Estonia's economy grew by 1.8% in second quarter
In the second quarter of 2026, the gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 1.8 percent compared with the same period of 2025, data from Statistics Estonia shows. The GDP at current prices amounted to €11.1 billion in the second quarter.
Robert Müürsepp, the national accounts service manager at Statistics Estonia, said that the Estonian economy grew for the fifth quarter in a row.
"In the second quarter, two thirds of the economic activities made a positive contribution to the GDP. Similarly to the first quarter, manufacturing was the biggest driver of economic growth as its value added grew by 6.5 percent. It was followed by agriculture, forestry and fishing where the increase in value added was 168 percent due to the exceptionally low reference base of last year. In construction, value added was up by 7.5 percent," Müürsepp said.
Increases in value added were also recorded in mining and quarrying (15.5 percent), water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities (14.3 percent) and other service activities (12.3 percent). But as these are smaller economic activities, their contribution to GDP growth was minor.
The biggest negative contributors were real estate activities (3.6 percent decrease), wholesale and retail trade (3.2 percent decrease), and electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (9.6 percent decrease).
Investments decreased, foreign trade grew
Foreign trade picked up in the second quarter with exports growing by 2.7 percent and imports by 4.3 percent.
"For the first time since the fourth quarter of 2024, net exports were negative. It means that Estonia's imports of goods and services exceeded exports by €70 million," explained Müürsepp.
In trade in goods, exports rose by 4.2 percent and imports by as much as 6.9 percent.
Trade in electricity had the biggest impact. Trade in services remained similar to last year's levels – exports of services were up by 0.8 percent and imports of services down by 1 percent.
The fall in services imports was mainly due to transport and communication services.
The seasonally and working-day adjusted GDP increased by 0.3 percent compared with the first quarter of 2026 and by 1.8 percent compared with the second quarter of 2025.
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Editor: Helen Wright
