While researching how to start a business here, I came across an interesting requirement – you need to have a driver’s licence in order to submit your application. Having a local address made sense immediately and after having pondered a bit I realized that driver’s licence here is like ID card in Estonia – it just validates who you are and that you have some connection to the country/province. I guess I was a bit puzzled by the requirement also because I have managed to get all of the other official procedures done using my Estonian passport and Canadian working permit. The rest of the procedure after having the required document, will be just to choose which kind of business I’d like to have and pay the money for registering and in 5-6 business days I will have my own company.

I will have to decide whether I will start working as a Sole Proprietor which means that I will be taxed as a private person or establish a Corporation – will be taxed as a business and need to submit tax returns for myself and for the company. Buy an off-the-shelf corporation – benefit being that it is established already and has a perfect history which means that other official institutions will be more kind to it or establish a foreign subsidiary of my Estonian company. Everything has it’s own pricetag and benefits, so I’ll ponder a bit and then ask my husband in the evening to be my sounding board for making the right decision.

But for now I better go and study for my driver’s licence test, because Canada does not recognise Estonian driving licence and that means that I need to take a written test here and upon passing it, I will get a temporary permit. Once my Estonian driving licence has been validated by the Estonian authorities and the confirmation sent back to Canada, I’ll get a real driver’s licence.