Brief overview of the Estonian tax environment:
- Estonia is considered to have one of the best tax environments for corporate taxes. For example, corporate profits are not subject to corporate income tax if dividends are not distributed. When dividends are paid to shareholders, then corporate income tax is to be paid at the rate of 21/79 (26.58%) from the paid dividend amount.

- informative website for Estonian tax overview is http://www.emta.ee/index.php?id=1751 (in English) and http://www.emta.ee/index.php?id=1984 (in Russian)

Information about establishing an Estonian Private Limited Company (company):

If the Company is established by a private founder, then it is not required that a minimum share capital of €2500 be paid (a new option since 2011). In the register the share capital will be shown as €2500, but in the accounting it will be booked as shareholder debt to the company. In reality, the share capital may need to be paid into the company in case the company incurs debts in the future. If this occurs, then the shareholder must pay that amount into the company.

If one of the company shareholders is either an Estonian company or foreign company, then the share capital has to be paid into the company bank account at the time of registration.

Company registration options:

a) To establish and register a company under your ownership is simple. You can either do it yourself at a notary’s office in Estonia, or you can authorize our specialists to do it for you without being present in Estonia. We will open the bank account, conclude the internet bank agreement for you and apply for VAT registration. To do so, we require a Power of Attorney (POA) from you. The POA has to be certified by the notary in your home country or in any other country. The POA must also be marked with an apostil in the same country where it was notarized. We will provide you with a draft copy of the POA. This would cost you a total of €700, including our work, state fee and notary fee, as well as the opening of a bank account. To apply for VAT registration, an additional fee of €192 will be added.

b) There is also an option that we register the company under our ownership first, and then transfer the shares to you during your next trip to Tallinn. The advantage of this option is that we don’t need the POA/apostil from you to establish the company or to open a bank account; the disadvantage is that we will need to go together to the Estonian notary in order to perform the share transaction, which takes about 1hr and cost approximately €100.

Company formation, with all its related services, will take approximately 1-3 weeks to complete, depending on the particular needs.

Company director(s) may be citizens of a foreign state, although it may be easier for further administration to have a local director on the board. Please ask for this service, if this is of interest to you.

If one the above option suits you, then we will need to confirm the following information with you:
- Company name. If you give us your preference(s) then we will check the availability
- Company postal address, contacts. Should you need to use our address and mailbox service, then virtual address service is   available for €46 per month.
- Director(s) names and addresses
- Shareholder(s)
- Share capital. Minimum allowed capital is EUR 2500. Does not need to be paid into the company until creditors claim it.
- Preferred bank (Swedbank, SEB, Nordea, Sampo-Danske Bank, DnB Nord, etc.)

Above fees are subject to 20% VAT, except share capital.