Ask HN: What surprised you about Estonia e-Residency and running an Estonian OÜ?

65 points by jvilalta 2 hours ago | 57 comments

From the official information online, joining the e-Residency program and setting up an Estonian company seems relatively straightforward.

I'm considering using an Estonian OÜ for a SaaS business and would love to hear from people who have actually gone through the process.

What surprised you after becoming an e-resident and establishing your company? Were there recurring costs, compliance requirements, banking/payment issues, tax complications, or other operational challenges you didn't anticipate?

How easy has it been to run the company remotely? Have you ever needed to travel to Estonia to resolve an issue?

Looking back, would you do it again? What do you wish you had known before getting started?

I'd appreciate any lessons learned, gotchas, or advice from current or former e-residents.

ExpertAdvisor01 1 hour ago |

Useless + overhyped .

Company will end up as tax resident from the country where it is managed & controlled .

If there is an DTA the tie breaker rule applies and the country from where it is managed & controlled gets the right to tax .

Also you get to enjoy bureaucracy+ dual accounting in both countries .

If there is no DTA it can lead to double taxation .

And if you don't have a fixed place of management/business+ tax residency (basically nomading) a US LLC disregarded for tax purposes is a much better fit .

penpendian 28 minutes ago | |

There is no cake will drop from sky, and if there is, well it came with gravity

edoceo 1 hour ago | |

Username checks out.

atlasunshrugged 49 minutes ago |

Its been a few years but I ran BD for the program in '19-'20 -- I would say that people underestimate the difficulty in shutting down the company if that needs to happen, sometimes getting access to a proper bank account can be annoying, and don't always understand the tax implications (ex. if I was resident in Germany, all my customers were in Germany, but I tried to run everything through this Estonian biz and pay taxes only there, that could very well cause you lots of issues/complications).

Also, shameless plug for people broadly interested in the country of Estonia and how it became a leader in e-gov/tech only a generation after independence from the Soviet Union, I wrote a book about it after being curious myself! https://www.rebootinganation.com/

ttoinou 2 hours ago |

I was surprised how amazing it is ?

  What do you wish you had known before getting started?

Your yearly financial data is public, everyone will know your income / profit. And you will get spammed, your email will be public too.

  How easy has it been to run the company remotely?

Great

  Have you ever needed to travel to Estonia to resolve an issue?

Only visited once to open bank account LHV but I closed it since then and can use remote banking

  Looking back, would you do it again?

Yes

gdotdesign 1 hour ago | |

Same experience for me, it's been great!

I never needed to visit since I could use Wise for banking.

The only thing is that surprised me was the tax rate, when I created my Company the advertised rate was 20/80 but in reality it was ~25/75 and it increased since.

atlasunshrugged 48 minutes ago | | |

Yes, it was stable for a long time but has been changing mainly due to factors associated with the war in Ukraine (spikes in inflation, especially related to energy prices as well as a need for increased defense spending)

m00dy 1 hour ago | | |

Wise is not a bank.

Gys 1 hour ago |

Please beware:

From: https://learn.e-resident.gov.ee/hc/en-gb/articles/3600007215...

> Corporate tax residency

> However, some countries have different rules for deciding if a company is tax resident. It is common that, in addition to the place of incorporation, the place of effective management can trigger tax residence. If you run your company from a country with regulations like this, then the company may end up having dual tax residence. This happens when two states believe that the company is tax resident in their jurisdiction and will want to tax the company’s profits.

This 'It is common that [...] the place of effective management can trigger tax residence' is indeed common.

logifail 1 hour ago | |

Hence the executives/boardmembers-all-fly-to-some-island (Jersey is the one in my mind), have board meeting in the airport, sign the papers, and all fly home?

Company stays "in" Jersey, none of the humans need to live there?

Swinx43 57 minutes ago | | |

That is unfortunately not how it works. Most commonly the place from which decisions are made on a day to day basis is used. This results in the country in which 50% or more of your directors reside for 183 days a year.

So if 50% or more of your directors spend 183 days per year in the UK then your Estonian based business becomes UK tax resident in the eyes of the UK.

Do not underestimate the complexity of these rules.

Gys 31 minutes ago | | |

If the company is managed 'day by day' by a local director (for example by a company like Intertrust or Trustmoore) then the non-local board and/or shareholders can indeed flyin to have 'a meeting with extensive discussions where all decisions where made and some papers were signed'. I had a company in Singapore for some years doing this.

graemep 52 minutes ago | | |

That does not work necessarily work in the UK anymore.

jocaal 1 hour ago | |

Also estonian law doesn't recognize trusts, so if you want to save your assets for your children that's a problem.

victorbjorklund 43 minutes ago | | |

I assume we are taking about a foreign trust and not an Estonian one. In what regard? When it comes to money laundering? Profit distributions?

ExpertAdvisor01 1 hour ago | | |

You mostly use foundations for that purpose in civil law countries (which are also not part of the hague trust convention )

hakanderyal 1 hour ago |

UK, USA and Singapore are the popular choices for this. UK is simple and cheaper, Singapore is a bit more expensive. I don’t see a reason to go USA route unless you are seeking investment from there.

I’m using UK myself. It takes a few forms and half a day to get a working Wise/Stripe account.

jvilalta 32 minutes ago | |

None of those countries are in the EU, which is important for my use case.

