The beginning of December saw the first anniversary of Estonian e-residency program.
E-residency - a secure digital authentication backed by state is the first of its kind in the world, which provides foreign individuals living in foreign countries with similar possibilities as Estonian citizens for operating in the e-environment of the state and for using the e-services and thereby extends Estonian economic and cultural space globally.
More than 7000 individuals from 119 countries have joined the e-residency program by its first anniversary, which exceeds the initial target more than threefold.
By today more than 500 entrepreneurs are using e-residency in operating their enterprises and e-residents have established 240 new enterprises. More than 21 000 potential e-residents have subscribed to e-residency newsletter.
The experience of Grant Thornton also shows that foreign clients have shown considerable interest in the e-residency program during the past year and several clients (including both new and existing) have applied for the e-resident identity card.
Although we voiced problems in the beginning of 2015 regarding performance of operations in commercial register with the e-resident’s identity card, by today the ease of use has improved and we hope that final solution will be reached shortly whereby the new e-residents do not have to perform unexpected additional operations for using their newly acquired status.
To celebrate the e-residency first anniversary an event was held, where was given an overview of the statistics of the first successful year and future plans. Among the performers were Taavi Rõivas (Prime Minister of Estonia), Taavi Kotka (Deputy Secretary General for Communications and State Information Systems) and Kaspar Korjus (E-Residency Program Director)
Video opens here.