ID-card documentation

Here you will find all standards and technical documents related to ID-cards, which are above all designed for software developers.

NB!  In order to support ID-cards of different generations in your system, you must simultaneously follow specifications:

Additional information about ID-cards and certificates:

• Issue information of different ID-card generations.
• Information on certificate profiles on SK ID Solutions website.
• IDEMIA chip version until Cosmo v8.1. ID1 Developer Guide (.pdf, (10.10.2019), in English), which covers the use of the Estonian ID card chip in applications and interfaces
• IDEMIA chip version until Cosmo v8.2. Estonian eID 2018 chip specification (.pdf, ver 1.0, in English)
• IDEMIA chip version CosmoX. ESTONIA eID-eRP cards on CosmoX (.pdf, (15.04.2025), in English), which discusses the main changes in the updated chip version compared to the previous one.

Standards of ID-cards issued earlier (already expired):

• EstEID specification (.pdf, ver 1.41 (18 October 2017), in English) that addresses Estonian ID-cards with chip application version 3.5.8, which were issued from 25 October 2017.
• EstEID specification (.pdf, ver 1.30 (14 March 2017), in English) that addresses Estonian ID-cards with chip application version 3.5, which were issued from October 2014 and 2016.
• EstEID specification  (.pdf, ver 1.20 (27 March 2014), in English) that addresses Estonian ID-cards with chip application version 3.5, which were issued from October 2014.
• EstEID specification(.pdf, ver 1.1 (12 September 2013), in English) that addresses all ID-cards issued in Estonia (up to chip application version 3.5).
  • EstEID specification contains misleading information on page 37. On the page it says that the maximum Le value is FE (254), but the actual value is FF (255). This is also mentioned on page 137 of the document.