Mandatory pension funds: All persons born on or after 1 January 1983 who are new entrants to the labour market are covered.

Persons born on or after 1 January 1942 and before 1 January 1983 could join mandatory pension scheme on a voluntary basis. They could join the scheme before 2009, after this date they cannot anymore join the scheme. As the first pillar pension formula will be supplemented with a more solidary part from 2021, people who wish to have their future pension more dependent on the amount of social security contributions will be able to join the second pension pillar. It is possible to join II pillar for people born between 1970 and 1982 from 1 January 2020 to 30 November 2020. Pillar II contributions will be made by new entrants from 1 January 2021.

Persons born before 1 January 1942 are not allowed to contribute to a mandatory pension fund.

Self-employed persons are liable to pay social tax on the income from self-employment and are therefore required to choose a mandatory pension fund.

In order to become a member of a mandatory pension fund, a person must submit an application. The right to submit an application arises when the person attains age 18. A person of at least age 16 may also submit an application with the written consent of their legal representative.

Mandatory pension funds: If a person who should be covered does not choose a mandatory pension fund, the Pensionikeskus determines the pension fund for that person by choosing a fund investing at least 75% to equity, equity funds or similar instruments. Only three pension funds with the lowest ongoing charges are counting.

Pension management companies (PMCs) must not refuse any applications for membership from eligible persons.

Mandatory pension funds: Funded in individual accounts.

Mandatory pension funds: Pension management companies (PMCs) must employ fund managers for the management of pension fund assets, who must:

have the education and knowledge necessary for the performance of their duties and an impeccable business reputation.

The following shall not be managers of management companies:
1) persons whose activities or omissions have caused bankruptcy or revocation of the activity licence of a fund, fund manager or another person subject to financial supervision;
2) persons who have committed a criminal offence in the first degree;
3) persons who have been punished for an economic offence, official misconduct or offence against property or offence against public trust and data concerning the punishment have not been deleted from the criminal records database pursuant to the Criminal Records Database Act;
4) with respect to whom a court has imposed in accordance with the Penal Code an occupational ban or prohibition to engage in enterprise, and persons with respect to whom a court has imposed a prohibition on business in accordance with the Bankruptcy Act or whose right to engage in the field of business has been restricted pursuant to law, court judgment or ruling in any other manner.


The appointment of a fund manager is subject to the approval of the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA).

Fund managers must manage the fund assets with prudence and care in the interests of members.

Of total invested assets of a pension fund, a maximum of:
- 100 per cent may be in equity or investment funds invested in equity;
- 35 per cent may be in securities issued and guaranteed by EEA Member State or local authority of an EEA Member State, a third country or an international organisation to which at least one EEA Member State belongs;
- 5 per cent may be in precious metals and securities which underlying assets are precious metals or which price is dependent on precious metals;
- 50 per cent in total may be in unlisted securities and loans to such companies;
- 30 per cent may be in investment fund which replicates index;
- 50 per cent may be the entire open risk position of derivatives;
- 40 per cent may be in immovables, units and shares of other funds or other companies investing in immovable;
- 50 per cent may be in the investment funds of companies belonging to the same group as the PMC;
- 10 per cent may be in securities issued by companies of the same group;
- 20 per cent may be in one investment fund;
- 10 per cent may be in the investment funds of the PMC;
- 10 per cent may pension fund take and give a loan;
- PMC may not acquire or hold for the account of all the mandatory pension funds managed by it in total more than 20 per cent of the units or shares of any fund managed by it or a fund managed by another management company belonging to the same consolidation group as the management company.


Additional requirements for investment of assets of conservative pension fund:

A conservative pension fund is a pension fund the assets of which are invested, pursuant to the fund rules at least to the extent of 90 percent in total in:
1) deposits in credit institutions;
2) bonds and other equivalent debt obligations;
3) money market instruments if they have been admitted to trading on a regulated market;
4) units or shares of such funds which assets are mainly invested in deposits or bonds of credit institutions;
5) derivative instruments which underlying assets are the assets specified in clauses (1)-(4) of this section, or bond or other financial indices, interest rates, currency or exchange rates, or which price depends directly or indirectly on the above.


Assets of a conservative pension fund may only be invested in such bonds:
1) which have been issued at least an investment grade credit rating by a rating agency registered in accordance with the Regulation (EC) No. 1060/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council on credit rating agencies (OJ L 302, 17.11.2009, pp. 1-31);
2) which issuer has been issued at least an investment grade credit rating by a rating agency, if the bonds themselves have no credit rating;
3) which issuer, which parent undertaking is a credit institution, has been issued at least an investment grade credit rating by a rating agency, if the bonds and their issuer, which is a credit institutions, have no credit rating;
4) which are guaranteed by a Contracting State or a member state of the OECD holding at least an investment grade credit rating of a rating agency.

A management company shall determine in its risk management rules the rating agencies the credit ratings issued by which it follows and uses for the management of the investments and risks of a conservative pension fund. In the case of different credit ratings issued by the specified rating agencies, the management company shall take the lowest current credit rating into consideration.

