Healthcare in Estonia: insured through your job, your S1 or your own contract at € 272 a month

Yes, if you live in Estonia you can join the public system of Tervisekassa, the Estonian Health Insurance Fund. You are insured along one of three routes: social tax is paid for you, your S1 from the CAK is registered there, or you take out a voluntary contract yourself. The finding at Tervisekassa: that voluntary contract costs € 272 a month in 2026, which also gives a way out for anyone who arrives on early retirement and will soon fall outside the CAK route. The pitfall is the waiting period: whoever starts in employment is only insured fourteen days after the start date in the employment register.

By which route am I insured?

Route	For whom	When it starts
Social tax through your job	employees with a contract of more than a month or open-ended	14 days after the start date in the employment register
S1 from the CAK	whoever comes with AOW or another Dutch benefit and does not work in Estonia	once Tervisekassa has registered the S1
Equivalent to insured	among others children up to 19, students, and whoever reaches pension age within 5 years and is maintained by an insured spouse	on registration
Voluntary contract	whoever lives in Estonia and is not insured by any other route	1 month after signing

For every route you must live in Estonia according to the population register. If your permanent residence is no longer there, Tervisekassa may end the insurance. How you arrange that registration is in staying in Estonia.

How does it work with a Dutch pension?

Whoever comes with AOW or another Dutch benefit registers with the CAK, at most five months before the emigration or pension date, and receives an S1. That form does not yet give a right to care in Estonia: Tervisekassa states explicitly that it must be registered first, and only then are you in the insurance database. The CAK then deducts a monthly contribution from your pension, multiplied by the country-of-residence factor, which for Estonia in 2026 is 0.3057.

If you leave on early retirement, work out the voluntary contract. As things stand, the CAK expects that from 1 November 2026 the route will only be open to new applicants with AOW, Anw, WAO, WIA or Wajong. Whoever leaves with only an early retirement pension or an RVU benefit then arranges healthcare themselves until AOW age. In Estonia that is possible with Tervisekassa's voluntary contract: € 3,264 a year, also payable per quarter or per month, for a term of twelve months.

What does a visit cost?

The family doctor costs nothing. For other care the provider may ask a co-payment up to a statutory maximum; it is a right, not an obligation.

Care	At most
Family doctor	free
Home visit by a doctor	€ 5
Specialist, dentist, physiotherapist, psychologist or emergency department	€ 20, or € 5 for those under 19 or over 63, or receiving an Estonian old-age pension
Hospital stay	up to 10 days, at most € 50 per case
Reimbursed prescription	€ 3.50 per medicine, plus your own share

If you do not turn up or cancel less than 24 hours in advance, the provider may charge double at your next visit. Whoever has a voluntary contract does not get co-payments reimbursed.

What about medicines?

Reimbursed medicines come with a 50, 75, 90 or 100 percent discount, depending on the medicine and on who you are: children under 4 get 100 percent, children from 4 to 16, pensioners and insured persons from 63 often 90 percent. Per medicine you pay € 3.50 and the part above the reference price. If in a calendar year you spend more than € 100 on reimbursed prescriptions, Tervisekassa pays a supplementary benefit: half of what you paid between € 100 and € 300, and 90 percent of what comes above that.

For health advice Tervisekassa refers to the family doctor advice line 1220. How care gets going in your first weeks is in your first weeks in Estonia; what the CAK is changing for early retirement, in early retirement and the CAK route.

In Vertrekklaar this is phase 4 of 5 of the journey, step 4.4: 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 4.4 in the open plan.