Baltic States – CIS, Estonia, Legislation, Markets and Companies, Transport

Over 2.4 million people entered from Russia to Estonia via three highway customs checkpoints, last year bringing an estimated 37 million illegal cigarettes, i.e. cigarettes with Russian tax labels that exceeded the allowed limit, to Estonia. Tax and Customs Board custom regulations department head Urmas Koidu said that in addition there are cigarettes imported in allowed limits, a large part of which are unfortunately sold too.

"The fall has come primarily from the fact that starting the beginning of last year, violators were separately targeted, who were caught with small amounts of illegal cigarettes. For example, starting the beginning of 2013, no one has the right to just give up illegal cigarettes and proceedings are initiated regarding all violators, which in most cases results also in a fine," explained Koidu.

Koidu added that as the result of restrictions on excise taxed goods that came in force on December 1 last year, a continued fall of illegal cigarettes from Russia can be expected since the number of people who repeatedly cross the border has considerably fallen and they were the ones that caused border queues and brought excise taxed goods to Estonia. Koidu said that the decrease of repeat border crossers and accelerated passport control at the border has made visiting Estonia much simpler of tourists. Narva highways border checkpoint senior border official Jaanika Karp said that the law amendment has had a positive effect on the speed of border crossing.

"As compared to the time a couple of years ago, the waiting time in the live queue has decreased several times. On average, the length of the live queue on business days is nearly 2 hours, while a couple of years ago, one had to wait to cross the border with a vehicle for up to a couple of days," said Karp. According to the amendments to the alcohol, tobacco, fuel and electricity excise tax law came in force on December 1 last year, alcohol and fuel can be brought to Estonia from outside the EU only during the first arrival and tobacco products on the first and second arrival. Earlier, people in border areas crossed the border regularly to bring the allowed minimum rate of the excise goods or smuggle excise goods to Estonia, thus causing huge border queues.