Estonia, Good for Business

International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics Friday, 29.03.2024, 15:37

Estonia: Number of startup visa applicants up more than 2-fold in 2018

BC, Tallinn, 18.01.2019.Print version
Altogether 483 employees and 174 startup founders applied for a visa in the framework of the startup visa program in 2018, which is more than twice as much as the number of applications in 2017, informed LETA/BNS.

The most amount of startup visa applications submitted and satisfied were from India, Russia and Turkey, state-owned financial institution Kredex said. A startup visa enables citizens of countries not within the European Union to work for startups located in Estonia, relocate existing startups to Estonia or establish a new startup in Estonia.


When it comes to relocation to Estonia, the largest numbers come from Ukraine, Brazil, Russia, the United States and India. Since the establishment of the startup visa, 931 people have relocated or been given the right to do so in the framework of the program.


According to Maarika Truu, head of Startup Estonia, the success of the visa program shows that Estonian startups have a clear need for new employees. "Considering that 2018 was a record year in terms of investments made into startups, it can be clearly seen that this money is indeed foremost used for establishing new jobs with high added value. At that, it must be noted that the need is not at all only for IT developers -- fast-growing startups need marketers, sales talent, customer support people, designers and so on. Therefore, the impact of these investments is clearly more broad-based," she said.


Startup visas can be applied for by founders of companies and employees, if the company has achieved the status of a startup, which is decided by a startup committee consisting of seven organizations of the Estonian startup community. More than 1,100 companies from more than 80 countries have applied for startup status over the period of two years and the right to apply for a startup visa has been granted to 411 companies.


"This year, we will continue visiting those countries where the startup visa has attracted a lot of interest. At the same time, we will contribute to supporting those people who have already relocated to Estonia. The objective is to cooperate with both the public and private sector service providers so that the founders arriving here could benefit more from the possibilities on offer," Merilin Lukk, project manager for the startup visa program, said.


Lukk said that the aim for 2019 is to increase then umber of people relocating to Estonia to 1,000 people per year. "For that, local support and cooperation with public and private sector service providers is very important," she added.






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