One person, no employees, invoicing business clients. It is the commonest reason anyone forms an Estonian company, and the cheapest published option costs less than half the most expensive — for an obligation that is broadly identical either way.
Run properly, it costs between €670 and €1,473 a year, and the gap is almost entirely accounting. Registration is €265 to the state, once. After that a solo founder needs a contact person or an Estonian address, and the annual report filed.
The cheapest published route is an address-and-contact-person bundle with accounting handled yourself. The most expensive bundles accounting into a monthly subscription. That is the whole decision, and it is a trade of money against your own time rather than a difference in what you get.
Table of Contents
- Your numbers
- The one real decision
- The providers
- Do you even need a company?
- Getting the money to yourself
- Your year, as deadlines
- What the cheap route actually asks of you
- A client abroad, a supplier abroad, an owner abroad
- Hiring your first person
- When it goes wrong, and nothing reminds you
- Stopping, pausing and closing
- Common mistakes
- Frequently asked questions
Your Numbers
Preset for a solo founder: one shareholder, no EU consumer sales, annual report filed for you. Change anything that does not match.
What it actually costs, per provider
Tell it what your company needs and it adds the state fee, the subscription, the annual report and VAT — the four things each provider leaves off a different part of its own pricing page.
The state fee is €265 and everyone pays it once. The question is whether your provider has already included it.
Because they do not publish: whether the state fee is included; the one-off formation charge.
Because they do not publish: the annual report fee.
Two of the four cannot be totalled at all. Xolo publishes no state fee anywhere on its pricing, Leap or Go pages, so its first-year total cannot be computed. Enty publishes no annual-report fee. Both sort below the providers that publish enough to be compared, because a missing number is not a cheaper number.
The One Real Decision
Everything else is detail. The question is whether you file your own declarations.
| Unbundled — around €670 a year | Bundled — around €1,300 a year | |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy | Address and contact person only | Accounting inside a monthly subscription |
| Cost | Roughly half the bundled route | Roughly double the unbundled route |
| Monthly declarations | You file them yourself if you register for VAT | Someone else watches the deadlines |
| Annual report | Bought separately, or done yourself | Usually included |
| Suits | A founder with few invoices and some patience | Anyone billing enough that a missed filing is expensive, and anyone whose time is worth more than the difference |
The difference is about €650 a year. If sorting your own bookkeeping costs you more than roughly a day and a half of billable time annually, the bundled route is cheaper in real terms. Below that it is not.
One threshold changes the answer. Registering for VAT at €40,000 of turnover turns your filing obligation from annual into monthly. A founder comfortably doing their own books below the threshold is a founder doing twelve times the work above it. Decide the accounting question against where your turnover is heading, not where it is.
The Providers
Commercial comparison · Links to providers, no commission earned
Ordered by published recurring cost for a solo founder, lowest first — providers who publish too little to total sort last. Ordering reflects fees, features and how well each option works for someone arriving from abroad.
1Office
Cheapest published route, if you handle your own books
Key highlights
Key features
- The only provider of the four that states the €265 state fee inside its package price
- Address and contact person sold as a standalone line, so you can see what you are paying for it
- Annual report priced separately and openly
Published terms
- Formation
- €315 one-off, state fee stated inside it
- Address and contact person
- €290/yr plus VAT
- Mail handling
- Up to 10 letters a month
- Annual report
- €250, filed for you
- Accounting
- From €135/month, bought separately
Summary
- The only provider of the four that states the €265 state fee inside its package price
- Address and contact person sold as a standalone line, so you can see what you are paying for it
- Annual report priced separately and openly
- Accounting is not included — at €135/month it costs more than the bundled providers if you buy it here
- Publishes two different formation prices on its own site
Companio
Everything bundled, and the only one whose pages do not contradict each other
Key highlights
Key features
- Accounting, legal address and contact person all sit inside the monthly price
- Passes the state fee through at cost and says so — its €390 setup is shown discounted to exactly €265
- The only provider of the four with no contradictions found across its own pages
Published terms
- Accounting
- Included, up to 1,000 transactions a month
- Bank accounts
- Up to 3 on the entry tier
- Annual report
- €250–€1,000, priced separately
- Address and contact person
- Included
- Minimum term
- 3 months to get the registration discount
Summary
