From February 1st 2023, a change to the Business Register Act will create some changes to regulations regarding the address of Estonian companies.
What will this mean for existing Estonian companies?
Until now, the legal address of an e-resident’s company has been tied to their contact person, meaning the legal address (as new terminology) has automatically been that of your contact person. As a result, most e-residents have selected to use a single service provider for both the legal address as well as a contact person. The new regulation creates more clarity in this by separating the contact person address from your company’s legal address.
A legal address is the official address of your company at which you receive and are forwarded any procedural documents or letters of intent addressed to your business delivered on paper. Upon delivery of a procedural document or declaration of intent to your legal address, the document is considered to have been delivered to your business.
This does not mean that you will have to change your legal address going forward to an address different from the one you are currently registered under. Your legal address is the address at which your company receives any procedural documents or letters of intent addressed to your business delivered on paper, and where any similar documents arriving at your contact person, for example, are forwarded to. Upon delivery of a procedural document or declaration of intent to your legal address, the document is considered to have been delivered to your business. As up until now, your contact person has already been functioning as your legal address, this change in legislation is more technical than substantive.
Should you change your legal address going forward, that in itself will not mean that your company’s tax residency will change. Your company will remain an Estonian tax resident, but can now simply distinguish its legal address from that of your contact person. As the clarification of terminology in Estonian legislation has no effect on national or international tax law, this change will have no effect on how your company is taxed.
The new Commercial Register Act and the new redaction of the Commercial Code are in force from 01.02.2023.