Methodology — Estonia
This page explains how Tarifo's Estonia calculator turns a case description into a court-fee estimate. Estonia has no statutory lawyer tariff — advocates' fees (advokaaditasu) are agreed privately under the Advokatuuri seadus — so the calculator's single output is the mandatory court fee (riigilõiv). One statute feeds it: the Riigilõivuseadus (State Fees Act), § 59 (civil), § 60 (administrative) and Lisa 1 (the value-band table), off a single (case_id, inputs) pair.
One output, one statute.
The Estonia calculator computes the riigilõivEstonia's court fee — the mandatory charge payable to the State to file or proceed with a case, fixed by the Riigilõivuseadus (State Fees Act, § 59 civil / § 60 administrative, with the value-band table in Lisa 1). For monetary claims it is a fixed-amount band lookup on the claim value (a €100 minimum rising to a €5,000 cap over €500,000); flat amounts and two 3% rules cover the other cases. It is a court cost, not a lawyer fee — Estonia has no statutory lawyer tariff — and it carries no käibemaks (VAT).Glossary → — the mandatory, government-set fee payable to the State to file or proceed with a case. Civil matters are governed by the Riigilõivuseadus (State Fees Act, RLS) § 59, which refers value-based claims to Lisa 1 (Annex 1); administrative matters by § 60; and the exemptions by § 22. Tarifo tracks the consolidated textA version of a statute that incorporates all amendments to date. Tarifo always encodes from the current consolidated text, never a superseded version.Glossary → in force 12.06.2026–31.12.2026 (Avaldamismärge RT I, 03.06.2026, 20); the Lisa 1 band table itself has been unchanged since 01.01.2022 (RT I, 08.12.2021, 1). Every figure on the page is in EUR and shown at face value.
Unlike Tarifo’s lawyer-tariff countries, Estonia has no statutory lawyer tariff: advocates’ fees (advokaaditasu) are freely agreed under the Advokatuuri seadus and the Eesti Advokatuuri tasude eeskiri. So there is no lawyer-fee engine and the “reference valuesA tariff figure that is advisory, not mandatory — a guide to what a fee customarily is, which the lawyer and client remain free to depart from. Every number Tarifo shows is a reference value.Glossary →, not floors” framing (CJEU C-438/22) does not apply — the riigilõiv is an exact statutory amount. Sworn-bailiff remuneration (Kohtutäituri seadus) and the insolvency deposit (Pankrotiseadus) live in separate statutes and are returned as out-of-scope.
A band table, two 3% rules, and flat fees.
- Monetary band table (Lisa 1)
The headline scale for claims assessable in money. It is a fixed-amount lookup, not a percentage formula — the band cell is the fee. Thirty-one bands run from €100 (value ≤ €350, the statutory minimum) up to €4,760 (€350,001–€500,000), each inclusive of its upper edge. Above €500,000 the fee is the €5,000 cap (§ 59 lg 1 + Lisa 1).
- Two 3% rules
A payment order (maksekäskEstonia's expedited payment-order procedure (maksekäsu kiirmenetlus) — a fast, mostly paperwork route to an enforceable title for an undisputed money debt up to €8,000. Its court fee is 3% of the claim with a €65 minimum and no maximum (Riigilõivuseadus § 59 lg 6); if the debtor objects, the matter converts to ordinary proceedings.Glossary →, § 59 lg 6) is 3 % of the claim, minimum €65, with no maximum. An administrative damages or tax dispute (§ 60 lg 2) is 3 % clamped to [€20, €1,050]. These are the only true percentage formulas — everything else is a lookup or a flat amount.
- Flat fees
A non-property or other-remedy claim is €420 (§ 59 lg 4); a divorce is €100 (§ 59 lg 2); interim relief is €70 (§ 59 lg 17); a stand-alone parentage claim is €40 (§ 59 lg 3); custody/access, adoption and protection-from-violence are €10 each (§ 59 lg 7); a general administrative-court complaint is €20 (§ 60 lg 1).
- Statutory exemptions (§ 22)
§ 22 lg 1 p 1 exempts employees in employment-relations claims and § 22 lg 1 p 2 exempts maintenance claimants outright. The calculator returns amount = 0 with the exempting point cited.