- Accounting, legal address and contact person all sit inside the monthly price
- Passes the state fee through at cost and says so — its €390 setup is shown discounted to exactly €265
- The only provider of the four with no contradictions found across its own pages
- The annual report sits outside the monthly price and outside the recurring figure above: €250 prepared by 31 March, €500 to 30 June, €1,000 after that
- Roughly double the unbundled route
- A three-month minimum commitment applies to the registration discount and when switching in
Xolo
First-year total cannot be computed — no state fee is published anywhere
Key highlights
Key features
- Accounting and tax reporting bundled
- A separate product, Xolo Go, lets you invoice with no company at all — worth knowing before you form one
Published terms
- Accounting
- Included
- Annual report
- Included
- Legal address
- Included
- Shareholders
- 1 on the entry tiers, 2 on Pro, 5 on Premium
- Billing
- Monthly only — no annual price published
Summary
- Accounting and tax reporting bundled
- A separate product, Xolo Go, lets you invoice with no company at all — worth knowing before you form one
- The €59 Starter tier is not a running cost: it is capped to the first 12 months and €4,000 of revenue, so the real entry price is €99
- The most expensive recurring cost of the three that can be totalled
Enty
Cheapest subscription of the four, and the least possible to compare
Key highlights
Key features
- By far the lowest published subscription, at €22 a month
- Formation service fee of €60 is the lowest of the four
Published terms
- Formation
- €60 service fee, or €1,000 through a notary
- Contact person
- In paid plans only — not in the free tier
- Extra shareholder
- €100 each
- Legal entity as shareholder
- €700
Summary
- By far the lowest published subscription, at €22 a month
- Formation service fee of €60 is the lowest of the four
- Calls €290 the 'Estonian government fee' when the state charges €265
- Quotes €33/month on its Estonia page and €22/month on its pricing page
- Its free tier excludes the contact person, so it cannot lawfully run a company whose board sits abroad
Do You Even Need a Company?
Worth asking before paying anyone. An Estonian OÜ is not the only structure, and for a genuinely small solo operation it is often not the cheapest.
| Route | Cost floor | When it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Estonian OÜ through a provider | €670+/yr | You want an EU company, invoice business clients, and retain profit |
| Invoicing with no company | Percentage of what you invoice | Low volume, testing an idea — Xolo Go registers no company and charges 5.9% on payouts |
| Estonian sole trader (FIE) or entrepreneur account | See the self-employment page | You are resident in Estonia — these are not routes for a non-resident |
| A company where you actually live | Varies | Your clients, your bank and your tax authority are all in one country already |
The question that decides it is not about Estonia. An Estonian company does not change where you are taxed. It gives the company a 0% rate on retained profit and 22% on distribution — but the moment you pay yourself, your own country's rules apply to that income, and some countries will treat a company you manage from your sofa as tax-resident there rather than in Estonia. That is a question for an adviser where you live, not for a comparison page. See e-Residency is not residency.
Getting the Money to Yourself
Everything above this point compares running costs — €670 against €1,634, and the difference is your own time. For a one-person company that is not the biggest number in the year, and a page that stops at the subscription has told you the small half. The big half is what it costs to move money out of the company and into your own account.
| Route | Estonian tax | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Leave it in the company | 0% | Retained and reinvested profit is not taxed at all until it leaves |
| Dividend | 22% | Distribution of profit — written in the law as 22/78 of the net |
| Board member fee | 33% social tax + 22% income tax | Payment for directing the company — and you are the board |
| Salary for actual work | 33% + 22% | Where the work is genuinely performed |
This is the trap that is specific to being one person. In a normal company the director and the worker are different people, so nobody has to decide which payment is which. In a solo OÜ you are the sole board member and the person doing the billable work, and the two payments are taxed differently: a board member fee carries social tax wherever the director lives, while a dividend is a distribution of profit and does not. Labelling the first as the second to avoid 33% is precisely the arrangement tax authorities look for.
One legacy rate still bites, and only on older companies. The reduced 14/86 rate on regular distributions was abolished on 1 January 2025. What did not disappear with it is the 7% withholding on dividends to a natural person out of profits that were taxed at 14/86 up to 31 December 2024 — treaties can cut it to 5% or 0%. A company formed in 2026 will never meet it; a company you took over will. Any guide still offering 14/86 as a planning option predates the change.
Both of those rates describe what Estonia takes on the way out. Neither describes what you are left owing.