The investment income is owned by all members and shared among them according to their share of fund units.

PMCs may establish and manage several mandatory pension funds. However, every company must offer at least one conservative fund, the assets of which are invested in fixed income instruments (only 10 per cent equity).

PMCs must not promise any guaranteed rate of return or projected rate of return.

PMCs must appoint a custodian to hold the fund assets.

Mandatory pension funds: Members may change units of mandatory pension funds three times a year and may start to contribute to new pension fund with no time restrictions. The redemption of units in the former pension fund and purchase of units in the new pension fund takes place on the first working day following 1 January, 1 May, 1 September of the year after that in which the application for the change was submitted to the Pensionikeskus.

Unit redemption may be charged by Pension Management Companies (PMCs). The fees must be specified in the pension fund rules that are subject to the approval of the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA). The redemption fee must not exceed 0,1%(conservative fund's 0,05%) of the net asset value of a unit.

Mandatory pension funds: The assets of a mandatory pension fund must be kept completely separate from the assets of the Pension Management Company (PMC) and from the assets of other funds under its management.

Fund assets must be kept by a custodian.

The units registered on a member's individual pension account cannot be claimed by creditors in the case of personal bankruptcy of the member.

Mandatory pension funds: Each Pension Management Company (PMC) must, by means of its own funds, establish a reserve of the assets of the pension funds under management. PMC must hold at least 0.5 per cent of the units of the mandatory pension funds that it manages. To the extent in which the market value of the mandatory pension funds managed by the PMC exceeds the amount of one billion euros, the PMC must hold at least 0.02 per cent of the units. PMC must hold units on a pro rata basis in each mandatory pension fund managed by it, taking account of the percentage of the market value of the assets of each pension fund in the market value of the assets of all the mandatory pension funds managed by it. During three years following the establishment of a mandatory pension fund, the PMC must hold at least two per cent of the units of this pension fund.

The reserve must be used to compensate members for loss of pension fund assets due to violations of legal investment restrictions, other legal requirements or the pension fund rules, or to fraud and mismanagement. If the reserve is not sufficient to compensate members, the PMC must make up the difference from its own funds. If the funds of the PMC are not sufficient, members are compensated by the Guarantee Fund (see section Protection of rights, Bankruptcy: insolvency insurance / compensation fund).

PMCs must define internal rules governing the actions and responsibilities of managers and employees and carry out internal audits in order to ensure compliance with legal requirements.

A compliance officer must be appointed in order to carry out internal audits and ensure compliance with legal requirements. Compliance officers must be given sufficient means of action and access to information in order to adequately carry out their tasks.

PMCs must regularly prepare monitoring reports and submit these to the Financial Supervision Authority. The period of monitoring reports is one quarter of a year. Monitoring reports are submitted within 25 days after the end of the accounting period.

PMC must submit its annual report, the sworn auditor's report, an extract from the proposal for and decision on the distribution of profits or covering of losses for the financial year and the minutes of the general meeting concerning the approval of or refusal to approve the annual report to the Financial Supervision Authority within two weeks after the general meeting of the shareholders but not later than on 1 May of the year following the financial year.

In addition the Financial Supervision Authority have the right to request, for the purpose of exercise of supervision, additional periodic and nonrecurrent reports and data from the fund manager on the fund manager and the funds managed by it. The Financial Supervision Authority must determine the frequency and time limit for submission of additional reports and data.

PMCs must appoint an auditor to audit the yearly reports.

Mandatory pension funds: Compliance officers must inform the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) immediately if they detect violations of legal requirements or events that may be detrimental to the interests of members.

A management company must establish and implement legal, technical and organisational measures to manage or prevent conflicts of interests in the management company, conflicts of interests of a person having a control relationship with the management company, conflicts of interests between the unit-holders and between the unit-holders and other clients of the management company and the adverse effect thereof on the interests of the unit-holders upon management of a mandatory pension fund (hereinafter provision of fund management service). The abovementioned measures shall take into account the size and structure of the management company and the nature, scale and complexity of the business of the management company. The management company shall establish such procedures and measures by its internal rules.

Custodians must inform the FSA immediately if they detect violations of legal requirements or the fund rules.

Auditors of Pension Management Companies (PMCs) must inform the FSA immediately if the audit reveals violations of legal requirements, a risk that the PMC cannot fulfil its obligations or events that may be detrimental to the interests of members.

Mandatory pension funds: Custodians of mandatory pension fund assets must:

- be credit institutions licensed by the Bank of Estonia or the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) under the Credit Institutions Act;
- have sufficient organisational, financial and technical capacities to fulfil their tasks;

- upon performance of its functions, a custodian must act honestly, fairly, professionally, independently from the fund manager and in the interests of the fund, the unit-holders or shareholders of the fund.
- offer the fund or fund manager only the services which do not create conflicts of interests between the fund manager, fund, unit-holders, shareholders and depositary, etc.

