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Sick pay in Estonia: how many days and how much the employer pays
Days 1–3 are unpaid, the employer pays 70% of average wage for days 4–8, and the state takes over from day 9. Deadlines, the care leave certificate, and the 2026 benefit cap, in one guide.
An employee calls in sick this morning. Payroll needs three numbers: how many days the employer pays, at what rate, and when the state takes over.
The short answer: days 1 through 3 are unpaid, the employer pays days 4 through 8 at 70% of average wage, and from day 9 the Estonian Health Insurance Fund (Tervisekassa) takes over. This split has applied since 1 July 2023, replacing an earlier pandemic-era “day 2 through day 5” scheme. Reference material that describes a different split is out of date.
The employer’s duty to pay days 4 through 8 sits at section 12² of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. Most short summaries look for it in the Employment Contracts Act or the Health Insurance Act instead — the wrong place.
TL;DR
- Days 1–3: unpaid by anyone.
- The middle five days: the employer pays 70% of the employee’s average wage.
- Day 9 onward: the Estonian Health Insurance Fund pays sickness benefit, also at 70%, but calculated on a different base.
- The employer files its own attendance entries within 7 calendar days of learning the certificate has closed.
- The fund pays no benefit at all if entries arrive later than 90 calendar days after that.
- A care leave certificate pays 80% from day one, with no employer share.
Who pays sick pay, and on which days?
The employer pays five days and the state pays the rest, and the exact boundary runs by day on the sick leave certificate, not by calendar week.
| Days | Who pays | Rate | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–3 | No one | 0% | Occupational Health and Safety Act § 12², subsections 1 and 3; the employer’s duty only starts on day 4 |
| 4–8 | The employer | 70% of average wage | Occupational Health and Safety Act § 12², subsection 1, calculated per the method in Employment Contracts Act § 29, subsection 8 |
| From day 9 | The Estonian Health Insurance Fund | 70% of average daily income | Health Insurance Act § 54, subsection 1, point 1 and § 56, subsection 1 |
The two 70% rates are not the same calculation. The employer’s share is based on the employee’s average wage over the previous six months, using the method in Employment Contracts Act § 29, subsection 8. The fund’s share is based on the employee’s social-tax-liable income for the previous calendar year, divided by 365 (Health Insurance Act § 55). Two different bases, two different results — don’t assume the two amounts are proportional to each other.
“Day one” here means the start of the exemption from work duty marked on the sick leave certificate (töövõimetusleht) — not the day symptoms started, and not the day the employee saw a doctor. If a certificate is opened after the fact, every later date shifts to match.
An employer can pay more than the statutory share: Occupational Health and Safety Act § 12³ allows a voluntary top-up, but only so long as the employer’s payment plus the fund’s payment together don’t exceed 100% of average wage.
Next step: check whether the payroll system counts days from the sick leave certificate’s opening date, not the date of illness or the date reported — that’s the most common calculation error.
Why did the split change on 1 July 2023?
Because the temporary, pandemic-era rule — days 2 through 5 paid by the employer, day 6 onward by the fund, ended on that date, and the current split (days 1 through 3 unpaid, 4 through 8 paid by the employer) took its place.
That change means one specific thing: if payroll logic, training material, or a consultant’s advice predates July 2023, it likely counts the wrong days from the wrong starting point. Riigi Teataja’s effective-date note confirms the date directly (Occupational Health and Safety Act § 12², “in force from 1 July 2023”), so you don’t need to take this on faith without a source.
Next step: if the payroll rules or template were built before 2023, open that file and check whether the day count matches the current 4-through-8 split.
How does a care leave certificate differ from a regular sick leave certificate?
A care leave certificate (hooldusleht) doesn’t split payment into three the way a regular sick leave certificate does — the Estonian Health Insurance Fund pays the whole amount from day one, with no employer share.
| Certificate type | Who pays, from which day | Rate | Duration limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular sick leave certificate | The employer, days 4–8; the fund, from day 9 | 70% | Up to 182 days (240 for tuberculosis) |
| Care leave certificate | The fund, from day 1 | 80% | Up to 60 days caring for a child under 12 or an insured person under 19 with a disability; up to 10 days if the caregiver of a child under 3 falls ill themselves; up to 7 days for home care of a family member |
| Workplace accident / occupational disease | The fund, from day 2 | 100% | Health Insurance Act § 54, subsection 1, point 6 |
| Quarantine | The fund, from day 9 | 70% | Up to 7 calendar days |
| Refusing unsuitable work, preventing a crime, saving a life | The fund, from day 2 | 70% / 100% | Health Insurance Act § 56 |
| Organ or bone-marrow stem cell donation | The fund, from day 1 | 100% | Health Insurance Act § 56, subsection 1⁴ |
Workplace accidents and occupational disease carry one more concrete financial risk. If the fund pays 100% and the case later turns out to be an ordinary illness paying only 70%, the fund can claim the difference back from the employer (Health Insurance Act § 62, subsection 5).
Next step: if the payroll system treats a care leave certificate or a workplace-accident certificate the same as a regular sick leave certificate, fix that before the next case — three certificate types, three different calculations.
What deadlines apply to the sick leave certificate?
A healthcare worker treating the employee opens and closes the sick leave certificate electronically, and it reaches the Estonian Health Insurance Fund’s records directly, so the employer never has to receive or forward the document.
