
Become Estonia’s e-resident - jkaljundi
http://e-estonia.com/e-residents/become-e-resident/
======
ikawe
I was in Estonia two days ago. I just passed through on a whim as part of a
European bicycle tour. I am embarrassed to admit, I knew very little about the
country before being there.

I was only there a week, so my impressions are addmittedly naive, but very
positive. There was a lot of technology forward thinking - online voting,
constitutional right to internet access, co-working spaces catering to young
entrepreneurs.

So quite hight tech on the one hand, and on the other hand, there is a deep
respect for and serious comprehension of nature. The country is 50% forest!
And my experience with Estonian camp sites was that they were free, ancient,
and beautiful. I felt like I was camping in a sacred grove (I probably was).

Man, wish I had stayed longer. Anyone doing any cool projects there?

~~~
sudowhodoido
I see a lot of that across Europe. I've been dying to do a road trip out that
way (from the UK) but it's difficult with three children.

Everyone I've met and spoken to out there has been through some serious shit
right up until the late 1990s from wars to genocides. They really are forward
thinking because looking back hurts badly.

It might sound cheesy but I have a lot of hope for Europe and most of it comes
from the East.

At the same time I'm disgusted at how the media and general population treats
our fellow Europeans.

~~~
jacquesm
> It might sound cheesy but I have a lot of hope for Europe and most of it
> comes from the East.

I very much agree with you. The East of Europe has very recent memory of how
_not_ to run countries, the West is already forgetting those lessons and
repeating past mistakes. For now the West is still ahead economically, but I
suspect that this will not last indefinitely. You can pretty much draw a line
through 'Helmstedt' (the site of the old autobahn border crossing between
'East' and 'West' Germany) and use that as the pivot point. On the left of
that pivot the swing is steadily downwards whereas on the east of that up to
the Russian border there is slow but fairly steady progress.

Of course the map is not the territory and you'd have to account for the
situations further North and South with different pivot points but on the
whole this seems to be how it is today.

~~~
smcl
I'm curious if you deliberately included Austria east of your pivot point or
if this is by accident. I hear all sorts of conflicting stuff about the place
- high standard\quality of living but not-so exciting career\growth prospects,
high prices but generous social\welfare programs - so I've no idea what to
think of Austria long-term. I've been to Vienna a few times as I live a couple
of hours away, and it's lovely but a few daytrips is obviously not going to
reveal a great deal.

~~~
jacquesm
Austria is very much a mixed bag. Quality of life in the cities and economy
are fine, the country has a terrible image when it comes to dealing with other
social issues (immigrants, right wing political parties and so on).

------
plainOldText
I believe this has huge implications for someone who would want to operate a
company from a business friendly country, as opposed to say a country where
the individual is located physically but is otherwise corrupt or war ridden.

My understanding is that this status allows you to form companies, open bank
accounts and sign binding documents just like someone living in Estonia. And
that is pretty impressive.

Add cryptocurrencies into play, and whole new world of companies is now
suddenly possible.

~~~
agilebyte
It is to use Estonia's digital services and does not give you residency.

Nothing stops you opening a company in Estonia now, but that does not mean you
would only pay corporation taxes there (they are at 10% when distributed as
dividends), your physical location plays a role too.

~~~
imeikas
Dividends are taxed this year at 21%. And if I'm not mistaken tax rate is
lowered to 20% next year, reinvested profit is not taxed.

~~~
agilebyte
You are right, don't know where I got that 10% from.

~~~
kteofanidis
Bulgaria has a corporate tax at 10%. The e-government isn't nearly as
developed though. There was some talk about using the Estonian experience to
help in building ours but that is still just an idea.

~~~
agilebyte
Yeah I am really hoping that Bulgaria and/or Estonia will be added to a list
of countries being incorporated by
[http://startupr.com/](http://startupr.com/) to make the process easier.

------
daveloyall
For some time, I have daydreamed of various cool scenarios that would only be
possible with a government-issued digital ID.

But in my daydreams, I've never considered a third-party government issuer. I
don't see value in this beyond the value that I see in a corporate-issued
digital ID, and that's hardly more valuable than a self-issued ID.

Obviously, Estonia has considered some angle which I have not.

 _You can become an e-Estonian!_

They should probably change that to e-Stonian or something so that it's
pronounced "eastonian". :) The "eee-eh" is awkward to pronounce.

~~~
jkaljundi
Which scenarios have you thought of?

