- Electronic personal identification is mainly suitable for providing web services in the public as well as the private sector, but also in other fields, e.g. in mobile devices.
- Electronic personal identification with certificates is a standard function in many software packages. ID-card based identification is, among others, supported by the most common web browsers (Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge) and web servers (IIS, Apache).
- ID-cards and Mobile-ID can be used for authentication to access most e-services of the public and private sector.
State Authentication Service (TARA)
The State Authentication Service is a platform developed and maintained by the Estonian Information System Authority (RIA). It is integrated with authentication methods provided by third parties and performs the data queries required for user authentication.
RIA provides the State Authentication Service to authorities in the government sector, as defined in the Ministry of Finance's classification spreadsheet ‘Avaliku sektori asutused asutuse liikide lõikes’ (Public sector institutions by institution type) (excluding the "Other Public Sector" category). The service is intended for organisations wishing to offer multiple authentication methods in their e-services, including the ID card, Mobile-ID, Smart-ID and the European Union eID, by combining these authentication methods or using them separately.
Since autumn 2018, the State Authentication Service has enabled users to authenticate using the eID of an EU Member State, provided that the Member State's eID scheme has been submitted to the European Commission for assessment and the corresponding implementing decision has been formally adopted. Public sector e-services must support authentication with the eIDs of such Member States within one year of the European Commission's formal adoption of the implementing decision.
From 26 February 2026, the State Authentication Service uses the Smart-ID+ solution when logging in with Smart-ID. Read more: Accessing state e-services with Smart-ID
Joining TARA
The terms and conditions and document forms of the State Authentication Service are valid from 1 March 2025.
To integrate your online service with TARA, fill in the application and send it (digitally signed) to RIA’s customer support [email protected].
Successful integration with TARA demo service is a prerequisite for integration with production service.
If the institution has entered into a subscription agreement with RIA for the use of services, a connection application signed by a person with the right of representation must be submitted for interfacing the client application.
Applications and terms and conditions (in Estonian)
The State SSO (single-sign-on) service (GovSSO) is a service of the Estonian Information System Authority, whereby institutions can add support for both national and European Union cross-border authentication methods with session management to their e-service.
Unlike the State Authentication Service (TARA), users of ID cards, Mobile-ID, Smart-ID, and European Union eID can be authenticated with a single login in the e-services subscribed to the State SSO service.
RIA provides the service to all authorities in the government sector as listed on the Ministry of Finance webpage in the spreadsheet ‘Avaliku sektori asutused asutuse liikide lõikes’ (Public sector institutions by institution type) (except for other public sector).
The national authentication methods supported include:
- ID-card,
- Mobile-ID (only users with an Estonian personal identification code),
- Smart-ID (only users with an Estonian personal identification code).
Please note! We ask e-service providers to pay attention to the fact that differentiating between Estonian residents and non-residents is not possible when using Smart-ID for identification (as it would be with the e-resident certificate).
Cross-border authentication with eID schemes notified to the European Union through the eIDAS-Node infrastructure is also supported.
From 26 February 2026, the State SSO service uses the Smart-ID+ solution when logging in with Smart-ID. Read more: Accessing state e-services with Smart-ID
The terms and conditions and document forms of the State SSO service are valid from 1 March 2025.
In order to join the State SSO service environments (demo and production), you must fill in the corresponding application and send the application, signed by the representative, to [email protected].
Successful integration with GovSSO demo service is a prerequisite for integration with production service.
If the institution has entered into a subscription agreement with RIA for the use of services, a connection application signed by a person with the right of representation must be submitted for interfacing the client application.
Please also contact [email protected] with any further questions.
Applications and terms and conditions (in Estonian)
References
In the self-service environment minuautentimine.ria.ee, you can view and close your current national SSO service sessions.
The environment will be particularly useful for people who use e-services on shared computers, such as in libraries. If you forget to log out of a service there, you can log in to the self-service environment from another device and close any e-service sessions that are still open.
The user can also navigate to the self-service environment via the link on the authentication service pages for logging in, resuming a session, and logging out.
Last updated: 17.07.2026
