Document Retention in Estonia. What Every Entrepreneur Should Know

Document Retention in Estonia. What Every Entrepreneur Should Know

Documents are part of every business.

At first, all the invoices, receipts and contracts might feel hard to manage – but keeping your business paperwork organised can actually be quite simple once you know the rules.

This guide explains what every entrepreneur with a company registered in Estonia should know about storing and keeping business documents.

How long and where to keep them

Under Estonian law, business documents must be stored for 7 years after the end of the financial year in which they were created.

You can decide how and where to store them.

And since Estonia is one of the most digital countries in the world, your paperwork doesn’t have to stay on paper.

You can safely store documents in Dropbox, Google Drive, your computer, or on an external hard drive – anywhere that’s secure and easy to access.

The main rule: documents must be easy to find and available if the Estonian Tax and Customs Board (Maksu- ja Tolliamet) ever asks for them.

Which documents must be kept

You should keep everything that proves money movement in your company, such as:

• invoices (both issued and received)

• receipts and payment slips

• contracts

• payroll documents
  
  

Why receipts matter

For larger purchases, you usually receive an invoice that stays in the system.

But for smaller expenses, like buying coffee beans for the office, printer paper, or a pack of pens, the shop might give you only a receipt.

If that receipt gets lost, you no longer have proof that the expense was made for business purposes.

Without proof, the expense becomes taxable, which means it will cost more for the company.

What to do if a document is lost

If a receipt or invoice goes missing, you have two options:

1. Pay the missing amount back to your company from your personal account, or

2. Keep it as a business expense, but then you must pay income tax on it in Estonia.
   
   

Example:

A €100 receipt is lost in May.

By June, it must be declared and income tax added:

€100 × 22/78 = €28.21 tax.

So one small lost receipt could end up costing almost a third more than the original purchase.

What information a document must include

To be valid, a document must include at least:

• the date of the transaction,

• a short description of what happened, and

• the numbers (quantity, price, total).
  

If these details are included, the document is considered correct and acceptable under Estonian accounting rules.

Summary

Keeping your business documents in order is not difficult once you have a system that works for you.

Store them in the format that feels most convenient. It might be digital or paper, it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that they’re safe, complete and easy to find.

If something goes missing, it may lead to extra tax costs.

Well-organised documents give you peace of mind, and in business, that’s one of the most valuable things you can have.