None of this settles your own tax, and that is the point
The company pays 22% on distribution in Estonia. What happens to that money once it reaches you is decided entirely where you live, and many countries will tax the dividend again with credit for what Estonia took. Worse for a solo founder: place of effective management rules can make your company tax-resident in your own country, because for a one-person company the management is wherever you are sitting. This is the single most expensive thing on the page and it is not a question a comparison of provider prices can answer — see company tax and e-Residency is not residency.
Your Year, as a Set of Deadlines
The cheap route is cheap because you keep these dates yourself. That is a fair trade only if you know what the dates are, and nothing in Estonia will remind you of any of them.
The contact person entry is created — with an end date
It is registered with a term and the entry is deleted automatically when the term passes. Nobody chases you for the renewal. Put the date in a calendar the week you register the company, because that entry is a legal requirement for a company whose board sits abroad.
Apply for a VAT number
The threshold is measured on taxable supply from the start of the calendar year. The Tax Board then decides within 5 working days — counted from the evidence, not from your application.
Once registered, the VAT return
The KMD, the EC sales list and the payment all fall on the same day. A registered company files even in a month it did not trade, and filing nothing for 6 consecutive periods lets the Board strike the registration off.
The payroll declaration
Due monthly in any month a salary or a board member fee was paid. A company that only ever distributes dividends does not file this one — which is another reason the choice in the section above changes your workload, not just your tax.
The annual report
Compulsory whoever files it, and compulsory for a company that did nothing all year. This is the obligation dormant one-person companies forget, because nothing else in the year demands attention.
Supervisory proceedings
RIK says the registrar may fine both the company and every person obliged to file, without warning, under § 71 of the Commercial Code — and that proceedings may end in deletion from the register or compulsory dissolution. The consequence to plan against is losing the company, not paying a fine.
Crossing the VAT threshold is the moment the cheap route stops being cheap. Below €40,000 your only hard deadline is one annual report. Above it you have added twelve filings a year, each with a payment attached. That is the same €650 decision from the top of the page seen from the other end: it is not "do I want help", it is "how many deadlines am I willing to personally own". Decide it against where your turnover is heading — see VAT.
What the Cheap Route Actually Asks of You
The €650 saving at the top of this page is a trade, and a trade is only assessable if you know what you are giving. Work down this list honestly. Every "no" is work you have just agreed to do yourself, every month, on a date nobody will remind you of.
| Can you answer yes? | What a no commits you to |
|---|---|
| Do you know what a KMD INF annex is, and what has to be itemised on it? | Filed monthly alongside the VAT return: part A for sales, part B for purchases, itemised for every transaction partner whose VAT-exclusive total for the period reaches €1,000. That is per partner across the period, not per invoice — many small invoices to one client add into it. |
| Are you comfortable filing an empty return in a month you did not trade? | A VAT-registered company files every month regardless. Filing nothing for 6 consecutive periods lets the Tax Board strike the registration off on its own initiative. |
| Will you write the words “Reverse charge” on the right invoices, and only those? | The notation is prescribed for an intra-EU B2B service — not “VAT 0%”, not “exempt”. It is one of the 10 required invoice particulars rather than a matter of style, and the transaction also has to appear on the VD report. |
| Do you know which month you owe a payroll declaration in? | Any month a salary or a board member fee was paid, and no month in which nothing was. A company that only ever distributes dividends never files one at all — so how you pay yourself changes your filing calendar as well as your tax. |
| Can you produce a double-entry annual report within 6 months of the year end? | This is the one obligation that exists whether or not the company traded. Unbundled providers price it separately — €250 at one of them — so check whether it sits inside your subscription or arrives as its own bill. |
| Have you diarised the contact person’s end date from the register, not the invoice? | The appointment is entered with a term and deleted automatically when it passes. Paying your provider and the register entry being extended are separate events, and the two dates are set independently. |
If more than two of those are a no, you are not choosing between two service levels — you are choosing between paying about €650 a year and taking on a small recurring administrative job. That may still be the right call, and plenty of one-person companies run it perfectly well, but price the job at your own billable rate before calling the unbundled route a saving.
None of this is legally required to be done by an accountant. The obligation is that the filing happens, not that a professional performs it, and you can file in e-MTA, through accounting software over X-tee, or at a service bureau. What the bundled subscription actually sells is the deadline discipline — which is worth roughly nothing below the VAT threshold and a great deal above it.
A Client Abroad, a Supplier Abroad, an Owner Abroad
The premise of this page is a one-person company invoicing across borders, and each of the three directions has a rule that surprises somebody.
