Is Estonia's New Year-Long "Digital Nomad" Visa Worth It?

by Ryan Vagabundo

First announced to be in development a little over two years ago, Estonia's new "digital nomad" visa program will begin taking applications on August 1. The two main advantages of this program are an extended visa that allows one to reside in Estonia for one full year (tourist visas are generally only good for three months at most), and grants you legal access to the Schengen Area countries to inhabit each for stretches of 90 days at a time.

While it seems to be mostly a convenience item (and potentially a money-saver for long stays in Europe), the main appeal seems to be the ability to legally set up a home base in Estonia for a full year (a place with relatively low cost of living).

Who Is Eligible?

From the way it is worded, the employment requirements seem to be quite lax: either be able to demonstrate that you're doing freelance work for entities that are "mostly" outside of Estonia, show that you're regularly employed by a company that allows 100% remote work, or have an online-based business registered in another country.

The key requirement seems to be to demonstrate a pre-tax monthly income of €3504 (at least $4,150 USD) for the six months prior to your application date. So that's gonna screen out the Mechanical Turkers, but freelancers that get regular work at a middle-class professional level or a modestly thriving business shouldn't have tremendous trouble with that income level (amounts to under $50,000 USD per year).

One point of note is that the visa requirements are not relaxed in any way in terms of a background check. If you would fail that for any other country in Europe you'll likely fail it in this program as well.

What Does It Cost?

The full-length visa will run you €100 (about $118 USD) for the application fee. Plus you'll need passport-style headshots which are generally around $10-15 at Walgreens and such. You also need to demonstrate that you have adequate health insurance, which might involve paying for coverage depending on your situation.

Why Estonia?

Aside from the low cost of living, Estonia is an EU member and grants you access to the rest of Europe. Tucked up on the border of Russia and Latvia, it isn't the most convenient place if you want to go touring Europe's hotspots but it is a short trip from Finland and Sweden.

Schengen area access also gets you basically free and unrestricted movement (and ability to rent Airbnbs and such) through most of Europe. You can't (legally) settle down in one place outside Estonia for the full year, but you could theoretically hop from place to place every 90 days. The only big exceptions are the UK, Switzerland, Norway and Iceland which each have their own visa situations you'll have to navigate independently.

What Is Estonia Like?

Note: I've never personally been. I'm going with whatever good information that can be sourced online.

Estonia is a Baltic parliamentary republic that broke off from the Soviet Union in 1991. It appears to be a very modern and free country with a strong economy, but has had ongoing struggles with low educated population (thus the liberal digital nomad visa). As a Baltic country you can probably expect it to be not tremendously ethnically diverse and have substantial nationalist leanings, but it rates very highly for freedom of press, was the first of the former Soviet Bloc to legalize gay civil unions and has a female president FWIW. Recent research also indicates that nearly half the population is secular.

Estonian and Finnish are the main native languages with a strong smattering of Russian. English is the most commonly-spoken second language other than Russian but does not appear to be all that common in daily life, especially outside the bigger cities; government and vital services will likely have someone that speaks it but everything else is unlikely.

There are a number of threads on Reddit and such from expats that generally seem to indicate it is a very nice place to live if the language and cultural barriers will not be too much for you.

The country is also in the midst of working on implementing free public transit nationwide, and the internet/wifi situation appears to be quite good throughout the country.

Can You Stay Longer Than A Year?

There is nothing yet in the FAQ or on the Estonia website about extending the visa or how long you might have to wait in between visa visits; not surprising as the program has not even formally started yet, presumably this will be expanded on in the coming months.

Another option would be to obtain a more traditional visa after arrival by obtaining local employment. The FAQ says that you can seek and accept local employment once in Estonia, so long as the "primary purpose" is remote work when you start out. Just from some casual browsing it seems that there is substantial demand for skilled IT professionals in the bigger cities there.

It appears to be possible to apply for long-term residency (or permanent residency for citizens of other EU countries) if you live in Estonia for more than five years.

Is This The Same As Estonia's E-Residency?

No, that is a different program that began a few years ago. It doesn't actually offer any right to physical residency in the country. What it does is allow people from other countries to remotely incorporate a business in Estonia and set up bank accounts and payment processing in the country. It doesn't appear to help you at all with any kind of visa or residency application.

Is The Estonia Digital Nomad Visa Worth It?

The income requirement seems relatively high (as apparently you can live quite comfortably even in the biggest cities there on around $2000 USD per month), but they probably want to avoid people using the program to go bum around Europe and create bad press for it with their hobo shenanigans. That's not really all that high of a requirement if you have an established online business or professional freelancing career, and the up-front fees to make it all happen are nominal.

It's not something I would drop everything to jump into, but I can see it being quite a useful entry point if you were already planning to go to Europe long-term. Also possibly a good way of quickly extricating yourself from a country where things are going sideways, buying you at least a year of breathing time in a stable part of Europe to figure something out for yourself.

Certainly worth keeping in mind IMO, depending on how the winds blow I might try it myself one day.