Clothing manufacturer in Bangladesh for Estonian brands

24% VAT: three rates in two years

Estonia’s standard VAT rate has moved twice recently: from 20% to 22% on 1 January 2024, and from 22% to 24% on 1 July 2025. The 24% rate was first legislated as temporary, to the end of 2028, and was made permanent in spring 2025. Clothing takes the standard rate, charged at import on the duty-inclusive customs value and reclaimed by a registered importer as input tax. A landed-cost model built in 2024 is therefore two points out; our DDP quotes show duty, freight and VAT as separate lines at the current rate.

Labels in Estonian

Section 4(3) of Estonia’s Consumer Protection Act requires the information provided to the consumer to be in Estonian unless the consumer has agreed to another language, and the act allows that information to be carried on the product labelling, an attached label or the instructions. Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011 adds the fibre composition in the official language of the country of sale. So the sewn-in label for Estonian retail carries fibre content and care instructions in Estonian, with other languages, Finnish and English are common, alongside.

• Fibre composition by percentage, in Estonian
• Care instructions in Estonian, as symbols with text
• Country of origin: Bangladesh
• Additional languages alongside, for a label shared with Finland or Latvia

Packaging: PAKIS and a recovery organisation

Anyone who packs, imports or sells packaged goods in Estonia counts as a packaging undertaking and must register in the packaging register, PAKIS, report packaging by material and meet the recovery targets. The obligations under the Packaging Act and the Packaging Excise Duty Act can be transferred to an accredited recovery organisation such as Eesti Pakendiringlus, which runs more than 3,900 collection containers across the country. Packaging weights by material come with our shipping documents, so the PAKIS report is built from figures rather than estimates.

Textile waste: collected since 2025, producer fees by 2028

Separate collection of textile waste has been mandatory in Estonia since 1 January 2025, with municipalities required to provide collection points by that date. Estonia has no producer-responsibility scheme for textiles yet. The revised Waste Framework Directive, in force since 16 October 2025, gives member states 30 months to set up a textile and footwear scheme, so one is due by April 2028, funded by producer fees per product placed on the market. Fees of that kind are charged by weight, so we record the garment weight and the quantity per style on every order file now.

Muuga, feeders and the e-MTA portal

The Port of Tallinn handled 259,398 containers in 2025, slightly below 2024, and close to 14 million tonnes of cargo. Its container terminal at Muuga is run by HHLA TK Estonia, owned by the Hamburg port operator HHLA since 2018, with seven berths, five container gantry cranes, six rail tracks and the ability to take vessels of up to 14,000 TEU. Cargo from Chattogram does not sail direct: it transships at Hamburg, Rotterdam or Bremerhaven onto a Baltic feeder service to Muuga, which adds a few days to the sea leg but avoids a long road journey from a North Sea port. Import declarations are lodged electronically through the Tax and Customs Board’s e-MTA portal; a freight forwarder reports that simple electronic declarations are typically processed within one to four hours and an EORI number issued in one to three business days. Air freight into Tallinn or Helsinki is the option for urgent drops, two to five days before customs.

• Sea: Chattogram to a North Sea hub, then a Baltic feeder to Muuga
• Rail and road from Muuga to Tallinn and the rest of Estonia; six rail tracks on the terminal
• Customs: electronic declaration in e-MTA, usually cleared within hours
• Air: Tallinn or Helsinki for urgent orders

A digital market, and a cautionary tale

Estonia’s e-Residency programme, launched in 2014, counts more than 142,000 e-residents from over 170 countries and more than 43,000 companies founded by them, with company registration taking one to two days. A brand can therefore be founded, registered for VAT and set up as an importer of record in Estonia without an office in the country, and many small European labels are. The market itself is small but growing: retail turnover was €10.8 billion in 2025, up 2% in volume, with stores selling manufactured goods up 4%. It is also unforgiving: Baltika Group, founded in 1928 and the owner of the Ivo Nikkolo brand, filed for bankruptcy on 2 October 2025 with 120 job losses across the three Baltic states. Sourcing that keeps the price competitive and the calendar reliable is the point of placing production in Bangladesh, and the reason we state the ship date the factory has committed to on every order.

Working with us from Estonia

For an Estonian order we prepare the Estonian label, the REX statement for duty-free entry, and packaging weights for the PAKIS report; a DDP quote covers the feeder leg into Muuga and the electronic declaration. An e-resident company is quoted exactly like any other importer of record.