The Rise of Digital Nomad Visas

When the pandemic hit and remote work went mainstream, digital nomad visas were an easy win for governments trying to pick up the pieces.

In December 2016, Karoli Hindriks met with Estonia’s Ministry of the Interior — the officials tasked with regulating the country’s borders.

Hindriks, the Tallinn-based founder of an immigration and relocation company called Jobbatical, believed every country on earth should be working on new mobility tools to attract global talent. At the meeting, that’s exactly what she told the government, then suggested their first step should be to launch a specialized visa for digital nomads. The ministers agreed.

The tiny nation of Estonia — sandwiched between Latvia, Sweden, Finland, and Russia — has one of the world’s most advanced digital governments, meaning the country was already in a strong position to pursue a nomad visa. Its e-Residency program, launched in 2014, allows foreigners to register their identity with the Estonian government, establish an online business in the EU, and open a local bank account without ever visiting. Many nomads and remote businesses were already among the country’s population of e-Residents, so policymakers had direct access to the right target market.