Temporary agency work and private employment mediation in Estonia

A company that hires out its own employees to other businesses (a temporary work agency) or that finds jobs for people and staff for employers (a private employment mediator) must file a notice of economic activities in the Register of Economic Activities before it starts¹⁶. The law adds conduct rules: no fees may be charged to job seekers or agency workers, and the employment contract with the agency worker has its own rules⁴¹⁹. Agencies that place third-country nationals must also meet the conditions of the Aliens Act²³²⁴.

Information as of 11 November 2026. Every numbered statement of this page was checked in the official text named below and re-checked by a second reviewer on 2026-11-11. The page is general information, not legal advice; the authority decides on every application.

What the activity is

The Labour Market Measures Act (tööturumeetmete seadus, TöMS) covers two activities of a private business¹:

• Employment mediation (töövahendus): supporting a person in finding suitable work and an employer in finding a suitable employee, including passing on the information needed for this².
• Hiring out workers (renditööjõu vahendamine): concluding an employment contract with a person in order to send them to temporary agency work¹. Temporary agency work means that the employee works temporarily under the direction and control of a third party, the user undertaking (kasutajaettevõtja)³.

The mediation of seafarers is also governed by the Maritime Labour Act (meretöö seadus)⁷; this page does not cover it.

The legal act and the authority

• Labour Market Measures Act (TöMS), §§ 26–27: the notice duty and the ban on fees¹⁴. TöMS transposes Directive 2008/104/EC on temporary agency work³¹.
• Employment Contracts Act (töölepingu seadus, TLS): the agency work contract^319202122.
• General Part of the Economic Activities Code Act (majandustegevuse seadustiku üldosa seadus, MSÜS): how the notice is filed, its contents and the register⁶⁸¹¹.
• Aliens Act (välismaalaste seadus, VMS): employing third-country nationals as agency workers²³²⁴.

Supervision: the Labour Inspectorate (Tööinspektsioon) supervises compliance with TöMS §§ 26 and 27⁵. The Police and Border Guard Board (Politsei- ja Piirivalveamet, PPA) registers short-term employment of foreigners and issues precepts when the required wage is not paid to them²³²⁸.

Register: the Register of Economic Activities (majandustegevuse register, MTR), whose controller is the Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (Tarbijakaitse ja Tehnilise Järelevalve Amet, TTJA)⁶. In the register's own list, both "Töövahendus" and "Renditööjõu vahendamine" are fields with a notice of economic activities, filed in TTJA's Tarvik system⁷.

Who must file

Every business that intends to carry out employment mediation or to hire out workers files the notice before starting¹. A company being founded becomes subject to the notice duty when it acquires legal capacity¹⁰.

Exemptions named in MSÜS § 14(3): no notice is needed by a business that holds a licence obligation in the same field, or by a service provider established in another contracting state that wishes to provide services temporarily in Estonia within the meaning of Article 57 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, except for the services named in Article 17 of the Services Directive⁹. Whether this exemption applies to a foreign agency is specified for the client's case.

Requirements for the applicant

Capital, management and AML/CFT. Whether such requirements apply is specified for the client's case.

Fee ban. A mediator may not charge the job seeker for mediation; an agency may not charge the worker for sending them to agency work⁴.

Rules of the agency work contract (TLS).

• The employer informs the employee of the name of the user undertaking and that the work is done as agency work; if this is not given in writing, the arrangement is presumed not to have been agreed³.
• Terms that prevent the agency worker from concluding an employment contract with the user undertaking after the assignment ends are void¹⁹.
• A fixed-term contract may also be concluded when the temporary nature of the work at the user undertaking justifies it; the limit on successive fixed-term contracts applies to each user undertaking separately²⁰.
• The worker also follows the user undertaking's instructions; if these conflict with the employer's, the employer's instructions prevail²¹.
• The employer informs the agency worker of vacancies at the user undertaking for which a permanent contract is possible, if the user undertaking has not done so²².

Third-country workers (VMS). A foreigner's short-term employment must be registered with the PPA before work begins²³. Short-term agency work can be registered, and a temporary residence permit for agency work can be issued, if the employer:

1. is entered in the Estonian commercial register or is a company registered in another European Economic Area (EEA) state;
2. is engaged in hiring out workers; and
3. has had actual economic activity for at least six consecutive months²³²⁴.

For a residence permit, the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund (Eesti Töötukassa) permission conditions apply to the job at the user undertaking²⁵. A permit is refused if the employer or user undertaking has been convicted of certain crimes or was set up mainly to facilitate the arrival of foreigners, and may be refused for tax arrears, certain misdemeanours, unmet notification duties, bankruptcy, or other reasonable doubt about reliability²⁶. A worker with such a permit may move to another user undertaking under the permit's conditions²⁷. If the agency does not pay the required wage, the PPA issues a precept and may impose a penalty payment of up to EUR 32,000²⁸.

Repealed conditions. The earlier additional subsections for agency work (VMS § 106(8¹), § 176¹(2¹) and (3)) were repealed from 1 January 2026²⁹. Amendments to the Aliens Act are scheduled from 1 January 2027; this page uses the wording in force today³⁰.