Your client is abroad
For a service, the general B2B rule puts the place of supply in the customer's country. You charge no Estonian VAT, the customer accounts for it under the reverse charge, and the invoice must carry the words "Reverse charge". That single rule is why many one-person Estonian companies never register for VAT at all.
| You invoice | Estonian VAT | On the invoice | On the VD report? |
|---|---|---|---|
| A VAT-registered business elsewhere in the EU | None — 0% | "Reverse charge" | Yes |
| A business outside the EU | None — 0% | Place of supply outside Estonia | No |
| A consumer, anywhere | Normally yes | Ordinary invoice | No |
| Any Estonian customer | Yes | Ordinary invoice | No |
It is not an exemption and it is not a loophole. It is the place-of-supply rules working normally, and it stops the moment you add a consumer product. A business built on B2B invoices that starts selling to individuals acquires a registration obligation it did not have the quarter before, because a B2C service is supplied where you are.
Your supplier is abroad, or your costs are here
The mirror image is the one freelancers underweight: until you register, every euro of Estonian VAT on your own costs is a cost rather than a credit. Software, accounting, equipment, the provider subscription this page is about — all of it is quoted excluding VAT and all of it carries 24% you cannot reclaim. For a company with real Estonian expenses, voluntary registration is often worth the filing, and it is available before you reach the threshold provided you can show EMTA that business is under way or planned.
Exemption is not zero-rating, and the difference is your input VAT. If you use the cross-border small business scheme to trade in other member states without registering there, you cannot deduct input VAT on the costs of operating in that member state. A zero-rated supply preserves the right to deduct; an exempt one does not. For a one-person business with meaningful costs abroad, the scheme can be worse than registering — which is the opposite of how it is usually presented.
The owner is abroad — which is to say, you
What being abroad triggers, as a consequence of your own location:
- The company's registered address abroad is what triggers the contact person requirement — an Estonian legal address is the alternative, not the pair.
- A board member fee carries 33% social tax wherever the director lives. Being outside Estonia does not remove it.
- Place of effective management rules can make the company tax-resident where you sit, because for a one-person company that is where the management is.
- Controlled foreign company rules are aimed precisely at low-taxed foreign entities controlled by residents.
What it does not change, because Estonian law settles it regardless:
- 0% on retained profit and 22% on distribution.
- The company's own filing obligations here.
- That the company is an EU legal person.
- That e-Residency confers no tax residency on you at all.
And one that runs the other way: if you spend enough time in Estonia, Estonia starts taxing you. The test is 183 days over any twelve consecutive months — a rolling period, not the calendar year — or a place of residence here. Either is sufficient. An arrival in September can make you resident inside the following year without your ever spending 183 days in a single calendar year.
Hiring Your First Person
This is the section where the page's premise breaks, and it is worth knowing the shape of the cost before it does.
Estonia puts the social contribution on the employer rather than inside the gross, which is the reverse of Lithuania and Poland and means an Estonian salary figure understates what the person costs. A gross of €2,000 costs the company €2,676: €2,000 of salary, €660 of social tax and €16 of employer unemployment insurance. Out of their own gross the employee then pays 1.6% unemployment insurance, a second-pillar contribution at 2%, 4% or 6% if they joined, and 22% income tax on what is left.
Three consequences matter to a company that has never had a payroll.
Part-time is proportionally expensive. Social tax is charged on a minimum monthly base of €886 whatever the person actually earns, so the minimum charge is €292.38. A ten-hour-a-week hire does not cost a quarter of a full-time one. The minimum is waived in a defined list of cases — state pensioners, people with partial or no work ability, a parent raising a child under 3 or three or more children under 19, registered students, people unemployed for six months before being hired, and anyone absent a full calendar month on sick leave, maternity leave, conscription or strike.
The register entry, not the first day, starts their health cover. An employer registers an employee in the employment register before they start; cover begins 14 days after that entry and only where the contract runs longer than a month or is open-ended, and it continues 2 months after termination is registered. Register late and their cover starts late, invisibly, until they need a doctor.
A payroll declaration now lands every month. It is due in any month a salary or a board member fee was paid. If you had been paying yourself only in dividends, hiring is the moment the monthly filing rhythm starts — which is a workload change on top of the cash one, and it points straight back at the bundled-versus-unbundled decision at the top of this page.
The wage floor also moves inside the year: €886 a month and €5.31 an hour to 31 March 2026, then €946 and €5.67 from 1 April 2026.
