Modular Building Developments

EU construction transition pathway · Member State profile · Estonia

How Estonia supports the High Level Construction Forum

Estonia's contribution to the European Commission's forum rests on three things: a national construction roadmap to 2035, a public e-construction platform that already shortens building permits, and a funded plan to renovate its ageing building stock by 2050.

About us

OFUSAITO Developments

OFUSAITO Developments OÜ is an offsite consultancy based in Tallinn, with a UK office in St Albans. We are members of the High Level Construction Forum's Task Force on Offsite Construction, which identifies practical measures to help offsite building be used more widely across the EU. We bring our experience and knowledge of offsite construction to Estonia and the other 26 EU Member States, helping to deliver the forum's goal of a greener, more digital and more resilient construction sector.

The forum

What the High Level Construction Forum is for

The High Level Construction Forum (HLCF) is a stakeholder platform run by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW). It followed the earlier Construction 2020 initiative and first met online on 28 September 2021. Its purpose is to co-create and then monitor a transition pathway towards a green, digital and resilient EU construction ecosystem.

The main output is the Transition Pathway for Construction, published in March 2023. Members turn its recommendations into voluntary pledges. By the fifth plenary in March 2025, 83 commitments had been made. The sixth plenary in April 2026 focused on putting the new European Strategy for Housing Construction into practice.

2021Forum launched by DG GROW, following Construction 2020
1,300+Members: companies, associations, national authorities and academia
83Commitments made under the Transition Pathway by March 2025
6thPlenary held April 2026, centred on the Housing Construction Strategy

The six building blocks of the Transition Pathway

  • 1 Competitiveness
  • 2 Skills and talent
  • 3 Enabling framework
  • 4 Research, innovation, technology
  • 5 Funding
  • 6 A fair and safe built environment

At the 2025 plenary the Commission set out five priority pillars for action: access to primary and secondary raw materials; lead markets and scaling up industrialised and off-site construction; faster, digital permitting; access to finance for innovation; and access to skills, including cross-border services. Digitalisation and implementation of the Construction Products Regulation run across all five.

Estonia's pledge

The Estonian Construction 2035 Roadmap

Estonia's formal commitment on the EU Construction Platform is its Long-Term View on Construction 2035 (Ehituse pikk vaade 2035). The government approved it in spring 2021 and sector partners signed it on 9 June 2021. It covers the green, digital and resilient transition and sets out problems, a vision, objectives and actions with named responsible organisations.

Where other national plans describe what should be built, this roadmap focuses on how construction is done: the quality and efficiency of processes. Its headline aim is to raise the sector's productivity to the top of Europe within twenty years. A Construction Development Committee, led by the responsible ministry, coordinates delivery.

Signatories include the ministry, the main professional and business associations (architects, construction entrepreneurs, civil engineers, consulting engineers, material producers, infrastructure builders, spatial planners, the Woodhouse Association and the Digital Construction Cluster), five higher education institutions, and the cities of Tallinn and Tartu.

Transition Pathway actions Estonia's pledge addresses

All six sit in Building Block 3, the enabling framework.

  • 3.24National regulations for digitalisation
  • 3.25Digital SME platforms and services
  • 3.26Awareness of digital tools and support
  • 3.32Digitally traceable materials
  • 3.33Digital permits guidelines and trainings
  • 3.37Technical Support Instrument

Showcase · 5th HLCF plenary, March 2025

Faster building permits through e-construction

Estonia was one of two Member States invited to present at the 2025 plenary. The City of Tallinn's head of digital construction explained how the national e-construction platform lets every party exchange standardised data across a building's life cycle, from zoning to building permit to use permit. The public building registry works as both a building logbook and the place where procedures happen.

Tallinn has run BIM-based permitting since 2019. Applicants can run automated checks before formal submission, which catches problems early. The speaker's point was that digital tools only help when the underlying process is improved too.

Average permit processing time, days

Tallinn, before digital registry~100
Tallinn, current registry46
Estonia, registry v1 (2016–2022)33
Estonia, registry v2 (from 2022)26
Figures as reported to the 5th HLCF plenary, 25 March 2025. Bars share one scale, 0–100 days.

Goals and actions

How Estonian measures line up with the forum's goals

Each row pairs a forum priority with what Estonia is doing about it. Status reflects public sources as of October 2026.

Block 3 · Pillar 3

Digital, faster permitting

In operation
  • National e-construction platform with a public building registry acting as the building logbook.
  • Second-generation permit registry since 2022, cutting average processing from 33 to 26 days.
  • BIM-based permitting in Tallinn since 2019, with applicant-side automated checks.
Block 3 · Block 5

Common data standards and digital tools for SMEs

Milestones delivered
  • "e-Leap in Construction" (ehituse e-hüpe), a €4.5 million investment from Estonia's Recovery and Resilience Plan, run with the State Shared Service Centre.
  • Published guidelines for a construction data classification system and an online database of average emission factors for materials.
  • Building permits, design specifications and the registry made reachable from the e-construction platform.
  • A target of at least 102 completed company and public-body projects using digital construction tools by the end of 2025.
Block 6 · Green transition

