Business entities
Investor considerations:
- A foreign investor may operate through the following corporate forms that should be registered within the commercial register: a public limited company, a private limited company, a general partnership, a limited partnership, a commercial association or a branch.
- The private limited company and public limited company are the most commonly used forms of entities for doing business in Estonia due to their most essential characteristic – the limitation of the shareholders’ liability.
- Business units like permanent establishments or representative offices do not have to be registered with the commercial register. A PE should be registered in the register of Estonian Tax and Customs Authorities. Estonian legislation does not recognize the concept of a representative office. However, the branch must be registered in the commercial register.
- The estimated minimum cost of setting up a branch or subsidiary in Estonia may range between EUR 2,000 to EUR 4,000 (excluding a minimum compulsory share capital).
- Establishing a company in Estonia may take up to a couple of weeks. In order to accelerate the start up procedure foreign investors ordinarily buy ready-made companies (in this way, these procedures might take only a few days upon receiving all the relevant information/documents).
