Guides
One URL per topic, revised in place rather than republished. Each carries the date its facts were last checked against their sources, says at the top what it does not cover, and links every number to where it came from. Nothing here is sponsored and nothing here sells you an introduction to anyone.
The Latvian Digital Nomad Visa, and Working Remotely From Riga
Latvia's long-stay visa for remote workers employed or self-employed in an OECD state. The income multiple and the figure the migration office actually applies, the one-year term and its single renewal, the six-month bar that follows, why it carries no right to work in Latvia, and where it fits against the startup visa.
Last verified 19 September 2026 · 9 min read
Licensing a Fintech in Latvia: Payment Institutions and E-Money
What it takes to be regulated as a payment or e-money firm in Latvia. The four initial capital figures and which services trigger each, who supervises you, how long a licence decision takes and how long the licence lasts, and the question of whether you need one at all.
Last verified 19 September 2026 · 8 min read
When a Latvian Company Cannot Pay: Insolvency, and the Duty to File
What actually happens when a SIA runs out of money. The statutory signs that start the board's duty to file, the deposit an application needs, what the administrator takes over, how long creditors have to claim, the restructuring route that is not insolvency, and where the founder's own exposure begins.
Last verified 19 September 2026 · 9 min read
Selling to the Latvian State: Public Procurement for a Small Company
How a startup sells to Latvian public buyers. The contract size below which no procedure is needed at all, the lighter route above it, where tenders and results are published, how to read the open data on who won and for how much, and the honest case for and against bidding.
Last verified 19 September 2026 · 9 min read
Getting Paid in Latvia: Unpaid Invoices, Interest, and the Courts
What to do when a Latvian customer does not pay. The interest and recovery costs the law gives you without asking, the warning procedure that turns a documented invoice into an enforceable order for a small fixed fee, what an ordinary claim costs instead, and the point below which none of it is worth doing.
Last verified 19 September 2026 · 11 min read
Expanding a Latvian Company Into Estonia
What a Latvian company actually has to do to sell, hire, and establish in Estonia, from the single market rules that let you trade there without a company at all to the day a VAT registration or a permanent establishment becomes unavoidable, with the branch and subsidiary question settled on what each one costs you.
Last verified 15 September 2026 · 10 min read
Expanding a Latvian Company Into Lithuania
What a Latvian company has to do to sell, hire, and establish in Lithuania, why the biggest Baltic market is also the one whose tax model differs most from Latvia's, the branch and subsidiary question, the small partnership form Latvia has no equivalent of, and why the figures here carry a weaker guarantee than the Estonian ones.
Last verified 15 September 2026 · 9 min read
What Data Protection Actually Requires of a Latvian Startup
How GDPR reaches a Latvian company from its first employee and first customer, what the Data State Inspectorate does and what its inspections look like, when you need a data protection officer and what Latvia adds on top, the rules Latvia sets for itself on children's consent and office cameras, and what it costs to get wrong.
Last verified 15 September 2026 · 12 min read
Who Owns the Code, the Logo, and the Idea in Latvia
What a Latvian company owns of the work its employees and contractors make, why software is the exception in Latvian copyright and the rule in Latvian patent law, how trademarks work at the Patent Office and at the EUIPO, and the paperwork a fund will ask for before it invests.
Last verified 15 September 2026 · 12 min read
Selling a Latvian Company: Share Deals, Consents, and the Tax on Your Exit
How a Latvian SIA changes hands. Share deal against asset deal, what a buyer can read about you in the register before you tell them anything, whose consent you need, when the competition authority or the state has to clear the sale, what happens to your employees, what the seller pays in tax, and what has to be filed once the money moves.
Last verified 12 September 2026 · 13 min read
Latvian Startup Events: The Year Ahead, and Which Ones Are Worth It
Every Latvian and Baltic startup event worth a founder's time, with dates, venues, ticket prices, and the attendance each organiser publishes, plus which ones investors actually turn up to, what a year of conferences costs, and how to work a room when nobody knows your company yet.
Last verified 12 September 2026 · 11 min read
Coworking in Riga: Spaces, Prices, and When to Lease an Office
Where Riga's coworking spaces are and what a hot desk, fixed desk, private office seat, or legal address costs at each, on a map beside the city's startups, plus what office space rents for, what to check in a lease, when your own office becomes cheaper, and how to register a company at a coworking address.
