While a large portion of Estonian legal entities are diligent and law-abiding, there are cases where entities fail to submit their annual reports or inform the registrar of changes. In such cases, the registrar can issue warnings and fines to guide the entity back on the right path.

Following the law, the registrar has a supervisory obligation to ensure the submission of data and documents. If the data of a legal entity is incorrect or if a document is not submitted on time, the registrar may impose a fine on the legal entity. Fines may also be imposed on individuals obligated to submit data and documents, such as members of the management board or shareholder.
Over the years, the most frequent reason to impose a fine on a legal entity has been the failure to submit annual reports on time.

Avoiding fines is simple - submitting the annual report on time and promptly informing the registrar of any changes affecting the legal entity is enough.

On February 1, 2023, an update of the Business Register Act came into force, aiming, among other things, to expedite the deletion of non-operational legal entities from the business register.
The new law provided the registrar with better tools to oversee the timeliness of entrepreneurs submitting their annual reports. If they fail to fulfill their obligations on time, they can now be deleted from the register more quickly. While oversight procedures by the registrar previously took about 2 years, the consequences of non-submission for the legal entity now arrive within a few months.