A regulation clarifying the requirements for the registration of workers on a building site has entered into force

On 1 October, amendments to the Taxation Act entered into force, under which the main contractor and the building contractor are required to register people on the job site in the event of major works and to submit the corresponding data to the Tax and Customs Board. On 18 November, a regulation clarifying the statutory requirements entered into force. 

Reporting of time spent on construction site and specific cases
According to the Regulation, the main contractor must ensure that entry to and exit from the construction site are fixed in the electronic registration system for all persons admitted to the construction site: persons performing construction work; visitors to the construction site who do not carry out construction work and people who do not carry out construction work who are present on the construction site in connection with their duties.

According to the Regulation, the main means of identifying entry and exit from a building site is a remotely readable card, which must enable the electronic registration system to identify the identity of the user of the card and, thanks to the photograph and name entered, can also be used as the primary visual identification tool. According to the regulation, the time spent on the site may also be fixed by other equivalent means of identification.

The main contractor has the obligation to issue a non-personalised visitor card to the person staying on the construction site in connection with their duties and to the visitor of the construction site who does not carry out construction work and who does not have a card as a means of identification in order to fix the time of the stay on the construction site. The main contractor is also permitted to use another equivalent solution.

The regulation also sets out the specification that a person performing a public task or a person who does not participate directly in the execution of construction works on a construction site but delivers goods or materials necessary for the performance of construction works to the construction site need not be given a card constituting a means of identification and the time of their stay on the construction site need not be fixed.

If it is not possible to use the electronic registration system at the location of the construction site for the purposes of fixing the time of stay on the construction site on an ongoing basis in physical form or using a telephone or mobile application, the main contractor is required to notify the Tax and Customs Board thereof. In this case, the Tax and Customs Board must agree to report on the site at different intervals or in different ways.

Requirements for electronic registration system
The Regulation also sets out the specific conditions to be met by the electronic registration system to be installed on the site. This shall enable reliable determination of the time of entry to and exit from the site to the accuracy of a second, either by means of a card constituting a means of identification or by means of an equivalent means of identification, including a mobile solution.

In addition, the system shall enable the data of the identification device to be used for recording. The system shall also be able to distinguish whether the duration of the stay on the site has been fixed using a detection tool, entered automatically into the system or entered manually. It is also important that the registration system enables the exchange of data with the Tax and Customs Board’s database.

The system shall also enable extraction of data on the use of detection equipment at the construction site throughout the construction cycle and at least four months after completion of the construction work. The regulation also states that the system must enable the person appointed by the main contractor during the general working hours or the working hours of the enterprise to take a digital and paper record of the persons present or staying on the construction site and of the duration of their stay on the construction site.

The registration system must also be linked by means of a specific identification code to  each site concerned. The system must also enable all data processing to be logged and log data to be stored in a form that does not allow modification. In addition, the system must be able to transmit the information concerning the presence on the construction site to the Tax and Customs Board via X-Road in a format determined by the authority.

Requirements for identification cards 
Under the Regulation, each construction contractor is required to obtain a remotely readable card as a means of identification for a worker authorised by it to the site, enabling the electronic registration system to identify the user of the card.

In order to establish a link between the identification card and its user, the card shall be capable of transmitting a unique identification code at high frequency. The image, name, personal identification code or date of birth of the user and the card code must be entered on the identification card which of the person working on the construction site.

An identification card issued to a person working on a construction site must be linked to their individual employer. An identification card is linked to a new employer by the new employer of the person.

If a person holds a valid identification card, the construction contractor may also permit the person to use a remotely readable identification card, residence permit card, mobile application or other equivalent means of identification as an identification card, which enables establishing the stay on the construction site equally accurately. Other means of identification must be linked to the identification code given to the person in the registration system.

In addition, the regulation states that the main contractor must obtain reusable non-personalised cards or, where appropriate, other equivalent cards which enable the electronic registration system to identify people present on the site in connection with other work assignments and visitors to the site who do not carry out construction work. The assumptions set out in the previous paragraph shall not apply to the fixing of the time of presence of these persons on the site by any other equivalent means of identification.

Issue of identification card
The organisation issuing the identification cards must be verified by the Tax and Customs Board in accordance with the Regulation. It must be possible to order cards through the online environment of the person who issues the cards, and it must be possible to order cards individually for an employee or by uploading a master data file for several employees at the same time.

The Regulation specifies that the card shall be issued within three working days as of the ordering of the card and the card shall be issued to a person holding an Estonian personal identification code for a period of validity of at least five years and to a person without an Estonian personal identification code for a period of validity of at least six months and the guest card is issued for an unspecified term.

The fee charged to a building contractor for the issue of a card shall correspond to the costs related to its manufacture and shall not exceed eight euros.

The Order of the Minister of Finance, which entered into force on 18 November, can be read here. The amendments to the Taxation Act, which entered into force on 1 October, with regard to the registration of workers on the construction site can be read here.