Hi there! Great article, thanks for the info, this may be a great option for me!
I am currently working freelance and a complete nonresident of any country, and I am considering opening their free account option.
My question is around business expenses. What qualifies? And how do they reimburse you for them? Where do they reimburse you to? I am currently struggling to open a personal bank account so am trying to understand my options.
Hi there
please follow this link for a brief explanation on what qualifies as business expenses:
Thank you, Nadia! 
It took almost three months, but finally, it’s published 
Can you clarify if you mean Xolo Go as the free account option?
Xolo Go is the option when you only pay 5% for withdrawals and there is no monthly fee. With the Go plan, they have banking integrated into their software, so you don’t need to set up a bank account to receive payments.
You only need a personal bank account for withdrawing money. If you have to set up one, we have listed some great banking options for international travellers in our article. Personally, I use and really like N26. Yes, they do ask you to state your residency and address (there’s no avoiding this with any bank), but they don’t ask for a proof of address.
You could try other fintech banks, like Monese (they have been more relaxed about address proof, etc.). There are also many accounts around the world you can open with little effort and no real proof other than perhaps a bank statement. Most will ask for a tax number, however, you can just provide one from a country where you’ve lived in the past.
While not cheap, Globalbanks can probably help too—they should have banks in their database, that would work for you.
Good luck! 
It’s worth a try with Canadian banks—in most countries you can use the banks as a citizen, even if you are not a resident anymore.
We have writtten more extensively about taxes in our E-residency guide. Basically, your Estonian company would be automatically considered a tax resident in Estonia. It depends on the tax treaties, if you also need to pay corporate tax in your own country.
e-Estonia Briefing Centre has also written a good article about e-residents’ taxation. And for more specific questions, feel free to get in touch with Estonian Tax and Customs Board (email: nonresident@emta.ee). Although it is highly likely, that they will tell you that you should also consult with a tax advisor in your own country.
If your company’s annual revenue doesn’t exceed €40K, you only need to submit end of financial year reports (by the end of June next year). It’s not obligatory to do that for the first year. If the turnover is more than €40K, you have to do monthly accounting. Fortunately, these services are not very expensive in Estonia. Once you decide on the service provider, most of them can also consult you about international taxes.
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As your company will be a tax resident in Estonia, the company will be taxed and paperwork required by Estonian law (no matter if you are an EU or non-EU resident personally). The most important tax to keep in mind is 20% corporate tax when you pay out dividends to yourself. If there is an additional tax to receiving dividends will depend on your resident country.
Hi, thank you for the super informative article. Any advice on a company one can use just for the required yearly tax report? I don’t foresee any reasonable monthly activity apart from bank deposits on my company account - is a monthly accounting plan really necessary?
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Thank you!
Monthly reporting is not required if the yearly revenue of your company is below €40K, and you don’t have any employees.
Hello Hanna. This artikle helps me a lot. I tried this comparison myself. I just have begun and then I found your artikle. When I was searching for providers I found “Enty”. I haven’t found any reviews about them. Do you know anything about them? I think they are quite new to the market. Thanks in advance. Michael
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Thanks for pointing Enty out, Michael—I hadn’t heard of them before. I looked into it, and they are very new indeed. The company was founded in the end of 2020. We’d be happy to add a review of them in a few months after they have been successfully operating for a year.
Hi Hanna,
I think that you have totally misunderstood Nadia’s question!
She has told you that she has No Tax Residency and is therefor not able to open a personal Bank account.
If she is no longer a tax resident in her previous countries where she was a tax resident how can she use that number.
Hi John,
There was no misunderstanding. Financial systems are not exactly built for people with no residency, and don’t provide an option to choose no tax residency. The best work-around I can come up with is providing them the last tax number that was active, which usually allows to open an account. It’s not ideal but since it’s a required field to open an account in most cases, it needs to be filled out. Perhaps someone else has other suggestions?
Thank you for the great article! I ve just rejected by Xolo, they said ,Xolo cant support marketplaces. My app has a business plan like Airbnb, main income due to commissions, I ve found Stripe has split payment feature, so i was planing to use it. They said no, really cant get, because their web page says Mobile App 's are supported. I ve really wanted to work with them, in addition, they got summer sale for 220 EUR fee till end of August. Anyway, i asked for a solution via email, hope they will find a way for me…
1- Would anyone make it clear what i am missing about Xolo? 
2- Which one would you prefer if you want to apply for Apple developer program as a company (required D-U-N-S number)?
