Deloitte: E-residency has brought Estonia EUR 14.4 mln

  • 2017-12-03
  • LETA/TBT Staff

TALLINN – The e-residency program has brought Estonia an estimated 14.4 million euros in income, including 1.4 million euros in net income and 13 million euros in indirect socio-economic net benefits, Deloitte estimates.

According to an analysis of the economic effect of the e-residency program carried out by Deloitte, the program may bring to Estonia an estimated 31 million euros in net income and 194 million euros in indirect socio-economic net benefits by 2021, the company said.

It is presumed that Estonia will have 150,200 e-residents by 2021, who have set up 20,200 businesses in Estonia by that time. According to the same estimate an average business of an e-resident will have left 70,000 euros in direct income and indirect benefits in Estonia by 2025.

"I'm delighted to note that the estimates made by us to date have been confirmed by professionals at Deloitte," Kaspar Korjus, head of the Estonian e-residency program, said. Korjus said that the e-residency program is a profitable investment for the Estonian state both in terms of economic and socio-economic benefit and each euro invested in the e-residency program will bring back an estimated 100 euros to the Estonian state.

At the end of the third year of the e-residency program Estonia has 27,000 e-residents from 143 countries and e-residents have set up 2,847 businesses here, which have paid 2.8 million euros in labor taxes. Wage payouts have been made to 640 physical persons who are e-residents, and five million euros has been paid in taxes on such payouts.

Where in the first year of the program there was talk about a target of having ten million e-residents, by now it is clear that the program offers the biggest value added to entrepreneurs. The focus of developing the e-residency program now lies specifically on entrepreneurship and related services.

The Riigikogu adopted a law on Oct. 21, 2014 which expanded the digital rights going with e-residency to foreigners. From December 2014 Estonia has been offering the digital resident's status issued by the state to non-residents.