Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna was on a visit to Madrid
on 10 and 11 February, where today he met Estonian e-residents, representatives of Estonian companies operating in Spain, and Estonia’s honorary consuls.
“Business diplomacy is becoming an increasingly important pillar of Estonia’s foreign policy. The state supports the activities of Estonian companies and helps them open doors around the world, because the more Estonian businesses export to different countries and the more investment flows into Estonia, the better we do as a country and as an economy,” Foreign Minister Tsahkna said at a meeting with representatives of Bolt, Wise and Datel operating in Spain, as well as with Spanish e-residents.
“Spain is one of the most important target countries for the e-Residency programme. Estonia has approximately 7,700 e-residents in Spain who, through 3,500 companies registered in Estonia, contribute to the Estonian economy,” Tsahkna said, adding that this demonstrates trust in Estonia’s digital state and a desire to conduct cross-border business within Europe.
To date, more than 136,000 people from 185 countries have joined the e-Residency programme. Among them are over 7,700 Spanish citizens who have established nearly 3,400 Estonian companies, forming the largest foreign national community among Estonia’s e-residents. In the past six months alone, nearly 300 new companies have been established with the participation of Spanish e-residents.
“e-Residency is part of Estonia’s strong digital state model, where all public services are available online. It enables entrepreneurs around the world to establish and manage a company entirely digitally and creates real and practical cooperation opportunities within the European economy,” the foreign minister noted.
e-Residency has developed into a high-yield national digital policy instrument which, on the one hand, assists enterprising foreigners and, on the other, brings revenue to the Estonian state. In recent years, the e-Residency programme has contributed more than €60 million annually to the Estonian economy in labour and income taxes, and last year as much as €125 million. The programme directly supports entrepreneurship, the start-up and deep-tech sectors, and strengthens Estonia’s position as a digital business environment within the EU.
As part of the visit, the strengthening of economic cooperation between Estonia and Spain was also discussed.
Spain is ranked 19th among Estonia’s export partners – almost 700 Estonian companies exported to Spain in 2025 with the value of goods and services about €350 million. Imports from Spain amount to about twice as much.
At a meeting with Estonia’s honorary consuls in Spain, the foreign minister thanked them for their dedication to raising Estonia’s profile in their respective regions, for their contribution to strengthening relations between Estonia and Spain, and for assisting Estonian citizens.
“Honorary consuls are an important extension of Estonia’s foreign service around the world, promoting Estonia and creating and maintaining contacts between Estonia and their home country,” Tsahkna said. “It was a great honour for me to present Ministry of Foreign Affairs awards today in Madrid to Josep L. Rovira, who has served as Estonia’s Honorary Consul in Barcelona for 25 years.”
Yesterday, the foreign minister met his Spanish counterpart in Madrid and spoke at the Spanish Diplomatic School and at the Elcano Royal Institute. Read more.
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