An appeal is charged the full first-instance fee — not half. Under § 59 lg 15 (civil) and § 60 lg 7 (administrative), the fee on an appeal (apellatsioonkaebus) equals the rate payable when filing the original claim. There is no × 0.5 multiplier — the same cross-country copy-paste trap Romania and Bulgaria fall into. Cassation (kassatsioonkaebus, Riigikohus) is a TsMS § 679 deposit, not a value-scaled fee, so it is out of scope.
No VAT — and no lawyer fee.
The riigilõiv is a statutory charge outside the scope of käibemaks (Estonian VAT). The calculator displays it at face value with no VAT line and no toggle. Because there is no statutory lawyer tariff, there is also no lawyer-fee figure and no lawyer-VAT toggle — the court fee stands alone. In cases of hardship a litigant may apply to be exempted from or to pay a reduced fee under § 22, or for procedural aid (menetlusabi) under TsMS § 180.
A monetary claim of €50,000, first instance.
Take a monetary claim with a value of €50,000 (civil_claim_money, first instance):
| Step | Source | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Claim value | input | €50,000.00 |
| Lisa 1 band €25,001–€50,000 (§ 59 lg 1) | 50,000 → band | €1,400.00 |
| Stage (first instance) | × 1.0 | €1,400.00 |
The same claim on appeal is charged the same €1,400.00 (§ 59 lg 15) — never €700. A claim of exactly €500,000 is the last tabled band (€4,760); at €500,000.01 the €5,000 cap engages and never rises further. An unquantified (“not limited”) monetary claim falls back to the €420 non-property fee, not the cap. All of these values are pinned in the engine’s unit tests.
Where the schedule is re-derived, not ported.
Estonia reuses the shared cross-country case-type taxonomy, but every classification is re-derived from the Riigilõivuseadus — a case treated one way in another country may be charged differently here. Three re-derivations are pinned as regression tests:
civil_claim_moneyRomania and Bulgaria compute an appeal as half of the first-instance fee. Estonia charges the full first-instance rate on appeal (§ 59 lg 15): a €50,000 claim is €1,400 at first instance and €1,400 on appeal, not €700. The same €5,000 cap applies, so a very large claim is capped at €5,000 at both stages. This matches Latvia and diverges from RO/BG.
civil_payment_orderA payment order (maksekäsu kiirmenetlus) is not charged off Lisa 1. It is 3 % of the debt, minimum €65, with no maximum (§ 59 lg 6): at a debt of €1,000 the fee is the €65 floor (3 % = €30), where an ordinary Lisa 1 claim would be €245; at €5,000 it is €150. Latvia, by contrast, uses a dedicated band table for its payment order — the mechanism is country-specific and must not be cross-checked.
family_child_arrangementsRomania exempts child-arrangements and adoption, and Latvia exempts protection-from-violence. Estonia charges €10 for each as a non-contentious family matter (hagita perekonnaasi, § 59 lg 7) — those exemptions are not ported. The maintenance component, by contrast, is exempt under § 22 lg 1 p 2, so a pure maintenance claim returns €0.
A second class of divergence is purely categorical: every employment case (labour_*) and the maintenance claim return amount = 0 under the § 22 exemptions. Unlike Latvia — where administrative-court fees sit in a separate statute and are out of scope — Estonia’s administrative fees are in the same RLS (§ 60), so they are computed, not omitted. Only money-judgment enforcement (Kohtutäituri seadus) and the insolvency application (Pankrotiseadus deposit) are governed by separate statutes, so the calculator returns null and hides the fee panel. Coverage: 15 computed + 4 no_fee (€0, surfaced) = 19 mapped; 2 out_of_scope omitted (catalogue of 21).
- Statute
- Riigilõivuseadus §§ 59 & 60 + Lisa 1 (In force 12.06.2026–31.12.2026 (RT I, 03.06.2026, 20); Lisa 1 since 01.01.2022)
- Currency
- EUR
- VAT treatment
- Court fees (riigilõiv): 0 % — outside the scope of käibemaks (VAT). No lawyer tariff.
- Last verified