An audit firm must be appointed to a fund. The audit firm must be appointed by the management board of its fund manager. The provisions concerning audits in the Auditors Activities Act and other legislation apply to audits, taking account of specifications of pension fund regulation.

Mandatory pension funds: The redemption fee of pension fund units must be specified in the pension fund rules that are subject to the approval of the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA). The rate of the redemption fee of a conservative pension fund must not exceed 0.05 per cent and other mandatory pension funds 0.1 per cent of the net asset value of the unit. Redemption fee may not take from persons who are older than retirement age minus 5 years.

The management fee of a pension fund must be a proportion of the market value of the fund assets and must be defined in the pension fund rules. The fee must not exceed a 1,2%. Pension funds must decrease their management fee by 15% after every 100 million EUR of assets.

The PMC has the right to charge a success fee if the cumulative increase in the net asset value of a unit of the mandatory pension fund exceeds the cumulative increase in receipt of the pension insurance part of social tax as of 31 December of the year of registration of the pension fund. In order to calculate the success fee, the PMC must prepare the index of changes of the net value of units of the mandatory pension fund and the index of receipt of the pension insurance part of social tax, equalising the starting values of these indices as at 31 December of the year of registration of the pension fund. The success fee must be calculated once a year. The accounting period is a year where 31 December is the start and end date. The success fee shall be taken into account when determining the net value of a unit of a mandatory pension fund of the first working day after 1 January.

The rate of the success fee may not exceed 20 per cent of the positive difference of the relative change of the value of the net value index and the positive difference of the relative change of the value of the reference index or two per cent of the asset value of this pension fund.

Mandatory pension funds: The operating licence of a Pension Management Company (PMC) to establish and manage mandatory pension funds may be revoked voluntarily by the PMC or by an order of the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA). The FSA may issue such an order if the PMC has:

- violated legal requirements, the pension fund rules or the interests of members;
- submitted wrong information or manipulated documents;
- not complied with an order of the FSA.

The pension funds established and managed by the PMCs are liquidated when the operating licence has been revoked.

Voluntary liquidation of a pension fund is subject to approval by the FSA, which may only be granted if the management of the pension fund cannot be transferred to another PMC.

Upon liquidation of a mandatory pension fund, its members must redeem their units and buy units of another pension fund. The FSA chooses a pension fund on behalf of members who do not execute a choice.

Mergers or divisions of PMCs are subject to approval by the FSA, which is only granted if the legitimate interests of members are protected.

Mandatory pension funds: Pension fund assets are independent of the assets of a Pension Management Company (PMC) and, in the case of the latter's bankruptcy, creditors cannot claim against these assets.

If the reserve that must be established by each PMC to compensate members for losses due to specific reasons (see section Protection of rights, Financial and technical requirements / reporting) is not sufficient, and the shortfall cannot be made up by the funds of the PMC, members are compensated by the Guarantee Fund.

The Guarantee Fund is a statutory body which operates three funds to compensate clients of deposit institutions, clients of investment institutions and members of mandatory pension funds respectively. The fund to protect the rights of members of mandatory pension funds is financed by mandatory contributions paid by PMCs in respect of each of the mandatory pension funds they manage. The total contribution for each fund consists of a single contribution of EUR 1000 payable upon establishment of the pension fund and quarterly contributions not exceeding 0.1 per cent of the net asset value of each mandatory pension fund. When the value of the fund exceeds EUR 1 million, the quarterly contribution must not exceed 0.025 per cent of the net asset value of the pension fund.

The Guarantee Fund compensates members of pension funds in full for losses up to EUR 10,000 and covers 90 per cent of any losses exceeding EUR 10,000. If the assets in the Guarantee Fund are not be sufficient to compensate all members, it may take loans from credit institutions or other persons or, whenever possible, compensate members with assets of the other two sectoral funds (see above). The fund may also apply for a state loan or a state guarantee for a loan taken.

Mandatory pension funds: Pension Management Companies (PMCs) must issue a prospectus and key information for each pension fund under management, containing information on the fund, the investment policy and the regulations governing the issue and redemption of units.

Members must, on request, be provided with the yearly reports of the pension fund of which they hold units.

Members may request pension account statements from Pensionikeskus at least once a year.

Members may complain to the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) or the Consumers Protection Agency concerning actions of PMCs.

Pension funds must disclose their detailed investment portfolios monthly.

 

Mandatory pension funds: None.

Mandatory pension funds: Tax-deductible.

Mandatory pension funds: Tax-deductible.

Mandatory pension funds: Tax-exempt.

Beginning from 1 January 2018 the overall tax-free amount (basic exemption) of up to 6000 euros per year or up to 500 euros per month will be applied on all types of income and the increased basic exemption on pension and compensation for accident at work will not be applied in the future.

In year 2019:

• annual income up to 14 400 euros gives 6000 euros as annual basic exemption

• in case annual income increases from 14 400 euros to 25 200 euros, basic exemption decreases according to the following formula: 6000 - 6000 ÷ 10 800 × (income amount - 14 400)

• if annual income is above 25 200 euros, basic exemption is 0.