Country guide · Estonia · 6 min

Sõidupäeviku näidis for Estonia: the four things § 4 asks for, free as PDF or CSV for Excel

By Andrei Zamiralov · Updated 5 Oct 2026

You are paid for driving your own car for work in Estonia, and you need a sõidupäeviku näidis today. Below is a blank one, as a PDF or for Excel, with the four things määrus 164 § 4 says it must show and an example of how to fill it.

The short answer

Download the blank Estonian log as a PDF to print or a CSV to open in Excel. Both are free, and both carry the column names in Estonian and English. If Excel shows everything in one column, open the file with Data → From Text/CSV and choose comma as the separator.

The template follows Vabariigi Valitsuse määrus nr 164, § 4 (Arvestuse pidamine). It asks for four things:

1. The name of the person using the car.
2. The car's registration number.
3. The odometer reading at the start and at the end of each trip.
4. The date and the purpose of each trip.

The first two are written once, at the top of the log. The last two are filled in on every row.

What § 4 says, word for word

"Sõiduauto kasutamise üle peetavas arvestuses näidatakse: 1) sõiduautot kasutava isiku ees- ja perekonnanimi; 2) sõiduauto riikliku registreerimismärgi andmed; 3) sõiduauto läbisõidumõõdiku alg- ja lõppnäit iga … sõidu korral; 4) kuupäev ja sõidu eesmärk iga … sõidu korral."

Points 3 and 4 say iga sõidu korral, for each trip. Points 1 and 2 do not. That is why the template puts your name and the plate in a header, once, and keeps the table for the trips.

The table has no distance column, because § 4 does not ask for one. The distance of a trip is the end reading minus the start reading.

How to fill it in

Write your first name and surname and the plate on the two header lines. Then add one row per work trip, as in this example:

The three trips are 52, 200 and 31 kilometres: 283 kilometres in all.

Write the purpose so that someone reading it later can tell why the drive was for work. "Work" alone tells them nothing. A place and a reason do.

What happens without a log in Estonia

Many countries cut a claim when the records are thin. In Estonia, paying without any record costs all of it. The tax board, Maksu- ja Tolliamet, says:

"Kui isikliku sõiduauto kasutamise hüvitist makstakse ilma arvestust pidamata, on väljamakse näol tegemist palgatuluga."

Paid without a log, the whole compensation is salary. The flat 64 € a month that needed no records was repealed on 1 September 2014. Being paid for your own car in Estonia covers that rule and its history in full.

The log is not the whole paperwork

A sõidupäevik is one of two conditions. The other is a written decision by the employer under § 3, Hüvitise vormistamine. It names the person paid, "hüvitise suurus" (the amount), and "sõidu kuupäev või periood, mille jooksul tehtud sõitude kulusid hüvitatakse" (the date, or the period, of the trips whose costs it pays).

The decision pays for trips already driven: the tax board's handbook says a tax-free payment "ei saa … maksta tulevaste sõitude eest, vaid ainult juba tehtud sõitude eest". One decision may cover more than a calendar month: "Otsuse võib teha ka pikema perioodi kohta kui üks kalendrikuu." The employer then declares the compensation on INF 14 by 1 February of the following year.

The template does not replace the decision. Only the employer can write it. In your own OÜ the decision is the company's, so as its board member you write it yourself.

How long to keep the log: seven years

Two laws set the period, and both say seven years:

• Raamatupidamise seadus § 12 lg 1: from the end of the financial year in which the transaction was recorded.
• Maksukorralduse seadus § 58: from 1 January of the year after the document was made. For a collection of entries, which a sõidupäevik is, the clock starts on 1 January after its last entry: "toimiku või dokumentide kogumiku puhul viimase sissekande tegemisele järgneva aasta 1. jaanuarist".

The two clocks differ, so keep to the later one. Take a notebook started in March 2025 whose last entry is made in February 2027. Its clock starts on 1 January 2028 and runs seven years, to the end of 2034. The first pages, from 2025, are kept as long as the last ones.

Määrus 164 itself sets no period. If the records are missing or unreliable, the tax board may estimate the tax under maksukorralduse seadus § 94 lg 1.

When this template is not the one you need

A company car. The template is for your own car. A car the employer provides is taxed as an erisoodustus per kilowatt, whatever the distance, and the tax board says a log does not change that: "Erasõite ei ole võimalik arvestuse alusel hüvitada ja seetõttu ei ole sõidupäeviku pidamine vajalik." Company car or your own car in Estonia sets the two side by side.

A business trip (lähetus).** Own-car costs on a lähetus may instead be reimbursed on expense documents under the business-trip rules. That is a separate route from this log.

A disabled employee. The same record is kept, but any motor vehicle may be compensated, and so may the journey between home and work where public transport cannot be used for it.

How DriveHub makes this easier

A paper log fails in a predictable way. The trip in February goes unwritten, the odometer reading is guessed, the purpose is filled in a month later. In Estonia, compensation paid without the record is salary — all of it.

With location access set to Always, DriveHub records every drive in the background — and if it ever misses one, it tells you. Your places, past routes and working hours sort most trips as Business or Personal; you settle the rest and add the purpose in your own words.

The report prints the date, the purpose you wrote in the trip's note, and the odometer at the start and end of each trip, and, on a report for one car, the driver and the registration number once in the header. That is where § 4 puts them. Where you have not read the odometer off the dashboard for a trip, the figure is worked out from your last reading and marked ≈, so enter a reading now and then. Tracking is free; exporting the report as PDF, Excel or CSV is part of DriveHub Pro.

What it cannot produce is the employer's written decision. That stays with the employer.

DriveHub is on the App Store for iPhone. The Estonian rules are on the Estonia page. Setting up automatic tracking takes a few minutes, once. Whether a GPS or app log satisfies § 4 is answered in is a GPS or app sõidupäevik accepted in Estonia?. Paper, spreadsheets and apps are compared in four ways to keep a mileage log.

Sources

• Vabariigi Valitsuse määrus nr 164 (14.07.2006), §§ 3 and 4 (RT I, 02.07.2025, 18).
• Maksu- ja Tolliamet, Isikliku sõiduauto kasutamise hüvitis and handbook chapter 11656; handbook Erisoodustused, chapter Tööandja sõiduauto.
• Raamatupidamise seadus § 12 lg 1; maksukorralduse seadus §§ 58 and 94.
• RT I, 26.08.2014, 8 (repeal of määrus 164 § 6).

This page states what the regulation and the tax board's own handbook say, and names them so you can check. It is not tax advice. It can't account for your circumstances. Where money is involved, ask your raamatupidaja — and bring the logbook.

Longer reads

• Autokompensatsioon from your own OÜ: paid to the juhatuse liige, not to the omanik
• Car in your OÜ's name or your own car? In Estonia one tax counts kilowatts, the other kilometres
• Being paid for your own car in Estonia — the 64 € a month that no longer exists