PS. i checked companies financial situation on inforegister.ee, Xolo seems best.
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Thank you and sorry for the late reply!
Xolo does not work with e-commerce and marketplace type of businesses, their main focus is freelancers.
All of the options that have an e-commerce tag in the Airtable, should accept you without any problems. If you prefer bigger, more established companies, I would suggest getting in touch with 1Office, e-Residency Hub or Your Company in Estonia.
Thank you sooo much Hanna, no worries, you are super on time.
I read your epic article again and again, still reading… I sent emails to some of them just to explain my situation… will see.
Feel super close to e-Residency Hub
Hi, Hanna
Recently I’ve got an estonian e-residensy. I am planning to open a small company which will produce and sell some simple medical devices (licensing not required, as far as I know). Activities will include selling the devices (also on ebay) and import-export cross-border operations.
Which service provider and plan would you advise?
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Hi @hanna 
I’m searching for a e-residency provider and monthly accounting for an Estonian business (to be created).
Already talked with Xolo, but I had 1 blocker with them.
Basically, consulting needs to be always the main revenue, while this can be true for the first years, the ultimate goal is to build some kind of retirement fund where gradually the main profit will come from those investments.
I kindly ask you if you know if a special license is needed for that, or if you know a provider that accepts/collaborate with that kind of firm.
Thanks
Hi André,
As long as you’re only investing for yourself, then no special license is needed. You just have to classify the company’s field of activity as passive not active. But this would be the case later on.
I’m a bit surprised that Xolo had a problem with this. Perhaps try asking from E-residency Hub or 1Office. And it would be great if you provide feedback here for others later
Hi Hanna,
I have registered my company already and so cannot transfer it to Xolo. I am searching for a simple accounting package that can read from Wise, create invoices and run monthly/yearly regulatory reports. Enty seems like a good option for me, its clean and has the functions I need. Do you have a view or review on them?
Hi Evan,
I’ve been planning to update the article, there are more companies now since I wrote it.
I had a look at Enty and it seems like a good option, and it’s a trusted e-residency company. The pricing is also very attractive. If you decide to go with them, it would be great if you could also provide some feedback here, so we can make better recommendations in our community.
HI @hanna Hanna
Thank you for being a great moderator and advisor here. I have a question for you that I am hoping you can help me with.
I did a lot of research around starting a company as non-resident (e-resident) in Estonia and entirely managing from another country. I am also a digital nomad providing creative services (mostly video and animation production).
Estonian government is putting a lot of effort to pioneer this field and other countries are catching up. This creates a discussion of tax residency for businesses that are managed by e-residents. As far as my research goes, the tax resident of your company will be based primarily on the place of business. My question is, if I am a digital nomad who provides creative services, does this mean I have to pay corporate tax to the country I reside? If this becomes true, the whole point of starting a company in Estonia becomes rather pointless.
If you know anything about it, your advise would be super appreciated!
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Hi Hiorki!
First of all, apologies for the late reply!
Estonian e-residency company makes the most sense for truly nomadic digital nomads who spend less time in each country (generally not more than a few months) than the minimum time required to become a tax resident there.
Still, the specifics depend on the country where you are indeed registered as resident or spend the majority of your time. A good place to start would be the tax treaty between that country and Estonia, as well as the domestic laws of that country. In most cases, it would rarely be an issue until you regularly spend the majority of your time in any given country while working on your business. And the first issue that may crop up isn’t that of corporate residency but of a permanent establishment (i.e. having to pay tax locally on the profits generated there).
Keeping this in mind, especially where the business is service-based and the entire company is essentially the services you personally provide, then you may want to incorporate that business locally to avoid dealing with questions about corporate residence, permanent establishment, etc.
If there’s no natural country where you spend most of your time, then in most cases you’d be fine with a company registered abroad without any additional hassle.
The same goes for a non-personal service-based business (e.g. if it’s a digital product or service) and the company has strong ties to Estonia or wherever it’s registered (e.g. employees there, ideally in higher positions). In that case, as an owner, as long as you’re mostly working in the business as opposed to on the business, you’d usually be fine if you register a business or as a freelancer where you live and invoice the company according to market rates for your services and pay tax on those locally. Or register a permanent establishment locally. But this only makes sense if it’s no longer a one-person business.
I hope it helps! And I’d always recommend consulting a local tax advisor of the country where you spend the majority of your time as well.
Thanks Hanna, this is spectacular! I wonder if you have tips if the company is going to be just used as a holdco?
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