As of August 27, 2024, Estonian Business and Innovation Agency (EISA) data indicated that there were 1,039 companies associated with 995 Russian e-residents, plus a further 284 companies relating to 281 e-residents from Belarus.

Russian e-residents have created 1,814 companies through the e-residency program since its inception nearly a decade ago; Belarusian e-residents have established 382 firms over the same time frame.

At present, 59,644 foreign citizens of all nationalities hold Estonian e-residency, and e-residents of all nationalities have founded over 32,200 companies throughout the program's 10-year history.

Statistics Estonia reported in 2022 2,947 companies of all kinds controlled by Russian citizens including non-e-residents, along with 747 owned by Belarusian citizens.

Estonia has significantly restricted, and continues to further limit, the ability of Russian and Belarusian citizens to use e-residency for business purposes, in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

e-residency: Changes made after Ukraine invasion

Oscar Õun, risk manager for the e-residency program within the EISA framework, said that the government decided to stop issuing initial e-residency digital IDs to citizens of Russia and its ally, Belarus, in March 2022.

"This was one of the first decisions made by the government in response to the full-scale war in Ukraine," Õun told ERR.

In other words, existing e-residents were not stripped of that status, but new applications were not being taken on. This has led to a gradual fall in the number of e-residents from these countries due in part to natural wastage; also those applying to renew their digital IDs after the five-year validity period are subject to thorough background checks

This means some e-residents are not re-granted to status, Õun added.

The Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) meanwhile told ERR a "large proportion" of renewal requests are rejected – putting the figure for Russian and Belarusian citizens whose e-residency renewal requests were rejected this year at 70 percent of the total.

When assessing whether to renew an e-residency, risk analysis is conducted, as well as contributions to the Estonian economy. If the latter is largely not present – for instance via tax revenues – the PPA generally rejects the renewal request, Anita Preinvalts, senior commissioner at the PPA's ID and status office, told ERR.

This means the figure has "significantly declined."

Before February 2022, a reported 8.5 percent of all valid Estonian e-residency cards were held by Russian and Belarusian citizens.

By the end of summer 2024, this figure had dropped to 5 percent.

Õun said that whereas in March 2022, 4,421 Russian and 902 Belarusian citizens held e-residency status, the respective figures now are 2,573 and 565 – a 42 percent drop in two-and-a-half years.

PPA: Russian citizens can own companies through other means

At the same time, Preinvalts qualified the limits on what the PPA can do in relation to regulating and restricting the more general business activities of Russian and Belarusian citizens.

Under current law there is no blanket ban against them, Preinvalts noted, and businesses owned by Russians and Belarusians cannot at present be forcibly terminated either at the domestic or EU level, nor can "ID tools" cease to be issued to them wholesale.

Though there have been several rounds of sanctions, these have so far not affected eIDs.

This means Russian or Belarusian citizens can still manage an Estonian company even without e-resident status.

Options include notarized authorized representatives in-country, eID documents issued by foreign countries assessed to have a "high" level of trustworthiness under the EU's eIDAS regulation, and even Belgian ID cards, which can be used in this way, Preinvalts went on.

If it is decided at the political level that the business activities of Russian and Belarusian citizens in the EU should be terminated, limiting the use of e-residency and eID would not be enough on its own.

"Even if a person's e-residency digital ID is revoked, this does not terminate the operations of businesses associated with that person in Estonia," Preinvalts said.

When an e-resident's digital ID is invalidated, the companies linked to that e-resident continue to exist, and their legal capacity remains the same as it is for any other foreign-owned companies in Estonia," she concluded

e-residency's unusual selling points include the ability holders have to run a business from anywhere in the world, a cutting down of bureaucracy and paperwork, and a global community ready to share knowledge and experience. The status of e-residency does not equate to actually being a physical resident of Estonia. The first ever e-resident was British journalist Edward Lucas.

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