Baltic States – CIS, Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Internet, Legislation, Technology

The e-residents so far are mostly people who were associated with Estonia before the start of the project. For example, people who own a company here. 40% of e-residents are Finns, followed by Russians, Ukrainians and Latvians.

E-residency project manager Kaspar Korjus stresses that the project is still in development stage and their ambitions are definitely different.

"Really – if we talk about the so-called 10 million e-Estonians or e-residents, it is something quite different. It is not related to the person physically coming to Estonia, or physically having a company here, which he would visit. The wish is the greatest, in fact, from the developing countries," said Korjus.

He said that nationals of developing countries find it often difficult to operate in their home countries – due to huge bureaucracy and poor e-services, for example. Estonian e-residency would enable them to operate in the Estonian legal and cyberspace.

While currently only people who are willing to travel to Estonia can register as e-residents, from the middle of April this changes, and it will be sufficient to visit any Estonian foreign representation.

However, this does not mean that e-residency project is completed. Korjus said that a number of laws have to be changed since the e-Estonia built up so far is meant for Estonians and for a foreigner to use it, there are a lot of restrictions and limitations.

"Today's world is changing, and companies are managed from abroad and in cyberspace. The law must follow such realities of today's world. What is important here is that we do not allow abuses to flourish when changing the law," said Undersecretary of the Ministry of Justice Kai Härmand.