Estonia Company Register: How to Search the e-Business Register and Verify Estonian Companies (2026)

1. What is the Estonian company register?

Estonia's commercial register holds information going back to 1 September 1995, the day the Commercial Code (Äriseadustik) came into force. Since 1 February 2023 the register has its own law, the Commercial Register Act (Äriregistri seadus). It sets out the basics: the register is kept electronically and in Estonian by one registrar, the registration department of the Tartu court, and the Ministry of Justice and Digital Affairs is its controller. There are no regional registers to choose between.

You reach all of it through the e-Business Register, the portal RIK develops and manages. The same portal is where companies are founded, change their data, and file their annual reports. By law the register has three parts, and only two of them are open to everyone.

Besides the register data, the Commercial Register Act lets the portal show public data from other databases. On a company record that means a tax block from the Tax and Customs Board's database, commercial pledge data, beneficial owners, and notices from Ametlikud Teadaanded, Estonia's official online publication.

2. How to search the e-Business Register step by step

Searching is free and needs no login and no agreement with RIK. The portal runs in Estonian and English. The English version translates the field labels, legal forms, roles, and activity names, but some data stays in Estonian: on the English record for Bolt Technology OÜ the address still reads Harju maakond, Tallinn, Kesklinna linnaosa.

1. Open the e-Business Register

   Switch the interface to ENG at the top right. The home page has one box, Search for a legal person, that takes a name, a registry code, or a VAT number. Further down, the Possibilities of e-Business Register section names the registrar: the Registration Department of Tartu County Court.

   

2. Search by registry code when you have one

   A registry code identifies exactly one entity, so it is the quickest route to the right record. A VAT number works in the same box. A name search works too, but check the legal form and the registry code on the result before you rely on it.

3. Use the detailed search for a person, an address, or an activity

   Detailed search, one of the tiles under the search box, filters by legal form, status, address, and field of activity. It also lets you search by a related natural person, so you can find every company where someone sits on the board or holds shares.

4. Open the company record

   The general information block gives the registry code, EUID, legal form, status, share capital, registration date, and financial year. Directly under the name, an "Invalid names" line lists former names. Next to it you get the VAT number and the right of representation: the management board members, their personal identification codes, and the date each one started.

   

5. Scroll down for the money and the owners

   Further down the same page sit the contacts, the annual reports (one PDF per year; for most of Bolt's years the income statement, cash flow statement, and statement of financial position are also separate PDFs), and a tax block from the Tax and Customs Board: whether the company has tax debt, and its state taxes, taxes on workforce, taxable turnover, and number of employees for one quarter. The record also lists the shareholders, the supervisory board, the beneficial owners, and the activity codes (EMTAK), with the source of each code: for Bolt, the annual report submitted on 24.06.2026.

6. Download the data extract

   The "Data extract" link builds a PDF of the record, with valid data only or with valid and historical data, at no charge. If a bank or a tender asks for a certified extract, the Commercial Register Act says you can get one from a notary office.

3. What data is public and what it costs

Until 1 October 2022, RIK charged a query fee to view register data such as annual reports and articles of association. Since then it has been free, and the rule is now written into Regulation No. 2 of the Minister of Justice of 4 January 2023: no fee for issuing register data and documents electronically, including downloads in XML, JSON, or XBRL. The one exception is the public file of a non-profit association, because those documents may contain special types of personal information.

Two things in that table stand out. Estonia publishes full annual reports free, and puts key figures from them into a free CSV covering revenue, profit, equity, employee expense, and the average number of employees. And the official API is free: when the contract covers only the e-Business Register API services, RIK charges nothing for them.

What the free record does not give you is a clean dataset. Revenue sits in annual reports, which private and public limited companies file up to six months after the year end. The CSV indicators come from non-consolidated reports only, so a group's consolidated figures are not in them. And the bulk files leave out every company that has been deleted from the register.

4. Estonian legal forms, briefly

The Commercial Code recognises five types of company: the general partnership, the limited partnership, the private limited company, the public limited company, and the commercial association. All of them must be entered in the commercial register. Sole traders have to apply for entry before they start trading, and non-profit associations and foundations are searchable in the same portal.

By law an Estonian company name carries its legal form, written out or (for TÜ, UÜ, OÜ, and AS) abbreviated, at the beginning or the end of the name. A name that starts or ends with OÜ is a private limited company, and one with AS is a public limited company, so you know the form before you open the record.

One detail on the record matters if you track ownership. Since 1 September 2023 the shareholder list of a private limited company is kept in the register and shown on the registry card. A company with at least EUR 10,000 of fully paid share capital can waive the notarised form for transferring shares, and Bolt Technology OÜ has done so. Then the management board keeps the shareholder list, and the record says the shareholder data shown in the portal is informative only.

5. How to verify an Estonian company: a practical checklist

1. Confirm the registry code and the status

   Search the registry code and check that the name, legal form, and address match what you were given. The status should read "Entered into the register". In liquidation, in bankruptcy, and deleted are the ones to stop at. For a quick first pass, our free company lookup finds the registration and revenue data in one search.

