How Estonia e-Residency and Deel are empowering nomadic EU companies

Estonia, nestled in the North-Eastern region of Europe, is adapting quickly to the fast-growing world of remote work. The Estonia E-Residency Programme, launched in 2014, empowers entrepreneurs worldwide to start EU-based companies while managing their business from anywhere, entirely online.

Estonia is the first country to offer e-Residency, a government-issued digital identity that gives access to Estonia’s transparent business environment. When you join Estonia's digital nation, you can start a company 100% online, run your EU business remotely, and go paperless while avoiding overwhelming red tape.

The e-Residency program is open to all, from Germany to Brazil. Most members work digitally, looking to start and run an EU company without being, well, in an EU country. Being location independent is crucial to e-Residents. The program is well aware of international work trends and changes, including Lauri Haav, Managing Director of Estonia’s e-Residency. “Freelancing and digital nomads are currently among the most prominent global megatrends,” he shares. Also, Estonia “is the first national program in the world to empower remote entrepreneurs and teleworkers, offering 100% digital solutions to meet their needs.”

The program’s virtual marketplace is robust, not to mention it’s continually growing, now boasting 90 verified service providers catering to nearly 90,000 e-Residents’ needs that are launching and expanding their businesses. In joining forces with Estonia’s e-Residency, Deel aims to facilitate even more global remote work. Recognizing a shared intention in changing the way people work, both organizations have acknowledged the power of this pairing. “It is clear that location-independent entrepreneurship and international talent mobility are here to stay…” Haav explains, “we are extremely excited that Estonian e-residents can now benefit from Deel’s wide-ranging service portfolio.” Deel’s Co-Founder and CEO Alex Bouaziz echoes the sentiment stating, “Deel and e-Residency believe that people's way of working is fundamentally shifting, and both companies are at the forefront of changing the way the world works. Our collaboration will help meet the needs of thousands of entrepreneurs and enable them to onboard talent across the globe.”

Meet Dylan Hey. Originally hailing from the UK, Hey currently runs an advertising agency named Hey Digital, providing paid advertising to B2B software companies. While working as a digital nomad in 2017, Dylan learned about Estonian e-Residency and quickly became one. From there, Hey Digital was born. After leaving the UK behind, Dylan traveled around Europe and was able to operate his company remotely thanks to the program.

Flash forward to today. The growing company now has a team of 16 with plans to grow to more than 25 in the next few months. For Hey Digital, the partnership between Deel and e-Residency is perfect; their widely distributed team works from 11 countries while benefiting from the partnership. For Hey Digital, the partnership between Deel and e-Residency is ideal for everyone involved; the company has seen global team growth while streamlining their international hiring and payroll and their team enjoys the flexibility of remote work with the freedom to work from 11 different countries.

Frustrated by the challenges of manual payments and invoicing for different countries on other platforms, Dyland discovered Deel. Like others who have come to Deel for solutions, Dylan shared that “some [employees] needed payment with Paypal, some Wise, some Bank transfer and that was generating many challenges. I also wanted compliant contracts for my team all across the world.” After finding out about Deel, Dylan could scale his team across borders easily and fast. After all, 19 people come with a lot of logistics and compliance issues, but luckily he had Deel, stating,** "I actually can’t recommend Deel enough; it makes my life so much easier.”**

As both a Deel customer and Estonian e-resident, Dylan Hey believes this partnership will open up a world of opportunities for more businesses like his.

"Today, I run Hey Digital as a global team while constantly on the move, which is possible thanks to the reliable support services provided by Deel and many others available through the larger e-Residency marketplace. While e-Residency allowed me to set up a virtual business that I can run remotely from anywhere in the world, Deel facilitates both payroll and employment contracts, which would otherwise take months and incur a considerable cost, i.e., to account for the specificities of national legislation in each person’s country of origin. I believe that partnership between e-Residency and Deel will finally open the door for many other excellent business ideas that have thus far been stifled by excess bureaucracy."