While the current electricity excise duty is €1.45 per megawatt-hour, from Thursday it will be €2.1 –  a 45 percent increase. According to Sander Randver, head of energy products at Enefit, the annual electricity bill for the average consumer is around €540. The tax increases will not change this much.

"For the average domestic consumer, this means an extra cost of around €2-4 per year. That's quite a marginal impact – it doesn't show up directly in your monthly bill," said Randver.

The excise duty on natural gas will rise by 18 percent from Thursday, increasing the cost for household consumers by up to €20 a year, according to Randver.

The excise duty on liquefied petroleum gas will also increase by more than 20 percent, while excise duty on diesel fuel will rise by seven percent. According to Alan Vaht, a member of fuel retailer Terminal's management board, the change in excise duty on diesel will have a small impact compared to the price rises at gas stations.

"In fact, in Estonia, when you look at excise duty, diesel prices are the lowest – lower than in Latvia and Lithuania. In that sense, anything up to a three-month increase in excise duty as opposed to what we see every week, how much prices fluctuate, it won't have a very big impact. Competition is keeping prices down, and prices may not actually go up on Thursday," Vaht said.

In addition, excise duties on fuel oils and motor gas will also rise from May. However, the impact on the final price will be minimal, said Vaht. Excise duty on motor fuel is set to go up five percent from July 1 and by the same amount again in the following years. This is a continuation of a plan to increase excise duties that had been temporarily suspended due to Covid.

"Last year saw the first major excise rise, so to speak, and this year is the second in a row. There are two more to come over the next two years. The total cumulative excise increase is 12.1 cents, and when multiplied by VAT, the impact is 15 cents," said Vaht.

Excise duties have an impact on both the state budget and inflation.

"The impact on the budget is undoubtedly positive. We estimate that excise duty increases will raise €12-13 million for the 2025 budget. The impact on the consumer price index is around 0.03 percent of all excise increases, so it's not even half a percent," said Erle Kõomets, head of the tax and customs policy department at the Ministry of Finance.

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