When It Goes Wrong, and Nothing Reminds You
A one-person company fails quietly. There is no colleague to notice, no payroll cycle to force attention, and — below the VAT threshold — nothing at all in the year except one report. Two institutions can act, and they act differently.
| What happened | Who acts | What is actually published |
|---|---|---|
| The annual report is late | The registrar | A fine on the company and every person obliged to file, without warning, under § 71 of the Commercial Code |
| Still unfiled 6 months later | The registrar | Supervisory proceedings, which may end in deletion from the register or compulsory dissolution |
| Tax paid late | The Tax Board | Interest at 0.06% a day, which the Board itself annualises to 21.9%, from the day after the due date |
| A demanded return not filed | The Tax Board | A penalty payment: up to €1,300 first, €2,000 second, capped at €3,300 |
| The contact person entry expires | Nobody — the register does it automatically | The entry is deleted when its term passes and the company is then non-compliant |
The consequence is the company, not a fine
The § 71 consequence RIK sets out is that proceedings may end in deletion from the register or compulsory dissolution. The exposure attached to a missed annual report is therefore not a bill you can price into a budget; it is the company itself. In the other direction, 21.9% a year on late tax is more expensive than almost any credit a small company can get, and it runs from the day after the due date rather than from an assessment.
One mechanism catches solo founders specifically: an overdue liability is settled out of money owed back to you first, including an enforcement agent's claim. An input-VAT refund you were relying on can simply not arrive, with nothing failing and nobody explaining. And where share capital is below €2,500, the shareholders stay personally liable for the unpaid portion — the €0.01 minimum is real, but it is not consequence-free.
Stopping, Pausing and Closing
Freelance income is lumpy, and a quiet year is normal. An Estonian company does not have a quiet mode.
What continues when you stop invoicing, all of it unchanged:
- The annual report within 6 months of the year end, for a company that did nothing at all.
- A VAT return every month, empty or not, until the registration is removed.
- The contact person entry, still expiring on its own term.
- Your provider's subscription, until you cancel it rather than until you stop billing.
What a sole trader gets that a company does not, which is the comparison worth knowing:
- A FIE can suspend the activity, which stops the advance payments.
- Deletion from the register runs on a 5-working-day timetable.
- But suspension past 12 months deems previously deducted assets taken into personal use, adding their market value back to business income.
- And a dormant FIE registration keeps owing €877 a quarter until it is deleted.
There is no OÜ equivalent of suspension. The company either exists, with its annual report, or it does not. That is genuinely a point in the company's favour for a freelancer with an uneven year — a dormant OÜ owes one filing, while a dormant FIE owes €3,509 of minimum social tax across the year — and a point against for anyone who thought stopping work was the same as stopping.
Deregistering for VAT is its own application: you show that turnover has not exceeded €40,000 in the current or the previous calendar year, deletion takes effect on the date in the Board's decision rather than the date you applied, and you pay VAT on goods you still hold whose input VAT you deducted. A business operating from another EU member state must have been registered at least 2 calendar years first; an Estonian one has no general minimum.
Being struck off is a consequence rather than an exit: reaching it by neglect leaves the § 71 exposure on everyone obliged to file along the way.
Common Mistakes
The commonest error is comparing the €22 against the €89 as though they were the same purchase. They are not: one is a dashboard subscription with a contact person, the other includes accounting and the annual report. A related one is budgeting €59 for Xolo, when that tier is capped to the first 12 months and €4,000 of revenue — the real recurring entry price is €99 a month. A third is forgetting the annual report in the total. It is compulsory, so either it sits inside your subscription or it is a separate €250.
Two errors are about your own workload. Doing your own books past the VAT threshold is one: crossing €40,000 turns annual filing into monthly, so decide against where your turnover is going rather than where it is. Assuming cheapest means best value is the other. The cheap route is cheap precisely because you do the accounting, which is a real trade rather than a free saving.
The last two are about buying something you do not need. The legal address and the contact person are alternatives, so with a genuine Estonian address you need neither bundle. And this is not a tax decision: where you are taxed personally is decided by where you live, and an Estonian company changes the company's tax position rather than yours.
Starting a business in Estonia?
Registering an OÜ, working out whether you need one at all, or finding the contact person the law requires when nobody on the board lives here. Get matched with specialists who set companies up for foreigners.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the cheapest way for a freelancer to run an Estonian company?
