Estonia · Work authorisation

Digital Nomad Visa (long-stay visa for teleworking)

Issued by The Estonian mission responsible for your place of residence, or the Police and Border Guard Board if you are already legally in Estonia. It is checked against conditions rather than scored, so the question is whether you meet each one, not how many points you gather.

Basis
Checklist
Steps
4
Possible outcomes
2
Last checked
2026-08-09

Conditions

What this permit
asks of you.

2026 figure

Salary floor

EUR 4,500 a month

This is not a salary an Estonian employer pays you — it is the income the Estonian Embassy in Washington states as the current monthly threshold for this visa, gross of tax, from remote work for an employer or clients outside Estonia. You have to evidence its amount, regularity and source for the six months immediately before you apply.

A figure without the year it belongs to and the condition attached to it is how someone rules themselves out of a permit they qualify for. Both are above.

The procedure

4 steps,
in the order they happen.

Prepare your documents

  1. Confirm your work fits the visa's basis: it does not depend on your location, you use telecommunications technology to do it, and you either work for an employer registered outside Estonia, run your own company registered abroad, or freelance mainly for clients outside Estonia.
  2. If you hold, or are weighing, Estonian e-Residency, be clear about what it does before you plan a move around it: e-Residency's digital ID is for electronic identification and signing documents online, most often to run a company remotely. The Police and Border Guard Board states plainly that it does not grant the right to reside in Estonia, and that applying for it is a separate process, governed by separate rules, from applying for a visa.Holding e-Residency changes nothing about whether you may enter, live in, or work in Estonia. This visa, not e-Residency, is what does that.
  3. Gather six months of evidence of your income — its amount, regularity and source — together with a current résumé and proof of your remote-work arrangement.

Register and start working

  1. Apply in person for the long-stay (D) visa, either at the Estonian mission responsible for your place of residence or, if you already have the right to be in Estonia, at a Police and Border Guard Board service point.

Cost and time

What it costs,
and how long the authority says it takes.

Fees

Long-stay (D) visa fee
€120; €60 for a child aged 6–11; children under 6 are exempt

Timeframes

Application review
Up to 30 days, per the Estonian Embassy in Washington
Visa validity
Up to 365 days within 12 consecutive months; consecutive long-stay visas together may not exceed 548 days within 730 consecutive days

Published processing times, not a prediction about your case.

Both halves together

Guides that use this permit.

Each one takes a profession into Estonia and runs the recognition branch and the authorisation branch side by side, including what your country of qualification adds.

Evidence

Every claim on this page, and where it came from.

4 official pages, each with the jurisdiction it speaks for and the date a human last opened it. The oldest is 2026-08-09, and that is the date this page is only as fresh as.

Is this the right permit for you?

That depends on where you qualified.

The planner compares every route Estonia opens to your country of qualification, and adds the recognition branch when your profession has one.

Check my path →All Estonia permits