Estonia, one of the Baltic countries that became independent of the Soviet Union along with Latvia and Lithuania in the early 1990s, is an IT-conscious country with a significant number of IT-related startups, including Skype. The Estonian government is doing its best to make a “digital country” by inviting IT engineers to some offshore development sites in Europe’s IT market.

The government issues Estonian citizens an ID card, similar to a Social Security Card in the United States, which enables holders to offer one-stop services, including taxation, online banking, issuing medical prescriptions, and more. In addition to offering an ID card for real residents, it introduced the e-Residency scheme, which is available not only to residents of Estonia but also to people who don’t live in Estonia. In this scheme, an “e-Residency Card” is issued to the “e-Residents” of Estonia, and similar services to those for real residents are offered “electronically” with the card via their computers.

Application for an e-Residency Card is easy. First, visit the application page on the e-Estonia website at https://apply.e-estonia.com/. And then you can apply for the card by filling in the required information on the website and paying €50.99 online with a credit card. You can have the card sent to any Estonian Embassy outside Estonia, so you can pick it up at the nearest Embassy without flying to Estonia. About one month after submitting the online application, the card will be ready, and you will receive an email notification.