On published prices, an address-and-contact-person bundle at around €290 a year with the annual report bought separately at €250 — roughly €670 a year including VAT — with you handling the bookkeeping. Bundled providers that include accounting run about €1,634 a year. The difference is your own time, not the level of service.
How much does it cost to start as a freelancer in Estonia?
€265 state fee to register the company, plus whatever the provider charges. First-year totals across the providers who publish enough to be compared came to about €1,302–€1,963 including VAT. Two of the four could not be totalled at all, because they do not publish the state fee treatment or the annual report price.
Do I need accounting help, or can I do it myself?
Legally you can do it yourself — the obligation is that the annual report is filed within six months of the financial year end, not that an accountant files it. Practically it depends on VAT: below the €40,000 threshold your filing is annual, above it it is monthly. The bundled route costs about €650 more a year, so it pays for itself if your own bookkeeping would cost you more than roughly a day and a half of billable time.
Is Xolo or Companio better for a freelancer?
Both bundle accounting. Companio's recurring cost is lower on published prices and its first-year total can actually be computed, because it states the state fee treatment; Xolo does not publish that anywhere, so its first-year figure is unknown. Xolo also offers Xolo Go, which lets you invoice without forming a company at all — a genuinely different option worth considering before you register anything.
Can I use the free Enty plan?
Not to run a company whose board sits abroad. Enty's own documentation says the contact person is included in all plans except the free one, and a company with a foreign management board address is required to have a contact person. The free tier is not a cheaper route to the same thing.
Do I need an Estonian company at all as a freelancer?
Often not. If your clients, your bank and your tax authority are all in the country you live in, a local structure is usually simpler and cheaper. An Estonian company makes sense when you want an EU company, invoice business clients across borders, and retain profit inside it — and it does not change where you are taxed personally.
Will an Estonian company reduce my personal tax?
Not by itself, and this is where most of the bad advice sits. Estonia taxes company profit at 0% while retained and 22/78 on distribution, but the moment money reaches you personally your own country's rules apply. Some countries also treat a company managed from their territory as resident there. Get advice where you live before assuming any saving.
What actually happens if the annual report is late?
The report is due within 6 months of the financial year ending, and it is compulsory whoever files it and compulsory for a company that did nothing all year. 6 months after that deadline the registrar starts supervisory proceedings. RIK says it may fine both the company and every person obliged to file, without warning, under § 71 of the Commercial Code, and that proceedings may end in deletion from the register or compulsory dissolution. RIK publishes no euro figure for the fine, so plan against the consequence it does publish: it is losing the company rather than paying a penalty. This is the obligation the cheap unbundled route hands you along with the saving, and nothing in Estonia will remind you of it.
Does paying myself change how much I have to file?
Yes, and it is a workload question as much as a tax one. A payroll declaration is due monthly in any month you paid yourself a salary or a board member fee — so drawing a regular salary turns a quiet year into twelve extra filings. A company that only ever distributes dividends does not file it at all. That is separate from the tax difference: a board member fee carries 33% social tax plus 22% income tax, a dividend is a distribution of profit at 22%, and money left inside the company is taxed at 0% until it leaves. In a solo company you are both the sole board member and the person doing the billable work, so which payment is which is a decision only you are in a position to make — and relabelling one as the other to escape the 33% is precisely the arrangement tax authorities look for.
Should I register for VAT before I have to?
It is a real option and it is not free. On the plus side, until you register you cannot reclaim Estonian VAT on your own costs. Against that, registration turns your filing from one annual report into twelve returns a year — the KMD, the EC sales list and the payment all fall on the 20th of every month, a registered company files even in a month it did not trade, and filing nothing for 6 consecutive periods lets the Board strike the registration off. Many one-person Estonian companies never register at all, because selling services to VAT-registered businesses elsewhere in the EU falls under the reverse charge and carries no Estonian VAT. If registration does become compulsory, the trigger is €40,000 of taxable supply from the start of the calendar year, you have 3 working days to apply, and the Board decides within 5 working days counted from the evidence rather than from your application.
Related Guides
Company, or something simpler?
For a lot of one-person operations the answer is not a company at all. Estonia has three other ways to be paid for your own work, and two of them cost nothing to run.
Disclaimer
General guidance, not tax, legal or accounting advice. Provider prices were read on each provider's own page in August 2026 and change without notice. Whether an Estonian company suits you depends on where you live, where you manage it from and where your clients are — questions that need an adviser in your own jurisdiction rather than a comparison page.