- within Law Department Performance, Accounting and Audit and Law Practice Management topic(s)
As of 14 October 2025, the Tax and Customs Board of Estonia has started to publish weekly summaries of its activity, including the enforcement of sanctions at the various customs points with Russia.
Based on these weekly summaries the identification of a sanctions breach by customs officials results in one of four outcomes: 1) the import/export is prevented without further actins being taken; 2) an investigation is commenced; 3) a criminal proceeding for a misdemeanour offence is started; or 4) an on-the-spot fine is issued.
Based on the weekly reports since mid October, the following enforcement actions in categories 1-3 can be identified:
- 3 investigations started;
- 10 criminal prosecutions for misdemeanour offences started;
- 14 on-the-spot fines, imposed, with values of €120, €304, €600, €1600, €1600, €800, €80, €240, €800, €600, €800, €400, €800 and €2000 (total of €10,744).
The offending is dominated by the small-scale carriage of luxury goods and euro notes.
The weekly summaries that include sanctions enforcement can be found here:
- 13 January 2026
- 6 January 2026
- 30 December 2025
- 23 December 2025
- 18 November 2025
- 11 November 2025
- 4 November 2025
- 28 October 2025
- 14 October 2025
In addition, back on 18 August 2025, the Tax and and Customs Board published a half-yearly sanctions enforcement update – not previously reflected here.
This identified the following enforcement statistics:
- 585,000 identified border crossings
- 4,300 sanctions violations detected (said to be down 1,000 from the previous year)
- on-the-spot fines of c. €93,000 imposed
- 413 misdemeanour proceedings initiated
- 19 more serious criminal proceedings initiated
Disclaimer: This Alert has been prepared and published for informational purposes only and is not offered, nor should be construed, as legal advice. For more information, please see the firm's full disclaimer.
