Baltic States – CIS, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Good for Business, Markets and Companies, Technology

Born as a result of the cooperation between the local startup community, the Interior Ministry and Startup Estonia, the startup visa enables citizens of countries not part of the European Union to work for the startups in Estonia, move existing startups to Estonia or establish new ones here. Over the course of the first year of the program, a total of 140 applications received a positive response, 170 were given a negative response and 15 applications are still being handled.

To obtain a visa or a residence permit under simplified rules, a company must describe its business model and team to an expert panel consisting of members of the Estonian startup community, who will make the decision.

Ragnar Sass, co-founder of Pipedrive and member of the expert panel, said that the startup visa program is an ideal example of the cooperation between the public sector and the private sector. "These kinds of fast and functioning solutions open up the Estonian startup community to the global public. Estonia has a unique opportunity to be the gateway to Europe and the world's markets for many startups," Sass said.

The most applications have come from teams from India, Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan and Turkey. Even though an average of 45 percent of applications are approved, the results of some countries, like Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, have significantly improved. A joint application is submitted for the whole team, which means that the number of persons moving to Estonia with the startup may be several times higher in reality.

"Considering that applications have been submitted from 47 countries, there is noteworthy interest in foreign countries toward developing startups in Estonia. We are dealing with developing a full service for countries, where interest has been the greatest, and we are also expanding to new target markets, which could benefit the most from the Estonian business environment," Rivo Riistop, project manager for the Startup Estonia visa project, said.

After receiving a positive reply, all team members as the next step must apply for a visa or temporary residence permit from the Estonian embassy or, if already in Estonia, from the Police and Border Guard Board. By now, approximately 100 startup founders have obtained a visa or temporary residence permit and altogether 167 people have arrived to work in Estonian startups or are about to do so.

Estonia in its search for global talent is competing with the startup visa programs of much larger countries, like Canada, the Netherlands and Italy. Estonia's startup visa program over the course of one year has received as many applications as most other visa programs over the course of several years.

Startup founder Shaun Deanesh from Malaysia said that Estonia was not the only country, whose visa was applied for, but the decisive factor was the fast procedure here. "I wanted to find a suitable environment for developing our startup. In the long perspective, Estonia at present is the only country, where startups can recruit persons with passports of countries not belonging to the EU. If I'm honest, Estonia was not the only country whose visa we applied for and we received offers also from other European Union countries, but for them, in general, being given a green light for applying took months. But in Estonia it took less than 10 days. And the air here is wonderfully fresh. Tallinn is a city with a special, medieval atmosphere, but the technological sector here is excellent."

The coordinator of the startup visa program is Startup Estonia, which has been created for building up and strengthening the Estonian startup environment in order to create a steady breeding ground for local startups. The promoter of the Startup Estonia program is the SA KredEx foundation. Startup Estonia's program is financed from the assets of the European Regional Development Fund.