Registration of Employment : Estonian Tax & Customs Board EMTA

Organization : Estonian Tax & Customs Board
Service Name : Registration of Employment
Country: Estonia

Website : http://www.emta.ee/index.php?id=35433

Registration of Employment:

All the natural and legal persons providing the work are required to register the persons employed by them in the employment register.

Related : EMTA Estonian Customs Board Filing Value Added Tax Return & Its Appendix : www.statusin.org/11255.html

Since 1 July 2014 the employers are not required to submit the data on the employed persons to the Estonian Health Insurance Fund.

What are the data of the employment register used for?:
** The Estonian Health Insurance Fund uses the data of the employment register for granting the health insurance benefits;
** the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund uses the data of the employment register for registration of persons as unemployed, termination of the persons’ registration as unemployed, for granting unemployment allowances and other unemployment insurance benefits prescribed by the Unemployment Insurance Act;
** the Social Insurance Board uses the data of the employment register for verification of the employment status;
** the Police and Border Guard Board uses the data of the employment register for exercising supervisory control over the working conditions of foreigners;
** the Estonian Tax and Customs Board uses the data of the employment register for monitoring the performance of the tax liabilities of taxable persons.

Definitions relating to the register:
Employment – working under an employment contract or a contract under the law of obligations, civil service as defined in § 5 of the Civil Service Act or working on a voluntary basis without receiving any remuneration for work;

Person performing the work – a natural person who is working under an employment contract or under the law of obligations, a person in civil service as defined in § 5 of the Civil Service Act, or who is working on a voluntary basis without receiving any remuneration for work.

Person providing the work – a resident or non-resident legal person in Estonia, Estonian state authority or local government authority, a natural person or a self-employed person who concludes an agreement which forms the basis for working or who appoints a person performing the work to office.

Commencement of employment – the exact date of commencement of work of a person performing the work under an employment contract or on voluntary basis, the date of entering into force of an employment contract under the law of obligations, or the date of assumption of an office in civil service.

Suspension of employment – a period during which a person performing the work is having a parental leave, is in conscript service or in alternative service, or on leave granted without pay by agreement of the parties.

Termination of employment – the exact date of termination of work of a person performing the work under an employment contract or on voluntary basis, the date of termination of an employment contract under the law of obligations, the date of release from service and the date of transfer of a tax liability of a person performing the work to another state.

Further on in this text the definition “employer” will be used in the meaning of the person providing the work and “employee” in the meaning of the person performing the work in order to make reading of the document easier.

Who is expected to register the employment?:
All natural and legal persons providing the work are required to register the employment. Employer is a resident or non-resident legal person in Estonia, Estonian state authority or a local government authority, a natural person or a self-employed person who concludes an agreement which forms the basis for working or who appoints a person performing the work to office.

Whose employment has to be registered?:
Employments of all natural persons through whose working a tax liability will be created in Estonia, irrespective of the form of a contract, must be recorded in the employment register. Data of the persons working on a voluntary basis in a company or at a self-employed person, i.e. the persons who are receiving no remuneration for their work that would be subject to taxation, must also be recorded in the employment register.

Registration of employment within the framework of practical training is not required, unless an employment contract or a contract under the law of obligations is concluded with a trainee for performing the work.

What kind of data must be entered in the register?:
** Employee’s given and family name and a personal identification code;
** employee’s date of birth, if the personal identification code is not available and the duration of the employment will be up to five days;
** employer’s name and registry code, or a personal identification code;
** date of commencement of the employment;
** type of the employment;
** initial and final dates of and the reason for the suspension of the employment;
** date of termination of the employment and the reason for termination.

Additional data required are the official title and the address of the place of employment if a third-country national or a person with unspecified citizenship is concerned who is residing in Estonia under a temporary residence permit granting the admission to employment, or if a third-country national or a person with unspecified citizenship is concerned who is staying in Estonia with a visa or on the basis of a visa waiver and who has the right to work in Estonia.

How a foreigner can obtain the Estonian personal identification code needed for registration of the employment?:
** Persons who are staying in Estonia on a temporary basis (e.g. are working in Estonia but are residing in Latvia) can apply for a personal identification code with the closest county government upon going there in person;
** upon submission of a notice of residence at the local government unit;
** persons who do not have the possibility to apply for the personal identification code in Estonia, e.g. are coming to work in Estonia with a visa, can submit the application with the foreign mission of Estonia in a foreign state.

When must the data be entered in the register?:
Commencement of the employment must be recorded latest by the moment when an employee commences the work, which means directly before starting the work.

Employers have time for recording the suspension or termination of the employment for ten calendar days as of the day of suspension or termination of the employment.

How to register the employment?:
** In the e-Tax Board/e-Customs environment by entering the data manually or by uploading the file;
** via X-Road by means of machine-to-machine interface, delivering the employment data contained in the personnel management programmes of a company or agency;
** visiting a service bureau of the Estonian Tax and Customs Board in person.

It is also possible to use a simplified procedure for first registration by making a phone call or sending the SMS message. As the simplified registration covers only part of the required data, the registration must definitely be supplemented within 7 calendar days in order to complete the registration. Format of the SMS message is as follows: ”employer’s code(space)employee’s code(space)date of commencement of the employment“ and the SMS has to be sent at the phone number 1811.