The employer’s duty is to make its own entries (attendance records) within 7 calendar days of learning that the certificate has closed. The harder, absolute deadline is 90 calendar days: if the entries come in later than that, the fund doesn’t pay its benefit at all, whatever caused the delay (Occupational Health and Safety Act § 12², subsection 4). The employer must pay its own share (days 4–8) on the regular payday or within 30 calendar days, whichever applies under its pay cycle (Occupational Health and Safety Act § 12², subsection 5). The fund, in turn, pays its share within 30 calendar days of the employer’s correct entries, with interest if it’s late.
Next step: set a payroll reminder for day 7 after learning a certificate has closed — the 90-day deadline runs from that same date, and missing it is expensive.
Does the 2026 benefit cap affect the employer’s share?
No. The cap applies only to the share the Estonian Health Insurance Fund pays, not to the days the employer pays (4 through 8).
From 2026, a cap applies to the sickness benefit and care benefit the fund pays, calculated from twice the average social-tax-liable monthly income two calendar years prior, divided by 30 (Health Insurance Act § 55²). The government has separately confirmed that this cap doesn’t apply to the share the employer pays (days 4 through 8), so the employer continues paying 70% of the employee’s actual average wage, with no upper limit. The 100% rate for workplace accidents and occupational disease is also subject to the cap, the same as ordinary illness, which cuts against the common assumption that more serious cases are exempt from it.
The formula is confirmed by statute, but no specific euro figure appears, unambiguously, on either the ministry’s or the fund’s official page — so this guide doesn’t publish one. Use the statutory formula in calculations, not a third-party calculator.
Next step: if the payroll software calculates the fund’s benefit automatically, check that it applies the cap only from day 9 onward, not to the employer’s days 4 through 8.
How is employer-paid sick pay taxed?
The sick pay the employer pays (days 4–8) is taxed with income tax only — no social tax, no unemployment insurance contribution.
The tax exemption sits directly in Social Tax Act § 3, subsection 3, which specifically references Occupational Health and Safety Act sections 12² and 12³ — covering both the mandatory payment and the voluntary top-up. The Estonian Tax and Customs Board’s own example confirms the same. Employer-paid sick pay is taxed with income tax only, up to 100% of the employee’s average wage. It’s declared on the tax return’s annex 1 under payment type code 24. That’s a separate code from ordinary salary, which uses code 10. The same treatment applies to the voluntary top-up. Tax-free income is only counted here if it hasn’t already been used up against ordinary salary.
Next step: check that the payroll system marks sick pay on tax return annex 1 with payment type code 24, not the ordinary salary code — the wrong code brings excess social tax with it.
How long does state-paid sickness benefit last?
The Estonian Health Insurance Fund pays sickness benefit for up to 182 consecutive calendar days for an ordinary illness, and up to 240 days for tuberculosis.
During a long sick leave, from around day 61, the employer can offer the employee adjusted or lighter work while they’re still formally on the sick leave certificate (Occupational Health and Safety Act § 12⁴). Unemployment Insurance Fund support services become available at the same time. Once the sick leave certificate’s day limit is reached, the fund’s payments stop — what happens next depends on whether the employee’s work capacity is assessed under the separate work capacity support scheme, governed by its own act. Point the employee to the Unemployment Insurance Fund on this question rather than explaining the transition in-house.
Next step: if an employee’s sick leave certificate is approaching day 150, contact the Unemployment Insurance Fund before the limit, not after.
Can an employer dismiss an employee who is on the sick leave certificate?
For a short illness or a period on a care leave certificate — no. The law treats these as protected reasons that block an ordinary dismissal, regardless of how often the employee has been on sick leave.
A long-term reduction in work capacity due to health is a separate, narrower ground. It applies only once the health condition has prevented the employee from doing their job for a four-month period, and even then, the employer must first try to offer other suitable work. Time an employee spends working under adjusted conditions while still on a sick leave certificate doesn’t count toward, or shorten, that four-month period. The employer also cannot let an employee carry out work duties while their certificate is valid — even “just answering emails.” That forfeits their right to benefit from the day of the breach, while the employer’s own payment duty stays unchanged (Health Insurance Act § 61). Dismissing someone for an unrelated reason (a headcount reduction, say) is a separate matter and doesn’t change because the employee has been on the sick leave certificate.
Next step: before deciding to dismiss someone who has been on sick leave repeatedly, clearly separate a short-term illness (protected) from a long-term reduction in work capacity (a separate process). See also the guide on terminating employment.
How does Taito.ai help manage sick pay?
Taito.ai sets up each employee’s sick leave certificate record and keeps it maintained automatically, so the entry deadlines run off its actual start and end dates rather than anyone’s memory.
Read more on the Estonia compliance guide.
Sources
A note on citation format: the superscript number in a section reference (as in § 12²) marks a section added into the act after its original numbering — a different provision from the plain-numbered section in the same range. Employment Contracts Act § 122, for example, is a separate, unrelated rule from Occupational Health and Safety Act § 12².
- Government of Estonia (n.d.) Notice on the sickness and care benefit cap.
- Maksu- ja Tolliamet (n.d.) Employer sick pay taxation example.
- Maksu- ja Tolliamet (n.d.) Voluntary top-up taxation example.
- Riigi Teataja (n.d.) Employment Contracts Act, § 29, subsection 8, § 92.
- Riigi Teataja (n.d.) Health Insurance Act, §§ 52–62.
- Riigi Teataja (n.d.) Occupational Health and Safety Act, §§ 12²–12⁵.
- Riigi Teataja (n.d.) Social Tax Act, § 3, subsection 3.
Disclaimer
Taito.ai does not provide legal, tax or accounting advice. This article is general information about the law as it stood on the date above, not advice on your situation, and it is not a substitute for it. Rates and thresholds change. Check with a qualified adviser before acting on anything here.