Renovating the existing stock

Plan in consultation
  • More than half of Estonia's buildings date from the Soviet era, and over 13,000 apartment buildings need renovation.
  • A draft national building renovation plan to 2050 expects €8.6 billion of public and private investment in 2026–2035, with about €1.5 billion of state support.
  • €330 million of EU structural funds for apartment building grants in 2022–2027; grants rise from 50% to 55% outside the main cities when prefabricated elements are used.
  • A renovation passport to help owners plan step-by-step upgrades towards zero-emission buildings.
Pillar 2

Industrialised and off-site construction

Under way
  • Higher grant rates for factory-prefabricated renovation, plus dedicated grant rounds for prefabricated and neighbourhood-scale renovation.
  • LIFE IP BuildEST (2021–2028) is developing prefabricated renovation solutions and digital workflows for them.
  • A strong timber-house industry represented among Construction 2035 signatories.
Action 3.32 · Pillar 1

Traceable materials and circularity

Under way
  • Material emission factor database to support whole-life carbon assessment.
  • Plans to enrich the building registry with additional data so circularity can be assessed, as described by Estonia at the 2025 plenary.
  • National skills forecasting notes that recycling of construction and demolition waste is becoming standard practice.
Block 2 · Pillar 5

Skills and public-sector capacity

Under way
  • Construction employs more than 8% of Estonia's workforce, and national forecasting points to digital tools reshaping the skills it needs.
  • The Construction 2035 roadmap includes building the capacity of local governments and adopting smart-client principles.
  • Training for e-construction platform users was part of the recovery plan measure.

Timeline

From first digital permit to 2050

  1. First version of Estonia's digital building permit registry goes live.
  2. Tallinn begins BIM-based building permitting.
  3. Long-Term View on Construction 2035 adopted and signed by public and private partners.
  4. First High Level Construction Forum meets.
  5. New permit registry introduced; average processing falls to 26 days.
  6. Transition Pathway for Construction published.
  7. Recovery plan milestone: construction data classification system and emission factor database published.
  8. Estonia presents its permitting approach at the 5th HLCF plenary.
  9. Deadline for the recovery plan e-construction investment.
  10. 6th HLCF plenary on delivering the European Strategy for Housing Construction.
  11. Final national building renovation plan due from the Ministry of Climate.
  12. Construction 2035 vision horizon; first renovation investment period closes.
  13. Target for an energy-efficient, low-carbon building stock.

Lessons for the EU

What Estonia brings to the forum's discussions

Start small, then scale

In the 2025 permitting workshop, Estonian participants advised digitising permitting one step at a time rather than all at once.

Put requirements in the model

Estonia suggested encoding planning requirements in open IFC models so information is standardised and checks can be automated.

One common core system

Tallinn argued that if every authority needs the same things, Europe should build one interoperable core and add local modules only where needed.

Public and private together

Both the roadmap and the e-construction platform were built jointly with industry, universities and cities, which Estonia presents as the condition for success.

Contact

Get in touch

Offices in the United Kingdom and in Tallinn, Estonia.

European office OFUSAITO Developments OÜ
Vesivärava St. 50-301
Kesklinna District
10152 Tallinn, Harju County
Estonia www.ofusaito-developments.eu Registry code (registrikood) 17595865
Estonian Commercial Register
UK office Modular Building Developments Ltd
The Studio
45 Sadleir Road
St Albans, Herts
AL1 2BL
United Kingdom www.modularbuildingdevelopments.co.uk Company number 11525086
Registered in England and Wales

Send us a message

Tell us about your project or question and we will reply by email.

Or email us directly: peter@ofusaito-developments.eu

Sources

Where these details come from

  1. Estonian Construction 2035 Roadmap pledge, EU Construction Platform
  2. Fifth annual plenary meeting of the HLCF, meeting report (DG GROW, 2025)
  3. The sixth High Level Construction Forum, EU Construction Platform
  4. High Level Construction Forum, BUILD UP
  5. Ecorys, Technical Secretariat of the HLCF
  6. Long-Term View on Construction 2035, Estonian Ministry of Climate
  7. TTK UAS on the Construction 2035 agreement and signatories
  8. Council annex to Estonia's Recovery and Resilience Plan, e-construction measure
  9. Council annex: e-construction milestones and targets
  10. e-Leap in Construction, Global BIM Network
  11. ERR: national plan prescribes €9 billion of building renovations
  12. EIS: apartment building reconstruction grant 2022–2027
  13. ERR: renovation grant round and buildings in need of renovation
  14. Renovation wave, Estonian Ministry of Climate
  15. LIFE IP BuildEST, Estonian Ministry of Climate
  16. Clean Energy for EU Islands: Estonia renovation plan and passport
  17. OSKA construction sector key findings (2024)
Published by Modular Building Developments Ltd (company number 11525086) · www.modularbuildingdevelopments.co.uk and OFUSAITO Developments OÜ (registry code 17595865) · www.ofusaito-developments.eu · St Albans, UK and Tallinn, Estonia. Compiled from public sources, October 2026. Not an official publication of the European Commission or the Government of Estonia.The design follows the Brand Estonia colour and typography guidelines. This site is not affiliated with or endorsed by Enterprise Estonia (EIS) or Brand Estonia.