What is e-Residency?
“e-Residency offers to every world citizen a government-issued digital identity and the opportunity to run a trusted company online, unleashing the world’s entrepreneurial potential.“
The Republic of Estonia is the first country to offer e-Residency — a transnational digital identity available to anyone in the world interested in administering a location-independent business online. e-Residency additionally enables secure and convenient digital services that facilitate credibility and trust online.
e-Residents can:
Digitally sign documents and contracts
Verify the authenticity of signed documents
Encrypt and transmit documents securely
Establish an Estonian company online within a day. At the moment a physical address in Estonia is required, which may be obtained using an external service provider.
Administer the company from anywhere in the world.
Conduct e-banking and remote money transfers. Establishing an Estonian bank account currently requires one in-person meeting at the bank, and is at the sole discretion of our banking partners.
Access online payment service providers
Declare Estonian taxes online. e-Residency does not automatically establish tax residency. To learn about taxation and to avoid double taxation please consult a tax professional.
All of these (and more) efficient and easy-to-use services have been available to Estonians for over a decade. By offering e-Residents the same services, Estonia is proudly pioneering the idea of a country without borders.
e-Residents receive a smart ID card which provides:
digital identification and authentication to secure services
digital signing of documents
digital verification of document authenticity
document encryption
e-Resident id-card
Digital signatures and authentication are legally equivalent to handwritten signatures and face-to-face identification in Estonia and between partners upon agreement anywhere around the world. The e-Resident ID card and services are built on state-of-the-art technological solutions, including 2048-bit public key encryption. The smart ID card contains a microchip with two security certificates: one for authentication, called PIN1, and another for digital signing, called PIN2. PIN1 is a minimum 4-digit number for authorization, PIN2 is a minimum 5-digit number for digital signature.
e-Residency does not confer citizenship, tax residency, residence or right of entry to Estonia or to the European Union. The e-Resident smart ID card is not a physical identification or a travel document, and does not display a photo.
Kaspar Korjus, e-Residency Programme Manager:
„We deeply appreciate the vast amount of positive feedback we have received so far – it is an exciting journey to embark on and we are eager to see where it will lead. Since we are still in early beta, there are some challenges to overcome. We have added a Help box (below right), and we encourage you to help us improve the experience on any of the services.“
There are countries that have embraced the digital lifestyle, such as say, Singapore, and then there are countries that have practically jumped feet-first into the Matrix. Estonia in particular has swallowed that red pill with a shot of vodka and slammed the glass against the table with glee.
The former Soviet Union member has, over the course of the last 20 years or so, invested heavily in its digital infrastructure. This has allowed the country to plug in almost every aspect of its administrative life. Citizens can vote online, businessmen can do their taxes in minutes thanks to a seamless connection between the taxation system and the banks, and even the president can sign bills into law on his tablet using a digital signature.
But the country has gone a step further in what could be the most literal expression of a digital revolution. It offers non-Estonians the opportunity to become an Estonian e-resident. The country just announced it is opening up this ability to Singaporeans in early 2016.
An e-residency in Estonia is a digital identity that allows a non-Estonian citizen to start and run an Estonian company without even having to be within its borders. The e-resident has to go to an embassy of Estonia to get their ID card, but other than that, everything else can be done online. So a Singaporean citizen can be an Estonian e-resident (the initiative does not involve changing one’s citizenship) and run a company from Singapore, based in Estonia, without even having to pay taxes there. Confusing? Not if Estonia can help it, it seems.
The European country sees this initiative as a way to attract entrepreneurship and innovation to its shores. More importantly, it’s the first time that a country can potentially turn its administrative infrastructure into an online service for others to use. The implications there are quite unprecedented – could a country one day have a “Government as a Service” product to boost its economy?
Opening up its e-residency program to Singapore and Southeast Asia gives it access to a very active pool of entrepreneurs and potential e-residents. “Singapore, among a few other countries, is one of our highest priorities in terms of opening a distribution channel for our e-residency,” Taavi Kotka, chief information officer (CIO) of Estonia, says in a statement (and yes, this is a country that has its own chief information officer). Kotka hopes that Estonia will have registered 10 million e-Estonians by 2025, which is a stunning number considering the country’s population is about 1.3 million.
“The Singapore government has, in fact, studied the e-residency concept back in May. There is even a memorandum of understanding between them and our government,” Kotka said. “It can also be a powerful tool for Singapore, as it allows to connect more people around the world with the Singaporean economy without actually living there.”
