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Digitisation survey: 1st place for Estonia

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InterNations, the largest network for expats, has conducted a study to find out which countries are best positioned in terms of digitisation and has come up with surprising results.

Around 3.5 million so-called remote workers who work with laptops and the Internet anywhere in the world were surveyed. The categories were surveyed:

  • Free access to online services
  • Online handling of official and administrative affairs
  • Get local mobile phone numbers easily
  • Cashless payment
  • High Speed Internet in your own home


On all these points, Estonia is ahead. Even ahead of Finland (2nd place), Norway (3rd place) and Denmark (4th place), although the Scandinavian countries in particular have long been committed to digitisation and are therefore well equipped. Germany is not surprisingly far off in the digital ranking – only 53rd out of a total of 68 countries considered. Germany is even among the top ten losers with the worst ratings: for receiving a local mobile phone number and for cashless payments.
 

You can get a little jealous when you look at Estonia as an online state and see what is not only possible in digital form, but is already a matter of course there.

  • 99% WLAN coverage, even on the beach or in the forest
  • free internet access as a basic right
  • 99% of visits to authorities possible online
  • Tax returns and start-ups feasible in just a few minutes
  • Estonians can vote online
  • Digital medical records
  • Digitization begins at school


In Germany, the topic of high-speed Internet is still more of a wish than a reality and a nationwide coverage of Germany with a fiber optic network is a long way off in the future. In honor of this, however, it should be noted that Estonia also has a simpler time of it: The Baltic country with 1.3 million inhabitants is much smaller and has a central administration, while Germany with 82 million people and its federal structures has considerably more difficult starting conditions.

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