Doors Open to Foreign Investors on the Internet

Now a company can be founded in the Company Registration Portal of the Commercial Register on the Internet also with a Portuguese, Lithuanian and Belgian ID-card. Finland will be added to the list in the nearest future.

According to Rein Lang, Minister of Justice, it is probably the first time when a state register officially accepts the ID-cards of other states and the digital signatures given with such ID-cards. “It means that a Belgian or Portuguese businessman can now found a company in Estonia via the Company Registration Portal,” said Rein Lang. “As a member of the company, he or she can file an electronic annual report and change the registered information of the company via the Company Registration Portal. Similar opportunities will soon be available to Estonian ID-card holders in Portugal,” the Minister of Justice added.

As stated by Ingmar Vali, Head of the Department of Court Registers of the Centre of Registers and Information Systems, the given project is not only about founding a company.
“The given solution could be applied also to other Estonian Internet portals, so that they would also be able to accept foreign digital signatures, if needed,” Vali explained. “For example, documents to be sent to courts, which have to be digitally signed before filing. The state portal eesti.ee could also start accepting foreign ID-cards and digital signatures, and why not – also the Internet banks could do the same.”

“To make it simple, when a foreigner has business in Estonia, he or she should be able to do the same things with his or her ID-card, as Estonians,” Vali stressed. “If a trader is a foreigner, he or she does not have to come to Estonia every time when he or she needs to communicate with the state. Some things could be taken care of from the distance via Internet portals.”

As mentioned above, in addition to Belgium and Portugal, the Company Registration Portal accepts also Lithuanian digital signature, where the technical solution is the SIM-card of Mobile-ID.

The website of the Belgian partner of the Centre of Registers and Information Systems is http://www.certipost.be and the website of the Portuguese partner is http://www.portaldaempresa.pt
Also AS Sertifitseerimiskeskus participates in the given project. The Company Registration Portal is at the address https://ettevotjaportaal.rik.ee