Foreign trade

Foreign trade statistics concern the movement of goods between Estonia and other countries. The concepts of exports and imports are used to indicate commodity flows.

Exports – exportation of goods produced in Estonia, exportation of goods imported from a foreign country (re-exports), temporary exportation of goods for the purpose of processing abroad, re-exportation after inward processing and supplies for foreign vessels and aircraft stores. Exports exclude transit and services.

Imports – imports of goods into Estonia for domestic consumption and for resale to a foreign country, imports for inward processing with notification of intended return and re-imports after processing outside of Estonia. Imports exclude transit and services.

The foreign trade statistical data compiled by Statistics Estonia include only the movement of physical goods. Data on trade in goods are presented at current prices.

Data on foreign trade statistics are available since 1993. Until the accession of Estonia to the European Union (EU), all foreign trade statistics were based on customs declarations and data were published by a special trade system (1995–2003) and a general trade system (1993–2003). With the accession of Estonia to the EU, the compiling system of the whole foreign trade statistics was changed as the EU is a customs union and there are no customs frontiers between Member States. Starting from 2004 foreign trade statistics are based on two data collection systems: Intrastat and Extrastat. And these data are methodologically closer to the former special trade system.

Intrastat (Intra-EU Trade Statistics) is a special data system for collecting statistics on the trade in goods between the Member States of the European Union. Statistics Estonia collects data directly from enterprises with the statistical survey Intrastat. The Intrastat reports on dispatches and arrivals must be submitted by enterprises who are registered in the Estonian national VAT register and whose foreign trade turnover exceeds the statistical threshold set for the reporting year.

Extrastat (Extra-EU Trade Statistics) is a data system for collecting statistics on the trade in goods with non-EU Member States. Data are collected by the Estonian Tax and Customs Board with customs declarations. The collected data are transmitted to Statistics Estonia for the production of national foreign trade statistics.

The Intrastat report has to be submitted to Statistics Estonia by the 14th calendar day following the reporting month and each enterprise can check its reporting obligation on Statistics Estonia website on link Andmete esitamine/Andmete esitamise kohustus (only in Estonian). Additional information concerning what fields in the Intrastat report have to be filled in (all fields or only mandatory fields) can be obtained from the column "Märkused“ (notes). Turnovers of the enterprises remaining below the statistical threshold and other missing data are replaced by estimations in statistics. The estimates will be made by the 2- digit HS level (commodity chapters) and country level (EU countries only).

Statistical threshold
Year	Exports, euros	Imports, euros
2004	63 912	63 912
2005	63 912	63 912
2006	127 823	127 823
2007	127 823	127 823
2008	127 823	127 823
2009	127 823	127 823
2010	108 650	127 823
2011	90 000	130 000
2012	100 000	140 000
2013	120 000	190 000

Published statistics

Selection of EU statistics

Requests and orders for information

Eurostat external trade database

Intrastat

Main changes in Intrastat 2013

Survey forms and instructions

Nomenclatures and classifications

Legislation

Questionnaire for Intrastat data provider (results)