Estonia has 10,000 e-residents

The digital future is getting closer. However, so far only Estonia




Photo: TausP / Flickr

In October 2014, Estonia has announced a new initiative - the introduction of the status of "electronic Resident" for foreigners. E-residence does not provide real citizenship, but a foreigner gets a lot of other possibilities, including the opening of an account in the Estonian bank, company registration, plus an electronic signature for verification of their documents anywhere in the world.

After the identification procedure (with the provision of biometric data), the applicant receives an official document: the Estonian ID-card with an electronic chip, replacing conventional signature. The initiative proved popular, and is now in a small state with a population of just over a million people, there are more than 10,000 "electronic residents." By 2025, Estonia hopes to increase that number to 10 million.

The Government fairly the results. "Estonia - the first country in the world where there is an opportunity to open geonezavisimy online business", - says Katre Kasmel (Katre Kasmel), a spokesman for the program "e-residence."

10,000 participants in the program are citizens of 129 countries, with about 20% - the inhabitants of Finland. A little less "resident" of the United States and Ukraine. Since 2014 e-residents become owners of about 1155 companies (560 of them - have recently opened). Naturally, the growth of e-business in the country have a positive impact on its economy.

A popular initiative can be easily explained - e-resident just one day can register a new company with no entry (in fact - much less, a record for the registration of a new legal entity is the procedure took only 18 minutes). Plus, a company pays 0% income tax. As stated in the program, an electronic resident receives the following benefits:

Registration for one day of the company; low costs for starting and running a business; < 0% tax on profits is the ability to have more funds for reinvestment; low levels of bureaucracy and transparent taxation; the company operating under EU legislation; ul>.

From this autumn, the Government will try to introduce another innovation - to allow e-residents to open bank accounts without visiting the bank. The relevant bill has already been entered in the Estonian parliament.

Now Estonia is gradually turning into a real digital state, and transform every year in this area have become increasingly prominent. A nice feature is that the country of all these transformations do not spend hundreds of millions of dollars, as many states, and the effect is much more impressive.

Detail the rights and obligations of e-residents can be found here.

List and contact information of all service stations in Estonia can be found here. Plus, the application for e-residence can be given at home by visiting the Consulate of Estonia.

Source: geektimes.ru/post/276072/

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