Documents filed with the notice

The notice contains these data¹¹:

• Business: name and registry code; contact details; for a foreign business, its foreign address¹¹.
• Activity: the field's statutory name and its classification name and code; the start date and, where relevant, the end date¹¹.
• Signatory: name and contact details, and the basis of representation¹¹.

Several notice fields with the same registrar can be combined in one notice⁸. The notice can be filed through the state portal (eesti.ee) or a notary¹².

State fee and processing time

A state fee of EUR 10 is payable only when the notice is filed in another way than through the one-stop point (the state portal or a notary)¹³.

The registrar enters the data no later than the working day after the notice is filed¹⁴. Afterwards the business reports changes in its general data within five working days, confirms each year with the annual report that its notices are up to date, and files a notice when it gives up the activity¹⁵¹⁶. For a substantial breach of the requirements, the authority may ban the activity for one year¹⁷; knowingly giving false data to the registrar is a misdemeanour (fine up to 300 fine units, for a legal person up to EUR 3,000)¹⁸. In supervision the Labour Inspectorate may apply the special measures of the Law Enforcement Act (korrakaitseseadus) §§ 30, 31, 32, 49, 50 and 51⁵. Procedures for foreign workers (PPA registration, Töötukassa permission, residence permits) have their own time limits, which are specified for the client's case; any time limit is the law's, not a promise.

What LexorCorp Global OÜ does and how to order

LexorCorp Global OÜ prepares the notice of economic activities for the client's company: it sets out the requirements of the act for the activity from the official text, submits the notice through the Register of Economic Activities and follows up the authority's questions in writing³². The fee is a professional fee for this work; it is not a state fee and does not include state or third-party costs³³. LexorCorp Global does not give legal or tax advice and does not audit, and it cannot promise any decision of an authority or a date.

There is no fixed price row for this activity: the price is given on request. In the guide Licensed activities in Estonia, section "Labour market", use the "Request a price" button next to "Temporary agency work" or "Recruitment"; the request reaches LexorCorp like any other enquiry and the reply comes by e-mail³².

Sources

1. TöMS § 26 — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
2. TöMS § 14(2) — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
3. TLS § 6(5) and (9) — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
4. TöMS § 27 — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
5. TöMS §§ 30–31 — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
6. MSÜS § 8(4), § 14(1) — text in force from 01.09.2025 (valid until 31.12.2026)
7. TTJA MTR, Teate- ja loakohustusega tegevusalad (section TÖÖTURG) — text in force from page read 2026-11-11
8. MSÜS § 14(2) — text in force from 01.09.2025 (valid until 31.12.2026)
9. MSÜS § 14(3) — text in force from 01.09.2025 (valid until 31.12.2026)
10. MSÜS § 14(4) — text in force from 01.09.2025 (valid until 31.12.2026)
11. MSÜS § 15(1) — text in force from 01.09.2025 (valid until 31.12.2026)
12. MSÜS § 9(1), § 58(2) — text in force from 01.09.2025 (valid until 31.12.2026)
13. MSÜS § 9(6); RLS § 345 — text in force from RLS 01.11.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026); MSÜS 01.09.2025 (valid until 31.12.2026)
14. MSÜS § 59(2) — text in force from 01.09.2025 (valid until 31.12.2026)
15. MSÜS § 30(5)-(6) — text in force from 01.09.2025 (valid until 31.12.2026)
16. MSÜS § 34(1) — text in force from 01.09.2025 (valid until 31.12.2026)
17. MSÜS § 36(1), (6) — text in force from 01.09.2025 (valid until 31.12.2026)
18. MSÜS § 75 — text in force from 01.09.2025 (valid until 31.12.2026)
19. TLS § 6¹ — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
20. TLS § 9(1), § 10(2) — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
21. TLS § 17(5) — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
22. TLS § 28(2) p 9¹ — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
23. VMS § 106(1), (7), (8) — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
24. VMS § 176¹(1)-(2) — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
25. VMS § 177(1²) — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
26. VMS § 180(1), (1¹), (2) — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
27. VMS § 181³ — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
28. VMS § 286³(1), (4), (6) — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
29. VMS § 106(8¹), § 176¹(2¹), (3) (and full-text search for 'tagatis': no employer deposit/security) — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
30. VMS header (Sõnastuse kehtivuse lõpp) — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
31. TöMS footnote — text in force from 01.10.2026 (valid until 31.12.2026)
32. LexorCorp Global price list and service description (price list)
33. LexorCorp Global price list and service description (price list)

Official sources

The laws this article names, each linked to its official text, as read on 9 October 2026. For the Estonian acts we read the English translation in Riigi Teataja; the legally binding text is the Estonian one.

• Aliens Act — Riigi Teataja, English translation
• Employment Contracts Act — Riigi Teataja, English translation

Sources in the text are named without links; the official texts are linked under Official sources. To see which of our services your company needs, open the Business Navigator.