Obligation to submit data
Reliable decision-making requires high-quality data. Every year, commissioned by the Estonian state and the European Union, Statistics Estonia collects information from entrepreneurs on a wide range of indicators, thus providing a valuable basis for assessing the state of the Estonian economy, making tax and wage decisions, and granting subsidies to the business sector.
The statutory task of Statistics Estonia is to provide reliable and objective information about Estonian society, and data collection is always based on public interest.
A large proportion of the surveys are carried out on the basis of a common methodology in all EU countries, which allows us to assess how the Estonian economy is doing compared with that of other member states. The statistics produced on the basis of the data submitted are used by state and research institutions, enterprises, international organisations, and individuals. The statistics produced from the data collected are made available to the public in the statistical database.
Enterprises are obliged to submit data
If an enterprise registered in Estonia is included in the sample of a Statistics Estonia survey, it is obliged, pursuant to § 28 of the Official Statistics Act, to submit complete and accurate data to Statistics Estonia within the deadline. The questionnaires and deadlines for enterprises can be found on Statistics Estonia's website under the heading "Obligation to submit data".
At the end of each year, Statistics Estonia informs enterprises about the data they are required to provide in the following year. The notification is sent to the enterprise's email address indicated in the Business Register or, in the absence of one, to its postal address.
Does Statistics Estonia also use the data that are already available?
Statistics Estonia first collects data from existing databases, such as state registers. Currently, Statistics Estonia actively uses data from more than 500 databases and works continuously to keep the number of questionnaires as low as possible.
Data are collected through questionnaires only if the data required for official statistics are not available in databases or are not sufficiently detailed. The data to be collected by Statistics Estonia are determined by the data requirements of the Estonian state and the European Union.
How to submit data?
From June 2025, data can be submitted to Statistics Estonia in a new self-service environment at uuringud.stat.ee, where questionnaires are partially prefilled.
To log in to the self-service environment, authentication via ID-card, Mobile-ID, or Smart-ID is required. Only enterprises registered in the Business Register can be represented in the self-service environment.
The environment checks the representative’s affiliation to the enterprise against the Business Register and automatically grants the right to submit data. The representative can then add the main user and respondents.
The self-service is available to enterprises that are obliged to provide data.
More detailed information about the self-service environment is available on Statistics Estonia's website.
Where to turn for help with submitting data?
If you have any questions regarding the submission of data, please contact Statistics Estonia’s customer support by email at [email protected] or by phone at +372 625 9300 (Mon–Thu 8.30–16.30, Fri 8.30–15.30).
How do you select the enterprises that must submit data to Statistics Estonia?
Statistics Estonia includes enterprises in surveys with the aim of ensuring that the data provided by these enterprises provide the best possible information on the phenomenon under study. The exact criteria for inclusion in the sample vary depending on the questionnaire. Statistics Estonia also strives to take into account that the highest quality statistics can be produced with the least possible administrative burden.
Complete and sample surveys are conducted to collect data.
A complete survey means that all enterprises engaged in a given economic activity are surveyed. Such a survey is carried out when there are few enterprises engaged in an activity or when the statistical impact of each enterprise is so great that excluding any one of them would significantly distort the overall picture.
In the case of a sample survey, a random selection from among the enterprises engaged in a particular economic activity is made.
Since large enterprises have a significant impact on the trends of the phenomena under study, enterprises with more than 50 employees are required to submit data every year. Smaller enterprises are included in the sample by random selection.
To ensure sufficient data quality and level of detail by economic activity and enterprise size class, Statistics Estonia uses a random sampling methodology that is consistent with the methodology used in other European Union countries.
The random sampling system ensures that the administrative burden on enterprises is as low and consistent as possible and that small enterprises do not have to complete all questionnaires at once. Each year, some of the enterprises are removed from the sample and new ones are included. However, it may happen that an enterprise excluded from one sample is immediately included in the sample of another survey. Once included in a random sample, a certain number of enterprises remain in the sample for several years in a row. The exact length of time depends on the enterprise's economic activity and size.
More information on how the samples are drawn can be found on Statistics Estonia's website.
What are the data collected by Statistics Estonia used for?
Statistics Estonia, as the producer of official statistics, aims to collect objective information on the economy and society of Estonia. How competitive is the Estonian economy? Are higher-paying jobs found in private enterprises or in the public sector? How many new dwellings have been built in Estonia over the last ten years? What are the hourly wages for different occupations? We can answer these questions thanks to the data enterprises have submitted to Statistics Estonia.
The data collected by Statistics Estonia are used, for example, to draw up the budgets of the state and local governments, to inform ministries about the sectors that ought to receive more attention or subsidies, and to assess the state of Estonia's trade, business, or labour market. Most of the data collected from enterprises are also used in calculating gross domestic product (GDP). The information collected from enterprises are also needed by the European Union's statistical office, which compares economic and social indicators in different countries.
The statistics produced from the collected data are made available to the public in Statistics Estonia’s applications, dashboards, and the statistical database.
Statistics Estonia's online release calendar gives an overview of when data in the database are updated.
Information on all the questionnaires and the data submission deadlines are published on Statistics Estonia's website.