Where to live in Estonia
We track 3 cities in Estonia: Narva, Tallinn and Tartu. Each averages 7°C over the year. We estimate a couple needs €2,585 to €2,802 a month to live centrally. Estonia sits in our low to medium tax tier. For citizens from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland, long-term residency is possible, with conditions.
12 questions, about 4 minutes, no account needed. Taking the quiz is free, and so is seeing your #1 city. Full results for both of you are a one-time US$12 (€12 in Europe).
- Tax tier
- Low to medium
- Moderate personal income tax
- Languages
- Estonian, English
- Good English
- Safety
- 78/100
- country-level
- Healthcare
- 66/100
- country-level
- Internet
- ~100 Mbps
- median fixed broadband
The 3 cities we track
Source: City size from GeoNames, temperature from the Open-Meteo archive (2019 to 2023 averages), rainfall from TerraClimate (1991 to 2020 normals), coast distance from Natural Earth. Cost is our model estimate for a couple living centrally.
Taxes
Estonia sits in our low to medium tax tier: moderate personal income tax. The tier applies to every city here, and couples who cap tax below it will not see these cities in their results.
Source: OurNextCity tax tiers, assigned by hand from each country's top marginal personal income tax rate and overall tax reputation, with no fixed rate cut-offs. Coarse by design; not tax advice.
Residency and visas
Possible, with conditions, for people from outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland. Estonia has no passive-income or retirement permit, so self-funded applicants rely on the business/enterprise permit (sole proprietor or company shareholder) or the large-investor permit, while skilled applicants use sponsored employment, the EU Blue Card, or the startup route.
Citizens of the EU, EEA and Switzerland have freedom-of-movement or simplified residency rights here.
The cheapest self-funded routes we track for Estonia:
- Investment: about $19k (Estonia residence permit for business as a sole proprietor, minimum EUR 16,000 invested in the business activity (vs EUR 65,000 for a company shareholder and EUR 1,000,000 for the large-investor permit); converted at 1 EUR = 1.1637 USD (2026-06-02).; as of June 2026)
For short visits, 93 of 198 passports can enter visa-free and 105 need a visa in advance.
Source: OurNextCity residency dataset, hand-reviewed approximations researched against published immigration rules, figures as of June 2026. Not legal advice: check the official source before you apply. Short-stay entry from the passport-index dataset (ilyankou, MIT).