Last verified 12 September 2026 · 12 min read
EIC Accelerator and Horizon Europe for Latvian Startups
What the European Innovation Council offers a Latvian deep tech startup, from the EIC Accelerator's grant and equity to the Pre-Accelerator reserved for widening countries like Latvia and Pathfinder and Transition consortia, with how applications run, the odds, what the EIC Fund's stake means, what applying costs, and whether to apply.
Last verified 11 September 2026 · 8 min read
Is Latvia a Tax Haven?
No, by the lists governments use, though its corporate tax can look like one. Latvia taxes company profit only when it is paid out, so profit a company keeps is untaxed, but Latvia is on no EU blacklist, withholds tax on payments to the places that are, taxes profit parked in controlled foreign companies, and charges full payroll taxes on salaries.
Last verified 11 September 2026 · 8 min read
Opening a Business Bank Account in Latvia as a Foreign Founder
How to open a bank account in Latvia for a company with a foreign owner. What Swedbank, SEB, and Citadele ask for and charge, why applications are refused, what an e-money account does and does not solve, and the order to do it in.
Last verified 11 September 2026 · 13 min read
Cap Tables, Share Classes, and What the Latvian Register Shows
How shares work in a Latvian SIA, the share classes and liquidation preferences the Commercial Law allows, how convertible loans and SAFEs convert, what the public register shows about ownership, how option pools are held, why startups end up with a foreign parent, how shares are transferred, and what a clean cap table looks like at each round.
Last verified 11 September 2026 · 13 min read
Shutting Down a SIA: Liquidation, Dormancy, and the Cost of Doing Nothing
How to close a company in Latvia properly. The two filings of a voluntary liquidation, what they cost, how long they take on paper and in the register, going dormant instead, and what happens to a company, and its board, that simply stops filing.
Last verified 11 September 2026 · 17 min read
eParaksts, Smart-ID, and eID: Signing Things in Latvia
How to get eParaksts, Smart-ID, or an eID card in Latvia, including as a foreigner. What each costs, who can have one, what it opens in EDS, Latvija.gov.lv, and the Register, and what to do without a Latvian personal code.
Last verified 11 September 2026 · 14 min read
Every Investor Backing Latvian Startups: Funds and Angels
A filterable directory of the funds, angel networks and accelerators in Latvian startup rounds, with the stage, region and cheque size each one publishes and how many Latvian rounds it has backed, plus who invests at pre-seed and seed, who invests later, how Altum's money shapes the market, and how to approach an investor.
Last verified 11 September 2026 · 6 min read
Pay Transparency in Latvia: What Applies Now, and What the EU Directive Will Add
Latvia missed the 7 June 2026 deadline for the EU Pay Transparency Directive, and its draft law is not yet adopted. What Latvian law already requires on pay in job adverts and equal pay, what the directive will add, when pay gap reports start, how Latvia's draft differs, and a pay banding exercise to run now.
Last verified 11 September 2026 · 10 min read
Public Money for Latvian Startups: LIAA Grants and Altum Loans
Every LIAA grant and Altum loan open to a Latvian startup in 2026, with the amounts, the share each covers, who qualifies, the de minimis cap they share, what gets applications turned down, where the co-funding comes from, and a calendar of the deadlines.
Last verified 11 September 2026 · 11 min read
Latvia Salary Calculator: Gross to Net, and the Income Tax Behind It
Net pay and the employer's total cost for a monthly salary in Latvia at 2026 rates, and the employee-side rules the arithmetic rests on, from the non-taxable minimum, dependants, disability relief and working pensioners to high salaries, non-residents and the annual income declaration.
Last verified 11 September 2026 · 9 min read
The SIA Compliance Calendar: Every Filing a Latvian Company Owes
Every recurring filing a Latvian SIA owes in a year, from the annual report and VAT and corporate income tax returns to payroll reports, beneficial owner changes and statistics surveys, with each deadline, where it is filed, and what missing it costs.
Last verified 11 September 2026 · 16 min read
Where Startup Money Comes From in Latvia
Every source of startup funding in Latvia by stage, from LIAA grants and incubation and Altum's start-up loan to LatBAN's angels, venture funds and the state money behind them, and the EIC Accelerator, set against what Latvian startups actually raise at each stage.
Last verified 11 September 2026 · 7 min read
What Tech Jobs Pay in Riga, From the Official Numbers
Average pay in Latvia's tech sector and in Riga from the Central Statistical Bureau, what software developers and other tech occupations earned in the last official pay survey, how Riga compares with Tallinn and Vilnius, what a tech hire costs the employer, and why no open data can give salary bands by seniority.
