Estonians in Finland

Estonians in Finland or Finnish Estonians (Eestlased Soomes; Suomen virolaiset) are people with an Estonian background residing in Finland. In 2023, according to Statistics Finland, there were 52,593 Estonian-background residents in Finland. In 2023, Estonian was the native tongue for 0.9% of Finland's population.

Finland has the largest community of Estonians outside of Estonia.

In 2023, the greatest share of the population in Finland who was born in Estonia lived in Uusimaa (33 078), followed by Southwest Finland (3 771), Pirkanmaa (2 228) and Päijät-Häme (1 585).

History
Immigration from Estonia to Finland was low before 1990. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Estonia's EU membership in 2004, emigration from Estonia to Finland increased rapidly.

The peak migration of Estonians was in 2012, when over 6,000 Estonians emigrated to Finland. In 2017 however the net migration from Estonia was negative, as Estonians are returning to their country. Reasons for this are better salaries in Estonia and family ties. In spite of this, the Estonian population is still growing, although at a much slower rate than previously.

Employment
The employment rate of Estonians is 76%, higher than Finns.

As of 2023, from the population with an Estonian citizenship, 22 626 were employees and 4375 were entrepreneurs.

Notable Estonians in Finland

 * Hans Kalm, soldier
 * Hella Wuolijoki, writer
 * Imbi Paju, journalist, writer and filmmaker
 * Kalevi Kotkas, athlete
 * Mikael Gabriel, rapper
 * Mäkki, rapper
 * Siim Liivik, ice hockey player
 * Sofi Oksanen, writer
 * Tiina Lillak, athlete