Onavo 1 hour ago | |

Finally somebody who knows their stuff. I never understood why people preferred Estonian incorporation given that it's almost certainly more expensive and less convenient than the other options.

atlasunshrugged 46 minutes ago | | |

I think the main reason is to have a business incorporated within the EU if that's relevant for the person. Delaware is great, and UK filled this role until Brexit but after that if you needed an EU incorporated company it was a massive pain basically everywhere except Estonia which was relatively cheap and everyone in the industry speaks English

victorbjorklund 40 minutes ago | | |

Its for sure over hyped but its not useless. Its nice that you can reinvest the profits within the company and only pay taxes on distribution (if this works of course depends on where the owner is. But at least in Sweden it works).

dgellow 2 hours ago |

Where are you located? Where will you administer the company from? That impacts your tax situation quite a lot.

See https://www.e-resident.gov.ee/understanding-cross-border-tax..., look for “Permanent Establishment”

jvilalta 1 hour ago | |

I am in the US currently, would be managing initially from the US. I understand there will be US tax complications, but I can/would deal with those.

atlasunshrugged 41 minutes ago | | |

I saw this a lot when I ran BD for the program (I'm also an American) and its good you know there will be US tax complications but I would say that unless you expect to 1) have many EU customers and 2) working remotely globally and redomicile elsewhere so you are not considered US tax resident that it probably doesn't make more sense than using something like Stripe Atlas to just set up an LLC or C-Corp

Gys 25 minutes ago | | |

Unless you have some specific reason for being in the EU, I suggest you also look into Singapore.

ExpertAdvisor01 1 hour ago | | |

The worst thing you could do as an us citizen (I assume ) and resident is to incorporate outside of the US.

pyvpx 1 hour ago | | |

This is a terrible idea. please hire a professional with direct experience on these matters and not blog posts from influencers

wayneshng 1 hour ago |

It has been a great experience. Setting up the company was online, and it took 3 days, including the time spent to change the name because the initial name was rejected. You can use Wise for banking, but LHV is also visible but there is an account limit if you don’t live there. Accounting is easy, but you will need an accountant for tax reporting if you have a VAT ID. My accountant charges me 60 euros per month and does an amazing job.

forks 55 minutes ago |

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47500239

mhog_hn 1 hour ago |

Any tips for a 2 person European company. One founder based in Amsterdam, the other in London. We are close to setting things up, some input from other founders would be great

ExpertAdvisor01 49 minutes ago | |

Probably a UK limited liability partnership would be an option .

But you have to investigate how the Dutch will treat it .

You could apply for a advance tax ruling with the Dutch tax authorities before doing anything

HatchedLake721 37 minutes ago | | |

Why LLP over Ltd?

euph0ria 36 minutes ago | |

Incorporate in one of the two countries. If you're serving EU, with GDPR it might be easier to do Netherlands instead of the UK.

leitasat 1 hour ago |

It was great until they turned racists and stopped me from using the service because of my nationality (Russia), even though neither me or the business had anything to do with Russia.

victorbjorklund 39 minutes ago | |

Oh I wonder why they don’t wanna do business with Russians. Could it be because Russians are threatening to invade, bomb and occupy Estonia?

It’s your choice to decide to keep your Russian citizenship. Then you have to pay the price of being a Russian citizen.

Etheryte 54 minutes ago | |

russian is not a race.

8note 1 hour ago | |

are you a russian speaking estonian? or russian citizen?

leitasat 1 hour ago | | |

Russian citizen living abroad

fractallyte 1 hour ago | |

That's understandable (and predictable), considering russia's aggressive stance regarding the Baltics.

At the consulate, I emphasized that I was opening a company in Estonia to support the economy and country, especially because of the threat they're facing off against. Demonstrating one's deep knowledge of the situation, and fully backing Estonia in spite of the magnitude of the threat, is the way to win friends.

malcolmgreaves 40 minutes ago | |

Michael Scott: I am a victim of a hate crime. Stanley knows what I'm talking about.

Stanley: That's not what a hate crime is.

Michael Scott: Well, I hated it, a lot, okay.

mongol 1 hour ago | |

If you are Russian, you have something to do with Russia

poly2it 1 hour ago |

Question: are OÜs particularly beneficial even for non-Estonians (EU), and in what way?

jvilalta 1 hour ago | |

I can't speak about all EU countries, but the one country I looked into (Spain), I couldn't find a way to do everything remotely. It required being physically present for some things, so that's why I am asking about whether Estonia actually delivers IRL on the e part of e-residence.

m00dy 1 hour ago |

I think banking is still the biggest issue if you’re not an Estonian resident.

Honestly, I’d avoid the EU in general. There are only about four or five good places to set up a company and stay connected to the financial system: the US, especially Wyoming or Delaware, Dubai, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

piltdownman 57 minutes ago | |

London post-Brexit is problematic outside of the legacy stuff in City of London, but why not Dublin?

Ringz 1 hour ago | |

Why not London/UK?

joshuaheard 1 hour ago |

I switched to 1Password after the last one.

wasting_time 50 minutes ago | |

The LastPass thread is over there -----> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48671468

(you'd probably be downvoted anyway because of the insubstantial anecdote)