Recent data have shown that there is still a very large number of Russians and Belarusians holding Estonian e-residency and operating different businesses within the country and in the EU.
There were 1,039 companies associated with a total of 995 Russian e-residents and 284 companies related to 281 e-residents from Belarus, based on the figures from the Estonian Business and Innovation Agency (EISA) as of August 27, 2024.
Russian e-residents have created a total of 1,814 companies through the e-residency program since the program was launched. During the same period, Belarusian nationals established 382 firms, Schengen.News reports.
According to the figures from Statistics Estonia, back in 2022, Estonia reported a total of 2,947 companies controlled by Russian citizens and 747 by Belarusian nationals.
A report from ERR notes that Estonia has significantly restricted and continued to further limit the ability of Russians and Belarusians to use e-residency for business purposes, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Risk Manager for the e-residency program within the EISA framework, Oscar Õun, told ERR that the government decided to halt issuing initial e-residency digital IDs to citizens of Russia and Belarus, in March 2022.
This was one of the first decisions made by the government in response to the full-scale war in Ukraine.
The decision means that e-residents were not stripped of their status, however, no new applications were received. This led to a gradual decrease in the number of e-residents from these countries.
Before February 2022, 8.5 per cent of Estonian e-residency cards were held by nationals of Russia and Belarus, while by the end of summer 2024, the figures decreased to five per cent.
According to Õun while in March 2022, a total of 4,421 Russians and 902 Belarussians held e-residency status, the respective figures show that now are 2,573 and 565, accounting for a 42 per cent decrease in two-and-a-half years.
Russian & Belarusians Can Still Manage an Estonian Company Without E-Resident Status
According to the senior commissioner at the PPA’s ID and status office, Anita Preinvalts nationals from Russia and Belarus can still manage an Estonian company without e-resident status.
Preinvalts told ERR that other options include notarised authorised representatives in-country and eID documents issued by internationals assessed to have a high level of trustworthiness under the eIDAS regulation, stressing that even Belgian ID cards can be used for this purpose.
Estonia’s e-residency is a government digital identity card that gives global entrepreneurs the opportunity to start a company online.
Estonia launched its e-Residency program back in 2014 and since then has attracted a large number of internationals.