Maali Käbin, analyst at Statistics Estonia, said that information about ethnic nationality is obtained from various state registers and databases. "The main source is the population register. If this register does not specify the ethnic nationality, we rely on other national databases, such as information provided when applying for identity documents," explained Käbin.

In the period 2018–2026, the number of Estonians has been quite stable. At the same time, the number of Russians has decreased and the number of Ukrainians increased. 

Estonians hold the biggest share in every age group, although the share of Russians and other ethnic nationalities is as much as 40 percent in the age group 65–79. Estonians account for more 70 percent of the population among children and youngsters.

After Estonians and Russians, the third largest ethnic nationality in Estonia is Ukrainians. Their number was 75,250 as at 1 January 2026, which means 5.5 percent of the total population. 

The other ethnic nationalities with a considerable population in Estonia are Belarusians (11,477), Finns (8,059) and Latvians (4,272). All the remaining ethnic nationalities have fewer than 4,000 representatives in Estonia. The number of residents whose ethnic nationality is unknown has decreased gradually. As at 1 January 2026, there were 5,398 residents with unknown ethnic nationality (0.4 percent). 

The share of other ethnic nationalities in the population has not changed as much as the share of Ukrainians. In 2018–2026, the number of Latvians living in Estonia increased by 1,794. In the same period, there was also an increase in the number of Germans (up by 805), Azerbaijanis (up by 879) and Turks (up by 1,069). The number of Indians has also grown — it was 1,431 in 2023 and 1,836 at the start of this year.

Citizens of 159 countries and 262 languages spoken in Estonia

As at 1 January 2026, there were citizens of 159 countries among the permanent residents of Estonia. 82.2 percent of the population had Estonian citizenship, 5.5 percent had Russian citizenship and 4.6 percent had Ukrainian citizenship. 2.9 percent of residents had the citizenship of other countries and 4.3 percent had undetermined citizenship. Most of the people without citizenship are long-term residents of Estonia who do not hold the citizenship of any country. 

At the start of 2026, the population of Estonia included native speakers of 262 different languages. 77 of these languages had only one or two speakers residing in Estonia. Estonian is the mother tongue for 65.4 percent of the population (890,104 people). 26.9 percent are native speakers of Russian (366,251 people) and 4.1 percent are native speakers of Ukrainian (55,812 people). The remaining languages represented less than 1 percent of the mother tongues. Over 5,000 people were native speakers of English. Finnish was the mother tongue of nearly 4,000 residents.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and X and never miss an update!