A start would be to do anything an Estonian can do today online in almost real
time. Founding a company online: 5 minutes and you're in business. Very simple
tax and other legislation, so very simple reporting online - and getting tax
refunds if needed in a few days.

But this should not be limited to existing legacy services we use. Think of
what you could do anything online with an absolute cryptographically strong
vetted proof, that it's you, valid across the world? That's very different
from a corporate ID which has no power internationally.

~~~
daveloyall
* Will and testament

* Voting

* Facebook (or whatever)

* Spam

* Banking

* Contracts

* Jury duty (Don't think boring.. think sci-fi!)

* Taxes

* Whistleblowing

* Bar tabs

* Power of Attorney (This one has new meaning in this context. It's a technical thing, a provable act of delegation.)

* Police reports

Basically the same use cases as PKI, but if it were government issued, the
common person would know what it means.

A conversation about a fender bender might include "Then, he drove off without
e-signing the standard insurance form!".

I dunno. Like I said, daydreaming.

~~~
pjc50
Whistleblowing? Under your _real name_?

~~~
daveloyall
If leaked documents are non-reputable, then the nature of the game is a bit
different, isn't it?

------
tvanantwerp
"To apply for one, you need to make visit a Police and Border Guard office in
Estonia – there you need to submit an application and provide biometrical data
(your facial image and fingerprints) for background check."

~~~
anemic
are the facial image and fingerprints only used for background check, are they
stored (and for how long) and are they shared with different entities, such as
police or foreign governments?

~~~
irve
they store it in citizen database. as of now they do not share the
fingerprints with our regular police. the face they probably get.

I think that our local spy people have access to them (there was a theory
about them managing our offshore database backups and therefore never asking
for anything); if and how they share it is not disclosed.

foreign governments might get access through travel information agreements
(biometric passports were a requirement for free travel to US) but I am not
certain about those details.

------
memnips
Is there a tax advantage here? Estonia's tax system is supposed to be very
simple, and allows for a 0% corporate income tax on all profits that are re-
invested into the corporation (source: [http://www.incorporate.ee/why-
estonia/low-tax-jurisdiction](http://www.incorporate.ee/why-estonia/low-tax-
jurisdiction)).

Does this mean I can form a corporate entity in Estonia and gain all the tax
benefits without any physical presence?

~~~
markvdb
You will have to be very very careful about making Estonia the real physical
center of the commercial activities deployed by your company.

If you don't - let's say you're Dutch, living in Holland and consulting mostly
for Dutch clients, then forget it.

But let's say you're Dutch, you have a girlfriend in Estonia, you work from
there a week every month, and you have clients in several EU countries, with
NL only one of them... Maybe you even have a local employee in Estonia. That
will work no problem.

~~~
agilebyte
Or you and your girlfriend are both directors and you meet at least 4 times
(from what I've read) there to discuss company business. Hey, the company can
pay for the trip from Netherlands too.

~~~
markvdb
It's definitely not as simple as that. To get an idea of some complexities,
just read the double taxation avoidance treaties between the two EU countries
involved to start, and have a look at the EU posted workers directive
[http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=471](http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=471)
.

Those should convince you that you need good fiscal advice and a somewhat
conservative attitude when it comes to fiscal grey areas.

If you want to avoid paying a lot of taxes, build a multinational and set up
tax avoidance schemes like the Double Irish with a Dutch sandwich.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement)
. But hurry, because some of this might actually become a bit more difficult
starting from next year...

~~~
patrickk
> If you want to avoid paying a lot of taxes, build a multinational and set up
> tax avoidance schemes like the Double Irish with a Dutch sandwich.

It's probably cheaper to simply pay Irish corp. tax (12.5%) for all but the
biggest companies. You have to setup 2 Irish companies, a Dutch company and a
Caribbean-based company, a battalion of tax lawyers and advisers to exploit
the loophole legally....etc

------
anmol
This is awesome.

Estonia could have a shot at becoming the "Delaware" for non-US entrepreneurs,
esp EU, i.e. have all the high-growth companies incorporate because of clear,
friendly startup support infrastructure and laws.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
It is very entrepreneurial of the Estonian government. Quotes from their
announcement:

"e-residency is also launched as a platform to offer digital services to a
global audience with no prior Estonian affiliation – for anybody who wants to
run their business and life in the most convenient aka digital way! We plan to
keep adding new useful services from early 2015 onwards."

[http://e-estonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Become-
Eston...](http://e-estonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Become-Estonias-e-
resident-leaflet_sept2014.pdf)

~~~
otuutti
Deosn't suprise me when the Estonian president has been quite actively
involved with for example Slush [http://www.slush.org/](http://www.slush.org/)

