How To Become Location Independent with the Estonian E Visa
With E-Residency & 1Office all entrepreneurs in our community truly become location independent through offering a special community discount on the streamlined solutions they offer so applicants do not need to complete multiple processes to start your journey and truly achieve location independence!
Some of the questions you might have.
- Should you register yourself as a freelancer or some other form of independent professional?
- What type of banking options should you use while you travel and spend in foreign currencies?
- How should you structure everything so you can save money?
- How can you avoid double taxation or other taxation issues as you live in different countries & therefore, different jurisdictions?
The simple answer to all these questions is – not one size fits all.
There is no single solution available which can provide a perfect solution to all of these questions. However, using e-Residency to digitally start & manage a company in Estonia could be a good starting point, and eventually working together with your e-Residency service provider could indeed provide a solution to meet all these money management needs.
About Estonia & E-Residency
Estonia is a rather small EU nation with 1.3 million people, situated right next to Finland. Geographically, it is larger than Denmark, Switzerland or even the Netherlands.
So, you can imagine that in a large country, this small population is quite sparsely distributed and there are islands where maybe only 15 people live! This created a challenge, yet an opportunity for the government to provide public services to all citizens which led to an e-governance revolution in Estonia in late 90s. Fast forward to 2019, today Estonia has one of the most advanced e-governance platforms in the world with over 5’000 e-services which citizens can access at the click of a button ranging from e-police, e-law to e-health, e-prescription and of course even e-tax and e-business registry.
“Did You Know?” Estonia is the only country in the world where people can even vote over the internet. Tech in general really has been Estonia’s forte – Skype is an Estonian invention too and TransferWise – one of the fastest growing fintech companies in the world too hails from Estonia – and an excellent business banking option with your Estonian company but more on that later![/su_box]
In 2014, a few visionaries in the public and private sector got together and wondered that if Estonian citizens and residents could so easily access public services electronically from anywhere in the world then why could they not extend at least a section of these e-services to foreign businesses operating in Estonia to access the EU single market.
This gave birth to the Estonian e-Residency program in late 2014, through which the government issues a digital-identity card, using which an e-resident who can be a national of any foreign country, can access close 1’500 e-services to establish and manage their business entirely online –digitally sign documents & contracts, conduct board decisions, declare taxes in Estonia, access virtual accounting services – all at the click of a button from anywhere in the world.
To be successful and provide easy company establishment and management services like virtual accounting, virtual office, etc. the government decided to create a highly collaborative public-private partnership (PPP) model.
CoWorking Days community members receive a 5% discount on all services from the largest e-Residency service providers – 1Office send us a message to receive your Discount Count.
How It Works
For location-independent entrepreneurs, 1Office understands the challenges listed above, and has created the first ‘one-stop-shop’ solution where you can start by accessing the following services entirely remotely:
- Assistance with e-Residency application and establishment of company together with virtual office & contact person services – People can easily get e-Residency and set up business via 1Office. Once they receive their e-Residency digital ID-card, 1Office automatically processes the registration of the company in Estonia and also provides a virtual office address and even a contact person service, which is needed in case any documents need to be received on behalf of the founder(s) of the company. Both services are mandatorily needed to operate a company as an e-resident.
- Business banking with TransferWise or similar options – This is one of the biggest advantages of running a business as an e-resident. 1Office partnered up with large business banking solutions providers like TransferWise, Payoneer, etc. For location-independent entrepreneurs, these solutions are ideal much better than traditional banks because for example with TransferWise, you will be able to benefit from a cheaper and one of the lowest foreign exchange rates while making business transfers or even while traveling from one country to another. This has major benefits in managing money too. Besides this, if the Estonian tax system applies to your business, then you can always reinvest these funds into your business, claiming business travel other expenses, social media advertising costs, etc. without any tax-related outflows and this can indeed create a compounding effect for the business itself too. Of course, just the simple fact that everything can be managed online saves time, and as a result, money!
- Virtual accounting, bookkeeping & taxation advice – With offices in 6 countries in Europe, yet another huge advantage of using 1Office is that all book-keeping, accounting, etc. is also taken care of through a single-window solution for a fraction of the cost compared to many other service providers in most countries like Germany, France, Spain, etc. Location-independent entrepreneurs can initially choose to start with a low-cost monthly accounting package (starting at €65) and eventually switch to more comprehensive solutions as their work & business grows. Tax consultations with specialists also help provide a tailor-made solution for location-independent entrepreneurs which can depend on a variety of different factors like where they spend most of their time or are constantly traveling (known as ‘permanent travellers’, where most of the customers are based, where the management board is primarily based, etc.)
- To top this all off – 1Office has even included the cost of applying for the e-Residency card for first time e-residents, creating a streamlined solution where aspirants do not need to complete multiple processes to start their journey to truly achieve location independence!
CoWorking Days community members receive a 5% discount on all services from the largest e-Residency service providers – 1Office send us a message to receive your Discount Code.
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