers launched a reimbursement campaign to financially support Ukrainian entrepreneurs, help them deal with the consequences of war, and promote the development of the Ukrainian and Estonian economies. Unicount now reimburses company registration state fee to eligible Ukrainian e-resident founders and e-Residency programme is reimbursing e-resident card fees to Ukrainian entrepreneurs registering a company in Estonia through Unicount.
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Share capital requirement to be removed 2023
On 13 April Estonian parliament adopted a brand-new Commerical Register Act, which abolishes the minimum share capital requirement for Estonian private limited companies (OÜ). Most Estonians have lived their entire adult lives knowing that a share capital of 2500 euros is needed for a limited company. Since the first Estonian Commercial Code of 1995, the share capital requirement has been 40 000 Estonian crowns which was converted to 2556 euros when Estonia adopted the euro in 2011. Later it was rounded to 2500 euros.
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How did I register a company in Estonia?
Unicount has a landing page saying “registering a company should be as easy as registering a domain”. When I first read this, I remember getting really confused. Neither registering a company nor a domain sounded simple to me at that time. But it has been a few months ever since I register a company in Estonia. Now, I am here to explain why and how registering a company in Estonia is easy as it sounds.
Unicount now also works in French and Turkish
Starting from February 2022 Unicount supports French and Turkish language. Unicount is the first e-Residency service provider enabling Business Register API powered online company formation in multiple languages and is continuing to add major languages of the world. E-residents and residents of Estonia can now register a company and manage their virtual office subscriptions in English, German, French, Turkish, Spanish, Russian and Estonian.