------
kstrauser
Is there any reason why I - being perfectly happy with my American citizenship
and residency and having zero intent to change either - should avoid getting
one for the novelty of it? I mean, is there any possible downside to getting
this thing out of a sci-fi novel?

~~~
pgl
I think the biggest actual barrier to actually getting one would be having to
apply in person, and pick up your card in person.

Certainly for Americans, not a huge number of people will have two weeks spare
and sufficient funds to wait for their application to be processed (or the
money to fly to Estonia and back twice in two weeks).

Edit: apparently they're "working to add capacity to our embassies to process
e-residency applications and issue cards abroad by the end of 2015". This
makes the whole thing absolutely amazing. Let's see how the rest of the world
reacts, I guess.

------
tikums
And then be sure to read this:
[https://estoniaevoting.org/](https://estoniaevoting.org/)

E-future cannot be built if we don't fix serious issues with software
engineering. There is no guarantee of security. There is no assurance. We
basically don't know how to build secure systems yet. As daily events show
(from #fappening, #shellshock to Snowden's revelations), this is one of those
"hard", unresolved problems...and not just from algorithmic (non-repudiation)
perspective, but also from a practical engineering perspective (we are still
dealing with buffer overflows).

“The software security industry today is at about the same stage as the auto
industry was in 1930" ... "it looks fast, goes nice but in an accident you
die.” ... "The major shortfall is absence of assurance (or safety) mechanisms
in software. If my car crashed as often as my computer does, I would be dead
by now.” -- Brian Snow, Former Technical Director of the NSA, We Need
Assurance
[http://www.research.att.com/talks_and_events/2008_distinguis...](http://www.research.att.com/talks_and_events/2008_distinguis..).

~~~
asstonian
sigh, not this again.

only found this not-very-good response in english to those "experts":
[http://www.vvk.ee/valimiste-korraldamine/vvk-
uudised/vabarii...](http://www.vvk.ee/valimiste-korraldamine/vvk-
uudised/vabariigi-valimiskomisjoni-vastulause-the-guardianis-ilmunud-
artiklile/)

but saying "terribly insecure" is more than wrong. yeah, thare are many
procedural things which could be better, but technologically estonian e-voting
is secure. only serious threat is propaganda.

~~~
tikums
Are you saying it's resistant to penetration by Russian security services?
Sorry if I don't take your word for it. They have just successfully hacked
into several of the top financial institutions in the world:
[http://www.networkworld.com/article/2691902/security0/russia...](http://www.networkworld.com/article/2691902/security0/russian-
hackers-reportedly-behind-jp-morgan-data-breach-this-summer.html)

They got away with customer data and who-knows-what-else. I'm pretty sure JP
Morgan has a bigger cyber-security budged than the whole state of Estonia,
many times over. And then check the laundry list of these:
[http://cybercampaigns.net/](http://cybercampaigns.net/)

The basic truth is: we still don't quite know how to design digital
information systems that can resist attacks from very persistent or nation
state level actors. Even if these are air-gaped (as demonstrated by Stuxnet).

~~~
mikeyouse
JP Morgan has ~$2.5 Trillion under management, annual revenues near
$100B/year, and profits around $20B/year. Estonia's GDP is $25B and their
annual tax receipts are about $4B/year. It's quite easy to assume that JP
Morgan spends far more on security than the entire country of Estonia.

------
lifeisstillgood
Two things leap out

\- who makes the smart card? What is the model?

\- wow - that's just like Neal Stephenson and joining Tribes based not on
location but membership.

But I can't see myself going to Estonia just to pick one up ... I'll wait till
the embassy in London does it :-)

~~~
asstonian
EstEID specification - covers all ID-card application versions issued in
Estonia: [http://www.id.ee/public/TB-SPEC-EstEID-Chip-
App-v3_5-2014032...](http://www.id.ee/public/TB-SPEC-EstEID-Chip-
App-v3_5-20140327.pdf)

The Estonian ID-card and Digital Signature Concept:
[http://www.id.ee/public/The_Estonian_ID_Card_and_Digital_Sig...](http://www.id.ee/public/The_Estonian_ID_Card_and_Digital_Signature_Concept.pdf)

------
ahmett
They could have SSL encryption on this site and perhaps launch it under some
government TLD instead of .com.

------
xmpir
What exactly can one do with this digital identity?