Last verified 11 September 2026 · 9 min read
Employer of Record in Latvia, or Your Own Company
An employer of record will put someone in Riga on a payroll for a monthly fee per person, and your own SIA costs little to register and more to run. The published prices, where the break-even sits, and three things the providers do not lead with, all of them in Latvian law. The arrangement is licensed labour supply, the code belongs to the employer, and the tax-free share option route needs that employer to be you.
Last verified 10 September 2026 · 19 min read
How to Pay Yourself From a Latvian Company
Salary, dividends, or both. Dividends look cheaper and usually are, but once your company is trading the law makes an unpaid director an employee anyway, so taking everything as dividends is not the cheapest route. The arithmetic, the exceptions, and what each choice does to your pension and sick pay.
Last verified 18 September 2026 · 15 min read
Freelancing in Latvia: Self-Employed, IK or Micro-Enterprise Tax
How a freelancer or consultant in Latvia is registered and taxed. What an IK changes (less than people think), what the general regime and micro-enterprise tax each cost at three levels of revenue, the 2026 rules that can take you off the taxpayer register, and the VAT rule that shuts micro-enterprise tax to anyone invoicing a business elsewhere in the EU.
Last verified 18 September 2026 · 17 min read
Hiring a Non-EU Employee in Latvia
Almost every hire from outside the EU goes one of two ways. An employment permit pays a sector wage and goes through the State Employment Agency first. An EU Blue Card skips the agency and is decided in ten working days, but needs one and a half times the national average wage. The current salary floors, the agency step as rewritten in 2025, the fees, the clocks, and how many permits Latvia actually issues.
Last verified 10 September 2026 · 17 min read
VAT Registration in Latvia
The threshold is EUR 50,000 of domestic turnover in a calendar year, and there is a EUR 5,000 grace band above it that almost nothing explains. What the rates are, when you must register, when you should register before you must, and the separate EUR 10,000 rule that catches anyone selling across the EU.
Last verified 18 September 2026 · 14 min read
Relocating to Riga: The Arrival Checklist
The permit is granted and the practical part begins. The order that actually works for a first month in Latvia, from documents before you leave to a personal code, a declared address, a bank account, healthcare and school, with the rule that makes declaring an address a tax decision.
Last verified 10 September 2026 · 15 min read
What a Hire Actually Costs You in Latvia
Your total cost is gross salary times 1.2359. What reaches the employee is a good deal less, and the gap widens as the salary rises. The stack itemised, three worked examples, what a contractor really saves and how far back it can be reclassified, and what ending employment costs, from severance and redundancy to the mistakes that get a dismissal overturned.
Last verified 18 September 2026 · 32 min read
Latvia Only Taxes Profit When You Take It Out
Latvian corporate income tax falls due when profit is distributed, not when it is earned. Retained profit is not taxed at all, and a dividend that has borne corporate tax is not taxed again in the shareholder's hands.
Last verified 8 September 2026 · 14 min read
Latvia versus Estonia versus Lithuania
The three Baltic tax regimes compared from the statutes rather than from incorporation marketing. Latvia and Estonia both tax profit only when it leaves; Latvia's is the cheaper of the two. Lithuania taxes it as it is earned.
Last verified 10 September 2026 · 15 min read
The Latvian Startup Law, Honestly
The Startup Law offers a flat payroll payment and a salary grant to companies that qualify. It is a real saving for a small number of them. Its own register has named 127 companies since 2017, and the cost falls partly on your employees.
Last verified 8 September 2026 · 13 min read
The Latvian Startup Visa
A three-year residence permit for founders building an innovative product. Latvia granted 30 of them last year, the eligibility rules narrowed in May 2026, and the permit forbids you from having any other job.
Last verified 8 September 2026 · 11 min read
Stock Options in Latvia
Latvia exempts employee share options from income tax if five conditions are met, and taxes them as salary if they are not. The gap is not the headline rate, which is now the same either way. It is the social contributions and the timing.
Last verified 8 September 2026 · 16 min read
How to Register a SIA in Latvia
The whole share capital has to be paid before you file, your legal address has to be somewhere you can prove a right to be, and the bank account is its own project. Both filing routes, what it costs, and the first ninety days. Written for founders here and abroad.
Last verified 10 September 2026 · 23 min read