Business experience

The Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund considers acting as a sole proprietor or a member of a management board of a company for at least one year to be sufficient business experience. With less business experience, there is no guarantee that the applicant has sufficient insight into entrepreneurship or the ability to set up a sustainable company.

Entrepreneurship training

If you wish to apply for a business start-up subsidy on the basis of entrepreneurship training, in 2024 the total volume of the entrepreneurship training must be at least 56 academic hours.

The conditions for entrepreneurship training, under which support for a business start-up subsidy can be applied for, will change in 2025. For entrepreneurship training programmes starting from 1 January 2025, the duration of the training must be at least 56 auditory hours in order to apply for a business start-up subsidy.

During entrepreneurship training, knowledge must be acquired in the following fields:

• nature of entrepreneurship, personal characteristics of an entrepreneur, requirements of the Commercial Code, forms of business and differences between them;
• analysis of a business idea, business plan and the principles of preparing it, individual preparation of a business plan;
• products and marketing (market, target groups and related forecasts, advertising, sales and distribution channels);
• financial planning (profit and loss, forecasts, cash flow plan, income statement, etc.);
• the basics of accounting;
• taxation and its basics;
• labour law (types of contracts, their conclusion, rights and obligations of parties);
• organisation of occupational health and safety in a company;
• information channels, support structures and possibilities of applying for subsidy that are important for an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurship training may also be completed through the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund. You can find out more about this from your consultant.

Consideration of previous studies when applying for EVAT as entrepreneurship training

Entrepreneurship training also includes subjects covered at vocational educational institutions or university, provided that their content and volume correspond to requirements. 

To receive a final assessment, please fill in the form ‘Considering previous studies when applying for EVAT as entrepreneurship training’ and send it with the documents below to evat@tootukassa.ee.

The following must be included:

• Diploma (copy);
• Results report / academic report (copy);
• Curriculum/ programme of study.

Vocational or higher education in economics

If you want to apply for a business start-up subsidy on the basis of vocational or higher education in economics, you must attach a copy certifying your education to your application.

If the education was acquired abroad, the applicant must submit an ENIC/NARIC statement of academic recognition. More information on academic recognition can be found on the website of the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research.

Documents required for application

To apply, you must submit:

• Application

The application form is available in e-töötukassa and under ‘Forms and Documents’.

• Business plan

Business Plan Guide provides instructions and a template for drawing up a business plan.

• CV

You can find CVs and templates on the website of the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund.

• Copies of documents proving business experience and/or education in economics and/or entrepreneurship training. See clause ‘Requirements for applicants’
• financial forecasts, preferably as an Excel file

Financial forecasts must be prepared for three years, including on a monthly basis for at least the first 12 months. This is necessary because there are only a few fields in which stable sales can be achieved in a shorter period of time.

• At least two independent and comparative quotes, if the estimated cost of the item of expenditure, goods or services to be purchased is EUR 500 or more
  • Price quotes may not be older than three months as of the date of submitting the application.
  • If two independent quotes cannot be provided or, if the lowest quote is not chosen, a relevant reason must be provided.
  • When purchasing machinery and equipment, quotes must be accompanied by the specification of the equipment.
  • If you want to buy second-hand equipment, you must provide an alternative quote or request for a new piece of equipment, or a reference to public sources if you can find this information on the Internet.

NB! The data in the quotes provided as Internet links may change over time, so quotes or requests for quotes for investments for which a subsidy is requested must be fixed (screenshot, PDF, scanned, etc.).

The application can be submitted:

• in e-töötukassa (preferably) by clicking on the link submit an application for business subsidy, or
• by e-mail to a consultant.

In which cases a subsidy is not granted

Business start-up subsidies are not granted to persons:

• who are subject to a prohibition on business, valid prohibitions on business and entrepreneurship
• who have tax arrears before the state, , except if it is less than 100 euros or the payment of the tax debt has been postponed, search for tax debtors
• whose business plan contains high risk
• who are the subjects of enforcement proceedings for the collection of child support, inquiry on support arrears
• who own (or owned during the six months preceding the submission of the application for the subsidy) a share in a general or limited partnership or more than 50 per cent in another company
• who are or have been registered as self-employed in the six months preceding the submission of the application, with valid and deleted links to related entrepreneurs in the Company Registration Portal database of the Commercial Register
• who received a business start-up subsidy on the basis of the Labour Market Services and Benefits Act or Regulation No. 90 of the Government of the Republic of 29.09.2023 "Employment Program 2024–2029" in the three years preceding the submission of the application;
• who have an entrepreneur account, verification of the existence of an entrepreneur account

Business start-up subsidies are not granted:

• for starting or expanding the activities of an existing entrepreneur;
• for becoming a shareholder of an existing company;
• for acting in a field that is contrary to public interest, social values, moral principles, good manners or public order, or which are not evidence-based;
• for providing services and manufacture products in the field of traditional and complementary medicine and therapy (alternative medicine);
• for a contribution into share capital;
• for paying the deposit of a rental contract;
• for covering training costs;
• for the payment and/or instalments of a credit contract;
• for transactions with related persons specified in subsection 8 (1) of the Income Tax Act;
• for road transport entrepreneurs who transport goods in exchange for rent or a fee in order to acquire road transport vehicles; The European Commission has clarified that the road transport sector includes the intra-urban transport of goods, and that also vans, light commercial vehicles and trailers should also be considered as road transport vehicles.
• for export-related activities aimed at third countries or Member States, namely activities that are directly linked to the quantities exported, to the establishment and operation of a distribution network or to other current expenditure linked to the export activity;
• for the purchase of property.

In the field of beauty services, it is possible to receive support for starting a business, if beauty services are provided by a graduate of vocational education in beauty services or a person who has at least one year of work experience in the field of beauty services or who has received training through the unemployment fund and the training completed by him is comparable to the curriculum of vocational education in beauty services.

All costs covered by the subsidy must be justified, transparent, described in detail and directly necessary for implementing the business plan.

Decision-making

The term for reviewing the application is up to 30 working days as of the submission of the application.

Whether the applicant is contacted during the reviewing of the business plan for further clarification of circumstances depends on the volume and scope of omissions. If the omissions are significant and more extensive analysis or clarification is needed on the part of the applicant to correct them, the applicant is not contacted. In such a case, the applicant is issued a decision regarding refusal to grant the business start-up subsidy.

If the omissions stated in the decision not to grant subsidy can be corrected, please contact your consultant to prepare a further action plan.

If you find that a decision or action of the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund infringes upon your rights, you can file a claim with the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund: File a claim.