~~~
_delirium
It's an ID/credential system that government and financial services will be
using. So you'll be able to use the ID/credentials to log in and interact with
Estonian entities that use it, like banks, tax authority, corporate registry,
etc. Vaguely like an OpenID identity, but run by the Estonian government, and
with two-factor authentication.

It doesn't in itself give you any specific rights, as far as I can tell
("e-residency" is a bit of a marketing term). It just makes it easier to do
things that foreigners are theoretically allowed to do, but which aren't
currently very easy to do remotely. For example it's already legal for a
foreigner to register a company in Estonia, but it's a bit of a hassle if you
aren't an Estonian resident; this is supposed to make it easier, because
you'll be electronically "in the system" with a proper ID number and login,
making it easier for agencies and financial institutions to know how to deal
with you. Especially since it's combined with a move towards self-service
online portals for government services, so you should be able to log in with
this ID and do a lot of things over the internet, instead of visiting civil-
service offices.

Here (Denmark) all that is also theoretically true—anyone with legitimate
business in Denmark can get an ID, and once you have one you can do things
like register a company entirely online, self-service, as well as interact
with banks and anyone else who implements the "NemID". But in practice the
authorities are very suspicious of anyone not living in Denmark trying to get
into the system, so almost the only non-residents who do so are Swedes and
Germans who either commute cross-border or have frequent business in Denmark.

~~~
jkaljundi
Actually many private entities use it as well. It's an authentication layer
anyone can easily implement. Same for digital signatures.

------
6t6t6
This is something that has been used in many countries already.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_identity_card](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_identity_card)

Maybe the main difference is that they will issue it also to non-residents.

By the way, I don't know in other countries but in Spain it was a complete
failure due to a really bad implementation: only worked with Internet
Explorer, reader with proprietary drivers, etc...

------
ikawe
"The one-time state fee for the card is 50 euros, other fees will depend on
service providers – public digital services will be offered mostly free-of-
charge, just like to ‘real’ residents."

------
jzd131
Most of the team of my startup SaleMove is in Tartu! This is yet another
example of how great Estonia is for tech. If you want to develop for a great
startup there reach out on our website!

------
embro
Estonia is such a nice country for people who own electric cars. They have
many level 3 chargers.

Source : [http://www.plugshare.com](http://www.plugshare.com)

------
listic
What are the differences between residency and e-residency? E.g. they won't
allow me to vote, will they? What else?

~~~
fmx
Even (physical) residence will not allow you to vote, only citizenship will.
From the site: "This [e-residency] will not entail full legal residency or
citizenship or right of entry to Estonia."

~~~
zxexz
Yeah, only EU citizenship along with residency allows one to vote.

~~~
listic
Ah, I mixed the two. The fact that English is non-native language for me,
didn't help, either. What is (e-)residency good for, then?

For anyone Russian reading this: should residency be прописка? It actually was
canceled in favor of registration. So, I guess, residency is registration?

------
wellboy
Why is Estonia the smartest country? Because in Estonia, EVERYONE needs to
learn how to code, from primary school to graduating high school.
[http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/04/estonia-code-
academy/](http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/04/estonia-code-academy/)

~~~
jkaljundi
Related: [http://www.computerbasedmath.org/computer-based-math-
educati...](http://www.computerbasedmath.org/computer-based-math-education-
estonia.html)

------
avaku
e-stonian - is obviously how it should have been called ;)

------
saanilb
Interesting Concept, other countries think about it.

------
huhtenberg
Isn't this just a thinly-veiled form of off-shoring? With all related
consequences.

------
EGreg
What is the point of this?

------
mr_spothawk
why isn't this an HTTPS site?

~~~
jkaljundi
Why should each marketing site be HTTPS?

~~~
serf
because (although incorrect) some people consider email addresses to be semi-
confidential, and one could profit from the automated scraping of addresses
from a router that sees a lot of public traffic.

------
duckingtest
There's nothing particularly Estonian to this - you can buy European digital
identity in all EU countries (except Great Britain and Ireland, last I
checked). All documents signed by your key are legally as valid as those
signed by your hand. Sadly, it's not used much outside of government services.

~~~
throwaway_yy2Di
Isn't that for citizens and residents of those EU states? This "e-residency"
is for anyone in the world: there's 241 nations in the "Your Country" menu.

(which by the way is a few years outdated: e.g. there's no South Sudan, and
Libya is still the "Libyan Arab Jamahiriya", which was Qaddafi's name for it).

~~~
duckingtest
No, it's the _exact_ same thing (although it appears to be the cheapest in
Estonia), it's the exact same EU-wide law. The only difference is they market
it for foreigners.

