Staying in Estonia: your address is your right of residence

Yes, as a Dutch citizen you may live in Estonia without a permit. You may stay for three months without registering. If you stay longer, you register your place of residence with the municipality, and with that notice and an application for the Estonian ID card you get a temporary right of residence: valid for five years, and after that automatically extended five years at a time. The finding at the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board, PPA: there is no separate application and no assessment of your income, but the right of residence hangs entirely on your address. If there is no valid address in the population register any more, your right of residence and your ID card are revoked automatically.

Which forms of stay are there?

Form	For whom	How long	What you do
Temporary stay	every EU citizen	3 months	nothing
Temporary right of residence	whoever comes to live in Estonia	5 years, then automatically 5 years at a time	register your residence and apply for an ID card
Permanent right of residence	whoever lived in Estonia continuously for 5 years	indefinite	apply to the PPA, with a registered address

For Estonia, an EU citizen also includes whoever holds the nationality of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland.

How do I get the temporary right of residence?

In two steps, in this order, because you can only apply for the ID card once your address is registered.

First the notice of residence. You submit it to the municipality where you live, in Tallinn to the city district government, within fourteen days. Those fourteen days count from the moment you settle permanently in a home; for EU citizens the city of Tartu names three months after arrival in Estonia as the outer limit. The day the municipality receives your notice is the start date of your address data. All adults on the notice sign it. There is an English form, with an additional page for anyone who still needs a personal identification code. If you come to Estonia for the first time, that personal identification code for EU citizens must be created first, and for that, according to the PPA, you go in person to the municipal office. Later notices can go by post or through the e-population register, but the latter already requires an Estonian ID card, Mobile-ID or Smart-ID.

Then you apply to the PPA for the ID card. For an adult it costs € 45 at the counter; for children and anyone who has reached retirement age in Estonia € 20. How that counter works and what the card opens afterwards is in the Estonian ID card.

Your right of residence falls with your address. The PPA puts it plainly: if you no longer have a valid place of residence in the population register, your temporary right of residence and your ID card are revoked automatically. Whoever moves reports the new address within fourteen days, and whoever lets a lease run out without a new address loses more than a postal address.

May I work straight away?

Yes. According to the PPA, an EU citizen residing legally in Estonia has an unlimited right to work, run a business and study, without a separate permit. The same applies to a family member from outside the EU as soon as they have a temporary or permanent right of residence. As long as such a family member is only in Estonia on a visa or visa-free, they may not work.

What if my partner is not an EU citizen?

Then your partner does not do the residence notice with an ID card, but applies for a right of residence of their own as a family member, with a residence card that also serves as an identity document. That right is valid for five years, or shorter if your own right of residence ends earlier. Family members include children up to 21 and dependent children, also those of your partner. While the application is pending, the family member may stay in Estonia.

When does my right of residence become permanent?

After five years of continuous residence in Estonia, with a registered address, you can apply for the permanent right of residence: the right to stay indefinitely. Whoever has it is, according to the PPA, a permanent resident of Estonia. In special circumstances it can come sooner; for that the PPA refers to its migration advisers.

And whoever leaves Estonia again reports that too: you pass on the new address abroad within thirty days to your former municipality or to the Estonian embassy. If you do not, the population register still shows you as a resident of Estonia.

How all the steps after arrival follow one another is in the step-by-step plan; what e-Residency does not arrange here is in e-Residency is not emigration.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 1 of 5 of the journey, step 1.1: the same steps, but for your situation — in your order, tickable, and with the deadlines watched. See the whole journey to Estonia or go straight to step 1.1 in the open plan.