Entering Estonia for a short-stay

Do you need a visa to travel to Estonia?

You can enter Estonia with just a valid passport and/or identity card (as long as it contains Latin characters) if you're a citizen of the EU or Switzerland. If you're a citizen of one of the 26 Schengen countries, or a citizen of Canada, the U.S., Australia, or New Zealand, you can also cross Estonia's borders with just your passport -- but be aware that your driver's licence or credit card cannot substitute for your passport or ID. Furthermore, there are some countries that have diplomatic relationships with Estonia, so if you're a holder of a diplomatic passport you won't need a visa. To find out exactly what applies to each country, click here.

If you do need a visa to enter the country, you should keep the following in mind:

• Your travel document must still be valid for at least three months after the requested visa period expires.
• Your travel document must have been issued within the previous ten years and must contain at least two blank pages.
• People that are older than 15 years old must possess their own travel document with photo, whereas children up to the age of seven can be entered into their parent's passport without having a photo. Children from seven to 15 years old, need to have their photo in their parents' passport.

To find out about all the necessary documents needed, the different types of visas and the process to acquire your own, click here.

Good to know:
The Estonian customs system adheres to the EU rules and guidelines, which means that some imported goods (such as alcohol, tobacco, and motor fuel) can be subject to a duty fee. For more information, click here.

Planning your trip to Estonia

Estonia has six international airports, but your point of entry will most probably be Tallinn, where you can fly directly from many European cities (London, Paris, Frankfurt, Istanbul, to name a few). The Tallinn airport has won awards for its design and, if you're spending time there between flights, you'll be pleased to discover there's also an airport library that you can borrow books from.

Estonia is also a seabound country, so if you love travelling by boat you have some interesting options. At the port of Tallinn, overnight ferries from Stockholm arrive on a daily basis and there are ferries coming from Helsinki every couple of hours whereas once a week; there's also a ferry from St. Petersburg.

There's also the option to arrive by land as well, as there are coaches from most European cities, and even trains from Central Asia, Mongolia, and China. You could, of course, opt to arrive in Estonia by car, perhaps even make it into a Baltic road trip through Lithuania and Latvia. It certainly will be a scenic ride.