If the bill passes a Riigikogu vote and is promulgated by the president, it will enter into force on June 12.

"We must keep away from Europe everyone who has no reason to be here. Those who have arrived illegally must be expelled without delay. The reform harmonizes the granting or refusal of international protection across all EU member states, speeds up and improves procedures, strengthens external borders, and establishes a balance between solidarity and responsibility," Interior Minister Igor Taro (Eesti 200) said.

The reform also defines how member states under migration pressure will be supported. "Estonia has already decided that among the three options within the solidarity mechanism, we will not participate in refugee relocation or accommodation. We will contribute either financially or through expertise, or by combining the two. Since Estonia has assisted many Ukrainians, our contribution for 2026 has been reduced by half," Interior Minister Taro said.

Interior Minister Igor Taro said the entire relevant domestic legislation, the Aliens Granted International Protection Act, to reflect the extensive, highly detailed, and directly applicable nature of the EU's common asylum and migration management framework, which takes effect this June, is.

The reform, the interior ministry says, clarifies authorities' workflows for handling international protection applicants and streamlines their workload. It strengthens control over immigration to Estonia by preventing illegal entry and onward movement within the Schengen area, speeds up and improves the fairness of application processing, enables quicker returns of those without protection needs or posing security risks, and enhances cooperation with other member states in crises, data exchange, and common procedural rules.

Joosep Kaasik, Deputy Secretary General for Internal Security at the Ministry of the Interior, added that Estonia is well regarded in Europe for its pace and scope of implementing the migration package, while implementing the reform will be an extensive project, including renovating buildings, developing IT systems, and changing existing work procedures.

While the main developments will be ready by the time the law is due to enter into force in June this year, some of the major projects will not be finalized until near the end of this decade, according to Kaasik.

The interior ministry cites figures which show that in Estonia applications for and recipients of international protection were relatively low until early 2022, before rising sharply after the Russian Federation's illegal military aggression against Ukraine: From about 100 applications annually before 2022 to 2,940 in 2022, 3,980 in 2023, 1,328 in 2024, and 1,014 in 2025.

In recent years, around one million applications for international protection have been submitted annually in the European Union: 966,107 in 2022 (across EU member states plus Norway and Switzerland), rising to 1,143,437 in 2023 and standing at 1,014,420 in 2024, the ministry says.

The number of people granted protection has risen proportionally, from roughly 50 per year previously to about 4,000 in 2023, followed by 1,369 in 2024 and 755 in 2025.

As of February 2026, Ukrainian citizens have submitted 4.93 million active temporary protection applications across the EU; since the full-scale war began, 62,822 were filed in Estonia, where 33,615 people—2.5% of the population—held valid temporary protection–based residence permits.

Implementation of the migration package is co-financed by the EU's Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund; funding for border management and visa policy also comes from the EU.

The bill amends or supplements a total of 19 laws, including the Aliens Granted International Protection Act.

Stakeholders from the public sector, international orgs and Estonia's third sector were involved in the bill's drafting, the ministry says.

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