International Schools in Estonia

The State System Takes Your Child, Free

Start here, because a surprising number of arriving families never check. Every child in Estonia is guaranteed a school place, most schools are run by the state or a local government, and education at those schools is free — as are the learning materials, which are supplied rather than bought.

The obligation runs the other way too. A child living in Estonia who is a foreign citizen, or of undetermined citizenship, is subject to the obligation to learn exactly as an Estonian child is. From the 2025/2026 school year that obligation runs to age 18, or until a secondary or vocational qualification is completed. The single exception is the children of accredited foreign diplomats.

School starts in the year the child turns 7, provided that birthday falls by 1 October. Basic school runs grades 1 to 9 in three stages — grades 1–3 for ages 7 to 10, grades 4–6 for ages 10 to 13, and grades 7–9 for ages 13 to 16 — after which a pupil moves to upper secondary or to vocational education.

1. Contact the local government where you live

   This is the step foreign families skip, and it is the one that produces the guaranteed place. The municipality coordinates the placement; the school does not do it alone.

2. Submit an application to the school

   With identity documents, the child’s health card, and records from the previous school where you have them. Records from abroad are useful even when they are not formally required.

3. Expect a development review early

   The school conducts one as soon as possible after a newcomer arrives, to work out what support the child needs. It is a diagnostic, not a test to pass.

Estonian, And The Support A Newcomer Gets

Most Estonian schools teach in Estonian, and the ones that did not are converting. The transition began in 2024 with kindergartens and grades 1 and 4, moves up one grade a year on each of those two fronts, and is due to be complete by 2030. A school wanting to teach partly in another language needs government approval, applied for before 31 March of the preceding school year.

For a newly arrived child that is a real obstacle, and the system has a named answer to it rather than a hope. A school qualifies for additional state funding for a newly arrived migrant pupil if it provides at least 2 of 3 supports:

The practical reading is about age rather than ability. A child entering at grade 1 or 2 lands in the same starting position as everybody else and the language stops being a topic within a year or two. A child arriving at 14 has to acquire an unfamiliar Finno-Ugric language while being examined in it, and that is the case where the fee-charging English-medium schools are buying something worth the money.

How A School Place Is Allocated

For the state system the allocation is municipal, not national, and Tallinn's rules are the ones most arriving families meet.

Two factors drive the decision: how close the child's registered residence is to the school, and keeping siblings in the same school. Where a school is oversubscribed, the tie is broken by whose entry in the population register is earlier. That makes the registered address load-bearing in a way a newly arrived family rarely expects — the guarantee of a Tallinn municipal place runs off the population register entry, not off where you actually sleep.

The calendar is fixed: applications from 1 to 15 March through the city's LAUR system or on paper at the Education Department, notification of the assigned school by 20 May, confirmation by parents by 10 June, and remaining vacancies opened from 11 June. A family arriving in August is outside that cycle entirely and is dealing with vacancies rather than allocation, which is the strongest practical argument for contacting the local government the week you arrive rather than the week term starts.

The international schools run their own admissions and their own calendars. Tallinn European School's application period for 2026/2027 ran from 12 January to 13 March, with language testing in the section language and in the second language, plus mathematics where required. Miina Härma's Diploma applicants must submit subject choices by 1 May.

Which Schools Teach In English, And Where

The English-medium map of Estonia is short, and it splits three ways: fee-charging international schools, a state-founded European School, and municipal schools that run an English-medium programme for nothing.

Two entries in that table deserve to be read twice. Tallinn English College teaches the IB Diploma Programme in English and charges nothing for it — pupils buy their own textbooks and that is the whole cost. It was the first municipal school in Estonia authorised as an IB World School and has taught the programme since September 2009. Entry runs through the school's own grade 10, which is the catch: it is not a route you can join at 17.

Miina Härma Gümnaasium in Tartu teaches all three IB programmes in English — the Primary Years Programme in grades 1–4 since 2014, the Middle Years Programme in grades 5–9 since 2019, and the Diploma Programme in grades 11–12 since 2011, with a pre-IB year in grade 10. It is a municipal school operating under an administrative contract with the Ministry of Education and Research and Tartu City Government. Its admissions are targeted rather than open: the international classes are aimed at children of diplomatic missions and of specialists working in Estonia's public sector, with remaining Diploma places going to pupils who finished grade 10 in Estonia. The school publishes no fee for those classes, so a family that fits the profile should ask the school directly rather than assume either way.

The Schools, One By One

Every figure below is from the school's own published fee page for 2026/2027. No school pays to appear here and nothing on this page earns a commission.

IB, The European Baccalaureate, Or The National Curriculum

Three curricula are on offer here and they answer three different questions about where your family is going next.

The IB's advantage for a mobile family is continuity of shape rather than of syllabus: a pupil moving between two IB schools in two countries meets the same programme structure. Its practical limit here is that only three schools offer the Diploma privately and one municipal school offers it free, so at 16 the choice narrows sharply.

The European Baccalaureate is a different instrument. It is recognised across EU member states for university entry, and Tallinn European School is the only place in Estonia that leads to it. It also does something no other school here guarantees: mother tongue is a taught subject from P1 to S7, which matters for a family that intends the child to remain literate in a language nobody around them speaks.

What It Costs, Side By Side

The gap between the cheapest and dearest English-medium school-age seat in Estonia is about 4×, and both sit at the same end of the same small country.

Three things move the real number away from the headline.

The one-off charges. ISE adds €600 registration and a €3,000 capital levy at entry to Reception; Tallinn European School charges a non-refundable €200 to apply, before any decision; Tartu International School's corporate scale carries an €800 enrolment fee.

Who pays. Tartu International School operates two scales for the same seat, and the difference is not the child but the payer: the private scale applies where the family pays and a parent and the child are registered residents, the corporate scale where an employer reimburses. Grades 4–9 cost €7,225–€7,330 privately and €11,235 corporately. If your relocation package pays school fees, you are on the second scale.

What the fee excludes. IST charges extracurricular activities, aftercare, English-as-a-second-language lessons and trips outside the annual budget separately. Audentes adds €350 a year for digital textbooks and charges IBO examination fees, meals and field trips on top. Tallinn English College's free Diploma still leaves pupils buying their own books.

Choosing, And The Mistakes That Cost A Year

Two mistakes are about the state system. Assuming a foreign child cannot attend a state school is the expensive one, and it is common: every child in Estonia is guaranteed a place, tuition and learning materials are free, and the obligation to learn applies to foreign citizens and to children of undetermined citizenship alike. Not contacting the local government is how that guarantee goes unused — the municipality coordinates the placement, and a family that approaches only the schools is working outside the mechanism that produces the place.

Two are about the calendar. Missing Tallinn's 1–15 March window puts a family into the vacancies process rather than the allocation process; the assigned school is named by 20 May and confirmed by 10 June, and remaining places open from 11 June. Applying to an international school in August collides with a separate calendar again: Tallinn European School's 2026/2027 period ran 12 January to 13 March, and Miina Härma wants Diploma subject choices by 1 May.

Two are about money. Reading the headline fee as the price misses the entry charges, which reach €3,600 at one school before a single lesson. Assuming your employer's package puts you on the cheaper scale gets Tartu backwards: employer reimbursement puts you on the corporate scale, which is the more expensive one.

And two are about the child rather than the school. Choosing English-medium as a default overpays for a six-year-old who would have absorbed Estonian in a year, in a system that is free and supplies the books. Choosing a school with no Diploma Programme for a twelve-year-old buys a move at 16 that nobody has planned for — Tartu International School stops at grade 9, and the Diploma options are concentrated in Tallinn.