“e-Residency offers to every world citizen a government-issued digital identity and the opportunity to run a trusted company online, unleashing the world’s entrepreneurial potential.“
The Republic of Estonia is the first country to offer e-Residency — a transnational digital identity available to anyone in the world interested in administering a location-independent business online. e-Residency additionally enables secure and convenient digital services that facilitate credibility and trust online.
e-Residents can:
Digitally sign documents and contracts
Verify the authenticity of signed documents
Encrypt and transmit documents securely
Establish an Estonian company online within a day. At the moment a physical address in Estonia is required, which may be obtained using an external service provider.
Administer the company from anywhere in the world.
Conduct e-banking and remote money transfers. Establishing an Estonian bank account currently requires one in-person meeting at the bank, and is at the sole discretion of our banking partners.
Access online payment service providers
Declare Estonian taxes online. e-Residency does not automatically establish tax residency. To learn about taxation and to avoid double taxation please consult a tax professional.
All of these (and more) efficient and easy-to-use services have been available to Estonians for over a decade. By offering e-Residents the same services, Estonia is proudly pioneering the idea of a country without borders.
e-Residents receive a smart ID card which provides:
digital identification and authentication to secure services
digital signing of documents
digital verification of document authenticity
document encryption
e-Resident id-card
Digital signatures and authentication are legally equivalent to handwritten signatures and face-to-face identification in Estonia and between partners upon agreement anywhere around the world. The e-Resident ID card and services are built on state-of-the-art technological solutions, including 2048-bit public key encryption. The smart ID card contains a microchip with two security certificates: one for authentication, called PIN1, and another for digital signing, called PIN2. PIN1 is a minimum 4-digit number for authorization, PIN2 is a minimum 5-digit number for digital signature.
e-Residency does not confer citizenship, tax residency, residence or right of entry to Estonia or to the European Union. The e-Resident smart ID card is not a physical identification or a travel document, and does not display a photo.
Kaspar Korjus, e-Residency Programme Manager:
„We deeply appreciate the vast amount of positive feedback we have received so far – it is an exciting journey to embark on and we are eager to see where it will lead. Since we are still in early beta, there are some challenges to overcome. We have added a Help box (below right), and we encourage you to help us improve the experience on any of the services.“
There are countries that have embraced the digital lifestyle, such as say, Singapore, and then there are countries that have practically jumped feet-first into the Matrix. Estonia in particular has swallowed that red pill with a shot of vodka and slammed the glass against the table with glee.
The former Soviet Union member has, over the course of the last 20 years or so, invested heavily in its digital infrastructure. This has allowed the country to plug in almost every aspect of its administrative life. Citizens can vote online, businessmen can do their taxes in minutes thanks to a seamless connection between the taxation system and the banks, and even the president can sign bills into law on his tablet using a digital signature.
But the country has gone a step further in what could be the most literal expression of a digital revolution. It offers non-Estonians the opportunity to become an Estonian e-resident. The country just announced it is opening up this ability to Singaporeans in early 2016.
An e-residency in Estonia is a digital identity that allows a non-Estonian citizen to start and run an Estonian company without even having to be within its borders. The e-resident has to go to an embassy of Estonia to get their ID card, but other than that, everything else can be done online. So a Singaporean citizen can be an Estonian e-resident (the initiative does not involve changing one’s citizenship) and run a company from Singapore, based in Estonia, without even having to pay taxes there. Confusing? Not if Estonia can help it, it seems.
The European country sees this initiative as a way to attract entrepreneurship and innovation to its shores. More importantly, it’s the first time that a country can potentially turn its administrative infrastructure into an online service for others to use. The implications there are quite unprecedented – could a country one day have a “Government as a Service” product to boost its economy?
Opening up its e-residency program to Singapore and Southeast Asia gives it access to a very active pool of entrepreneurs and potential e-residents. “Singapore, among a few other countries, is one of our highest priorities in terms of opening a distribution channel for our e-residency,” Taavi Kotka, chief information officer (CIO) of Estonia, says in a statement (and yes, this is a country that has its own chief information officer). Kotka hopes that Estonia will have registered 10 million e-Estonians by 2025, which is a stunning number considering the country’s population is about 1.3 million.
“The Singapore government has, in fact, studied the e-residency concept back in May. There is even a memorandum of understanding between them and our government,” Kotka said. “It can also be a powerful tool for Singapore, as it allows to connect more people around the world with the Singaporean economy without actually living there.”
