Language

Official language
Estonian (68.5%)

T-index
0.033%

T-Index ranks countries according to their potential for online sales.

Other languages
Russian (27.6%), Belarusian (1.4%), Finnish (0.7%), Ukrainian (0.6%), other (1.2%).

English
High proficiency (EF) – 26 of 112 countries/regions in the world- 21/35 position in Europe.

Demography

Capital: Talinn
Currency: Euro
Population: 1,33 m
Population density: 123/km2

Economy

GDP: 37.19 USD (2020)
GDP per capita: 27,943.7 USD ‎(2020) ‎
Exports: $32.2 billion (2020)

Statistics

Internet users: 92% penetration, 1.22 million
Unemployment rate: 6.2% (2021)
Urbanisation: 69.42% (2020)
Literacy: 100%

Conventions

Numbering system
Arabic numerals and comma as decimal separator, space as thousands separator

Date format: dd-mm-yyyy
Time: 24h time system
Country code: 00372

Economy

Imports
$19.3 billion (2020).  Refined Petroleum ($1.19B), Cars ($1.07B), Packaged Medicaments ($476M), Broadcasting Equipment ($431M), and Sawn Wood ($359M), importing mostly from Russia ($2.28B), Germany ($2.02B), Finland ($1.78B), Latvia ($1.59B), and Lithuania ($1.33B).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)
• 98% have an account with a financial institution
• 29% have a credit card
• 75% make online purchases

Ease of doing business
It is very easy to conduct business (rated 76.8 out of 100) ranked 10th out of 34 OECD high-income countries, and ranked 18th out of 190 countries worldwide (2022, World Bank).

Global Innovation Index
Ranked 10th out of 39 European countries, and 18th out of 132 worldwide.

The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.

Exports
$16.8 billion (2020).  Broadcasting Equipment ($1.2B), Refined Petroleum ($581M), Coal Tar Oil ($553M), Cars ($475M), and Prefabricated Buildings ($443M), exporting mostly to Finland ($2.24B), Sweden ($1.53B), Russia ($1.4B), Latvia ($1.37B), and United States ($1.34B).

Main local online stores
Kaup24, On24, Hansapost, 1a, Shoppa, Eesti

Economic freedom
‘Free’ (rated 78.6 out of 100) ranked 3rd out of 45 European countries, and ranked 6th out of 186 countries worldwide (2022, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).

Media

Media language
Predominantly French, English, Arabic

Information channels:
Television is Estonia’s most popular medium, while print media are losing ground to online outlets. The media market is lightly regulated. Three major companies, including Sweden’s MTG, run the top commercial TVs. Eesti Televisioon and Eesti Raadio are public broadcasters. Digital TV platforms offer stations in Finnish, Swedish, Russian and Latvian. Estonia has a free media, according to groups such as Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders. It has not followed the example of Lithuania and Latvia, which in 2014 and 2015 imposed rebroadcasting bans on some Russian TVs.

The press

Postimees – leading daily, Estonian and Russian-language editions
Ohtuleht – popular tabloid
Eesti Paevaleht – daily
Aripaev – business daily
Maaleht – weekly
Eesti Ekspress – weekly

Television

Eesti Televisioon (ETV) – public; website has news in English
TV3 – commercial
Kanal 2 – commercial

Radio

Eesti Raadio – public; five networks including flagship Vikerraadio
Raadio Elmar – commercial, music
Raadio Kuku – commercial, talk
Russkoje Radio – commercial, music and talk in Russian

News agency

Baltic News Service (BNS) – private
Delfi – news portal, in Estonian and Russian

Internet Data

Internet users
92% penetration, 1.22 million

Share of web traffic by device
31.22% mobile phones, 67.30% computers (laptops and desktops), 1.47% tablet devices, others 0.01%

Median speed of mobile Internet connection
52.94 Mbps

Median speed of fixed Internet connection
49.70 Mbps

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 139.4%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 91.2%

Most popular web search engines
Google (95.57%), Bing (2.32%), Yandex (1.38%), Duckduckgo (0.39%), Yahoo (0.23%), Ecosia (0.04%),

Most used social media
Facebook (70.59%), Instagram (8.36%), Pinterest (8.12%), Twitter (8.08%), YouTube (2.37%), Reddit (1.17%)

Social statistics

Life expectancy
82.73 yrs (2020)

Average age of the population
42.4 yrs

Healthcare expenditure
6.73 of GDP

Class
Estonia is a totally classless society. However, as is the case in most countries today, there are both well-to-do and less fortunate people, economically speaking. Regardless of one’s financial situation, nobody is looked down on in Estonia today, nor do the poorer people unduly worship those who are richer.

Ethnicity
Regardless of ethnic background, everyone is judged –  socially and professionally – on their skills and ability to handle the task taken on and on their ability to get along with others, co-workers and supervisors alike. It is also very important to note that, by law, workers in Estonia must be able to understand and speak the national language, which is Estonian – a language very similar to Finnish.

Religion
Even though most Estonians consider themselves as religious people, religion is not a critical factor in most work and social situations in today’s Estonia. The Lutheran Church is the prevailing one; the Russian Orthodox Church has also a number of followers; there are relatively few Roman Catholics among the Estonians. A number of other religions also have followers, including Judaism and other eastern faiths. So, most everyone can find a place to worship in Estonia, certainly in its major cities.

Gender
According to the law, there is no difference between the sexes and they enjoy the same freedoms. Women may hold the same positions as men; however, they are still in charge of bringing up children, doing housework, etc., although this is becoming more equally shared. All of these tasks impede women from spending as much time at work as men can; therefore, the evolution of their careers takes much longer. There are fewer women in positions of responsibility, but those who do hold them are respected all the more.