If the management board of your Estonian company (or a body substituting therefore) is located abroad, you will need a designated contact person in Estonia, as required by the Commercial Code. This service can be obtained from a virtual office service provider.
Only a notary, notary’s office, advocate, law office, sworn auditor, audit firm or licensed trust and company service provider may be designated as your contact person. The virtual office service providers in our Marketplace have the necessary operating license to provide this service.
If one of the members of the management board or a body substituting therefore, a partner, a shareholder or a procurator of your company resides in Estonia, then according to the law, this person may also be designated as a contact person.
When you register a company in Estonia as a non-resident, similarly to the requirement to appoint a contact person for your company, you are also obliged to indicate the address of the location of the management board (outside of Estonia) in the Commercial Register.
As of 01.02.2023, companies registered in Estonia also have the option to indicate a legal address separate from that of their contact person if they wish to do so, but making this change is not mandatory. You can read more about this change in legislation here.
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.
Responsibilities of a contact person
As said above, until February 2023, the legal address of a company was tied to your designated contact person. This meant that the address of your contact person was also considered the legal address of your company. From February 2023, a change to the Commercial Code allows for the separation of your legal address from that of your contact person, should you wish to differentiate the two. However, most e-residents choose a single service provider for both of these services.
Your contact person is responsible for receiving and forwarding any procedural documents or letters of intent addressed to your business - while Estonia prides itself on being digital, some legal documents may still be delivered on paper. Upon delivery of a procedural document or declaration of intent to the contact person, the document is considered to have been delivered to your business.
The contact person does not need to be a shareholder, board member, or employee and you do not need to grant any rights to act on behalf of your company.
You can read more about this topic on our blog.