2. Check the former names and the VAT number

   The "Invalid names" line shows what the company used to be called. Bolt Technology OÜ was Taxify OÜ and MTAKSO OÜ before, so an old contract under either name is still the same registry code. Then compare the VAT number on the record with the one on the invoice, because in Estonia it is a different number from the registry code.

3. Verify who may sign

   Open the right of representation and check that the person signing is a current management board member, with a start date before your contract. The record states the representation rule as well, for example that every board member may represent the company in all transactions, and a separate block lists any special conditions of the right of representation. Under the Commercial Register Act a register entry is held as correct towards third parties, so this is the check that protects you.

4. Look at the shareholders and beneficial owners

   For a private limited company the record shows the shareholders, with each shareholder's participation and contribution. Check whether it marks that list as informative. On Bolt's record that note means the company has waived the notarised form for share transfers, so its management board keeps the list and the register only shows a copy. Beneficial owners appear too, but the register marks that data as informative, and the full beneficial owner query asks you to authenticate (or to apply on paper without an e-identity) and depends on your access basis: authority, obliged entity under anti-money laundering law, or legitimate interest.

5. Read the annual reports and the tax block

   Open the most recent annual report and check its filing date. The Commercial Code gives private and public limited companies six months after the financial year end to file, and the registrar can fine a company that misses it and eventually delete it. Then read the tax block. Its info note explains that under the Taxation Act the tax authority also certifies no tax arrears when the arrears are under EUR 100 or are being paid on schedule, so "no tax debt" does not always mean zero. The employee count and taxes on workforce show whether the company employed people in a recent quarter, which the last annual report cannot tell you.

6. Check the official notices

   The record lists notices from Ametlikud Teadaanded from the last two years that mention the registry code. Unless a liquidator has already published a liquidation notice, the registrar publishes a deletion notice there at least three months before it deletes a legal person, so read them before a large deal. Compare the activity codes on the record with what the company says it does at the same time.

6. Limitations of the official register

To be clear: for a handful of lookups, the e-Business Register gives you the board, the owners, the annual reports, and the tax figures on one free page. The limits show up when you need scale, history, or data in a language other than Estonian:

• Estonian under an English interface. The register is kept in Estonian by law. The English portal translates the labels, but addresses stay in Estonian, and documents are filed in Estonian (foreign-language documents need an Estonian translation), with a version in another language only if the company adds one.
• The API needs a contract with RIK. You apply from inside the portal. Estonian individuals and companies log in first (Smart-ID, an ID card, Mobile-ID, or an EU eID), and an applicant who cannot sign digitally can post a signed paper application to RIK. RIK's contract guide says only a person with an Estonian personal identification code can be the contract's administrator user, and applications are reviewed within a working week.
• Tight API limits. One simultaneous query, 50,000 answers a day, and 20 document downloads a minute per IP. The XML services answer in Estonian unless you ask for English, and their parameters carry Estonian names such as paringu_nimi.
• Bulk files only cover live companies. The open data files hold entities that are entered, in liquidation, or in bankruptcy. Deleted companies are not in them, so you cannot rebuild history from the downloads.
• No personal codes in the bulk files. Since 1 November 2024 the open data no longer contains personal identification numbers, while the record in the portal still shows them for board members.
• Shareholder data is not always authoritative. Where a private limited company has waived the notarised form for share transfers, its management board keeps the shareholder list and the portal's copy is informative only.
• Accounts arrive up to six months after the year end. Annual reports of private and public limited companies are due six months after the financial year end, and the CSV indicators only cover non-consolidated figures. For the full report you need the record or the API.

If you check one Estonian supplier a quarter, none of this matters. If you onboard hundreds, it is the whole problem.

7. Access e-Business Register data programmatically

CompanyData maintains a normalized database of all 364,477 Estonian entities, sourced directly from the e-Business Register and refreshed as new entries and filings appear. Registry codes are already parsed and validated, filed annual report figures are read into structured fields, and records are enriched with revenue, employees, and contact data in the same structure as every other country we cover.

Our Company Data API lets you look up any Estonian entity by registry code, name, or address and get structured JSON back in real time, with 150 free lookups to start and no RIK contract required. It is used by developers, banks, and insurers across 190+ countries, so Estonian checks work exactly like checks anywhere else.

GET /v1/companies?country=EE&registration_id=12417834

{
  "name": "Bolt Technology OÜ",
  "legal_form": "OÜ",
  "registration_id": "12417834",
  "vat_number": "EE102090374",
  "status": "Entered into the register",
  "start_date": "2013-02-07",
  "capital_eur": 31324039
}

Every field above is visible on the free e-Business Register record shown in section 2. Annual report figures, employees, and contact data come back on the same record where we hold them. They are left out here only because this example sticks to what the screenshot shows.

8. Estonia vs other company registers

Estonia's free record includes the shareholders, the annual reports, and quarterly tax figures, and its official API is free too. What it asks in return is a contract with RIK and a tolerance for Estonian. For context: