Moving to Estonia

The Social Insurance Board’s current family-benefit rates table gives EUR 80 per child per month for the first and second child and EUR 100 per child per month from the third child; family-with-many-children support is EUR 450 per month for 3–6 eligible children and EUR 650 per month for 7 or more eligible children.

The official Estonian Social Insurance Board page for non-EU arrivals states: ‘the child or children of the family lives or live in Estonia’ and ‘at least one of the parents and children older than 1 year of age have Estonian citizenship, residence permit or right of residence’. The overview page adds that the family must actually live in Estonia and that foreigners and stateless persons residing on the basis of a temporary residence permit receive family benefits until the permit expires. The benefit retains the source’s actual-residence, child-age, household and non-duplication conditions.

The Ministry of Social Affairs states that from 1 January 2026 the subsistence level is EUR 220 per month for a person living alone or the first family member, EUR 264 per month for each minor family member and EUR 176 per month for the second and each subsequent adult family member; the payable benefit is calculated from household net income after eligible housing expenses against the applicable subsistence level.

The current Estonian Act on Granting International Protection to Aliens, §75(1)–(2), states: ‘During his or her stay in Estonia, a beneficiary of international protection is entitled to receive state pension, family support, employment services and employment subsidies, social benefits, health services and other assistance on the same grounds provided by legislation as a permanent resident of Estonia.’ It separately states: ‘A local government may pay subsistence benefit to a beneficiary of international protection whose financial status does not allow him or her to support himself or herself.’ The benefit retains the local-authority, household, income, housing-expense and other statutory conditions; it does not generalize to every foreign resident or every person lawfully staying in Estonia.

The Estonian subsistence threshold for a person living alone or the first family member is EUR 220 per month from 1 January 2026.

The Estonian Government crisis portal states that Ukrainian citizens and their family members who fled after 24 February can receive temporary protection. It also states that applicants for international protection receive accommodation and subsistence during the procedure.

The current Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs page states subsistence levels from 2026-01-01 of EUR 220 for the person living alone or first family member, EUR 176 for each subsequent adult and EUR 264 for each minor; the payable benefit is the applicable household subsistence level plus recognised current housing costs within local limits, minus household net income. A single-parent family whose members are all minors receives the published EUR 15 addition.

Section 9(1) of the Estonian Social Welfare Act states that persons with the right to receive social services, social benefits and other assistance include: ‘aliens residing in Estonia on the basis of residence permits or right of residence’. the subsistence benefit still requires the source-defined household income, housing-cost and subsistence-level conditions and this row does not generalise to every temporary visitor or undocumented stay.

Unemployment Insurance Act §9(4) provides 60% of calculated remuneration per calendar day for days 1–100 and 40% from day 101 to the end of the payment period; §9(5) provides a minimum of 50% of the minimum wage rate per calendar day. The payment period under §8 is 180, 270 or 360 days according to the insurance period.

The General Part of the Social Code Act, §3(1), applies the Social Code rights and obligations to an alien residing in Estonia on the basis of a long-term residence permit or permanent right of residence, or an alien residing in Estonia on the basis of a temporary residence permit or temporary right of residence. Under the Unemployment Insurance Act, §3(1), an insured person is an employee or other listed insured worker who has paid the unemployment insurance premiums; §6 additionally requires unemployment registration and at least 12 months of unemployment-insurance period during the 36 months before registration. and does not imply entitlement without the source-defined insured-work, contribution, registration, qualifying-period and termination conditions.