Raamatupidamise Toimkond has put a new RTJ 17 Aktsiapõhised tasud
FIN and linked RTJ 15 amendments out for public consultationFIN under § 34(1) of the Raamatupidamise seadus, with feedback due by 30 November 2026FIN to [email protected] The two draft PDFs appeared alongside the announcement on the Toimkond page. The new guideline is an additional change to the Eesti finantsaruandluse standard prepared over summer 2026, on top of the new RTJ editions confirmed by Finance Minister Regulation No 10 of 17 July 2026.
RTJ 17 covers transactions where a company pays for goods or services with its own shares, units or other equity instruments, with options or other rights to acquire equity instruments in future, or with cash whose amount depends on the value of its equity instrumentsFIN. In Estonian practice the dominant form is employee option programmes, and most of the guideline's examples address them, but the same principles apply to discounted share issues to employees, share or option payments to suppliers and advisers, and cash bonuses linked to the share value. Ordinary investor share issues to raise capital and equity issued for a business combination or to acquire financial instruments are outside its scope.
The core rule is a debit-credit split: goods or services received are recognised as an expense over the service period or as an asset at acquisition where the asset recognition conditions are metFIN. The credit depends on settlement: equity-settled awards increase equity, cash-settled awards recognise a liability until cash settlement. Where vesting conditions must first be met, the services and the matching equity or liability increase are recognised over the vesting period; with no vesting conditions, the services count as immediately rendered.
Measurement differs by settlement form. An equity-settled unit's fair value is fixed at the agreement date for employees, by reference to the instruments granted, or at the date goods or services are received for other counterparties, by reference to what was receivedFIN; it is not remeasured at later balance-sheet dates. Market-based performance conditions feed into that initial fair value only. A cash-settled liability is carried at fair value and remeasured at every balance-sheet dateFIN, so later share-price movements change the recognised cost, and its cumulative profit-and-loss cost ultimately equals the cash paid out.
The linked RTJ 15 draft adds a disclosure point 24A for employee option programmesFIN: the number of participating employees, the programme duration and material vesting conditions, the bases for measuring the options' fair value, the cost recognised in the reporting year, and the cumulative cost since the programme began. Point 18 states the RTJ 17 principles are consistent with SME IFRS chapter 26 on share-based payment, the methodological basis the Toimkond follows.
The drafts are not yet lawFIN. The RTJ 17 header carries an effective date of 1 January 2027 for reporting periods starting on or after that dateFIN, but enactment comes through a ministerial regulation under § 34(4) after consultation
Riigiteataja; preparers with option schemes should therefore review the drafts and respond by the deadline rather than apply them.
Legal basis: draft RTJ 17 Aktsiapõhised tasud and draft RTJ 15 amendments published for consultation under § 34(1) of the Raamatupidamise seadus.
Review the draft RTJ 17 and RTJ 15 disclosure point 24A against current option schemes and send comments to [email protected] by 30 November 2026.
