Estonia: 17% of first data-based payroll filings came from accounting software

Estonia: 17% of first data-based payroll filings came from accounting software

10 November 2026: Estonia's Tax and Customs Board (EMTA) says nearly 76,000 businesses had filed their income and social tax return (TSD) by the first deadline under data-based reporting, and that more than 17% of them sent the data straight from their accounting software. The board puts that at almost three times as many businesses as used automated solutions before the change, so the shift it has been preparing since the autumn is now measurable.

Not yet independently verified. The strike, the earlier ERR count of about 41,000 declarations with 20 percent through accounting software, and the figures on employers and quarterly payments are from ERR News, which cites the Estonian daily Delfi and the board; none of them is on the board's own page. We have not opened the legal basis of the new TSD. We will update this when it can be confirmed, and remove this note.

What the board counted on deadline day

The numbers come from the board's own news item, published on the afternoon of the deadline. By the morning, it says, over 80% of the businesses that usually file the TSD by the deadline had already transmitted their October salary payment data. It describes the pace of filing as usual so far and says submissions were still arriving when it wrote.

The 17% is a share of those who had filed, not of all employers. For the board that is the headline result of the first month, because until October nearly every business declared its payroll by hand in the e-MTA portal or by uploading a file.

From declaring to transmitting

Madis Laas, head of the board's Income Tax Department, calls the change fundamental. Businesses used to submit tax declarations; now they transmit data from their accounting systems, and tax and statistical data reach the state in the same step. He said:

"The main aim of the new system is to enable businesses to enter data once, in one place, within their business or accounting software."

For the businesses that filed this way, he says, the transition has generally been smooth, and the process is automated, with ongoing data checks. The board frames this as part of the national real-time economy programme led by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, whose aim is to stop businesses compiling the same data again for different agencies.

The accountants who stopped filing

Not everyone found it smooth. ERR News reports, citing the daily Delfi, that accountants held a warning strike on 10 and 11 November. Participants stay at work but refuse to submit TSD declarations, and they tell clients what they owe so that late-payment penalties are avoided. Riin Pajula, chief executive of Arvestusabi OÜ, told Delfi that most accountants have struggled since the system opened in early October, and Margus Tammeraja, chair of the Estonian Accountants' Association, said reform should reduce workloads.

The board does not mention the strike. Laas does concede that the move has been more complicated than expected for some accountants, says most technical issues are now resolved, and says the board is analysing feedback and looking at ways to improve the solution. The board also says time savings vary: a business with one or two employees entering data by hand in e-MTA may notice none at first, while larger companies and accountancy offices serving many clients should cut repetitive work significantly.

Where this sits in the rollout

The deadline is the first checkpoint after the October change we reported in Estonia moves VAT returns to data-based filing from April 2027, when the board stopped accepting XML for the main payroll annexes. That item covered the dates for software vendors ahead; this one reports the first month's result. ERR adds that the board plans to extend data-based reporting to the employment register and VAT returns in the first half of 2027. Our catalogue lists payroll software and accounting software, the two product types a business needs to file this way.

The board's page ends by pointing readers to emta.ee/apa-tsd for more on data-based TSD.

Sources

• Estonian Tax and Customs Board: Today is the first deadline for data-based tax reporting, most businesses have already submitted their data, 10 November 2026, 10 November 2026
• ERR News: Accountants go on strike over new labor taxes declaration system, 10 November 2026, 10 November 2026