Estonia

Editorial preview

Last updated: 27 October 2026. Map the General Editorial Team.

This hub is the English guide to Estonia’s election of the Riigikogu. The elections page on valimised.ee names 7 March 2027 as election day. Section 2 of the Riigikogu Election Act holds a regular election on the first Sunday in March of the fourth year after the previous election year, and that Sunday in 2027 is 7 March. The same elections page says the election week starts on Monday 1 March and consists of six advance days. Electronic voting is available during the advance, from 1 March until 6 March. Voting at Estonia’s foreign missions runs from 20 February through 25 February. A voter who wishes to vote by mail must submit a written application to a foreign mission by 5 February 2027. This release has no municipality pages and adds no date the office did not print.

Section 1 of the Act says the Riigikogu has 101 members. Each voter has one vote. Results are determined by proportional representation, and voting is secret. Section 6 holds the election in twelve multi-mandate districts. Section 7 has the National Electoral Committee distribute the mandates after the elections are declared, using the population register as at the first day of the month of that declaration. Section 2 requires the President of the Republic to declare regular elections at least three months before election day. On 27 October 2026 no such resolution was opened for this preview, so no district mandate number is printed.

Section 38 sets the hours. Voting on election day opens at 9:00 and closes at 20:00. Voters may complete voting within 15 minutes after that close, and within 15 minutes after electronic voting ends. The Act does not name a time zone. This hub uses the offset +02:00, Eastern European Time, because daylight-saving time in 2027 begins on the last Sunday of March, after this election day. No count is shown before 20:15 on 7 March 2027. Section 57 says a voting-district committee opens the ballot boxes after the close of voting. Separately, the State Electoral Office ascertains electronic votes after 20:00 on election day, and the committee that counts votes cast outside the voter’s own district starts at 20:00. Either of those 20:00 steps can begin while a voter at a polling place is still allowed to finish, which is why the count on this site stays hidden until 20:15.

Section 4 gives the vote to an Estonian citizen who is 18 by election day. A person serving a prison sentence may not participate in voting. The right to stand belongs to an Estonian citizen who is 21 by the last day for registration of candidates. The elections page dates that day as 21 January 2027. A political party must be entered in the register of non-profit associations and foundations by 7 December 2026, and an independent candidate may take part. A person in active service in the Defence Forces may not stand. On 27 October 2026 the office had not published a list of names in ballot order, so this hub prints none. The campaigning page prohibits campaigning inside the polling place, so the room stays neutral, and it does not prohibit a public survey during the elections period or on election day. This site publishes no survey figure and no projection on any day. No vote table from an earlier election was copied.

Sources for this preview

• State Electoral Office, Riigikogu elections 2027
• Riigikogu Election Act, English consolidation
• State Electoral Office, election campaigning