Full calendar month without payroll-tax duties sets "other grounds" suspension

An employment or service relationship that produces no employment-tax duties for at least one whole calendar month is registered as suspended in the employment register under the basis "Teenistus- või töösuhte peatamine muul põhjusel".Emta The condition is the full calendar month: where the employer has no obligation to calculate, declare or pay employment-related taxes for that whole month, the suspension entry carries that basisEmta.

A typical case is a temporary absence because the employee has entered employment or service with another organisation, for example through rotation. The same basis serves suspensions of both employment relationships concluded under the employment-contracts legislation and service relationships concluded under the public-service legislation.

The suspension entry records three elements: the start date of the suspension, the basis, and the end date. Only one valid or future suspension period may stand in the register at a time. Suspensions for maternity or paternity leave are entered by the Social Insurance Board; all other suspensions, including the "other grounds" basis, are entered by the employer.

Health insurance follows the registered dates. Coverage is suspended two months after the suspension start date entered in the register and resumes on the day following the registered end date. Employers keeping staff on parental leave, unpaid leave or conscript and substitute service continue to use the dedicated bases for those cases, each with its own registration logic.

The earlier published exception under which employment was not suspended in the register when an employee had been taken into custodyEmta no longer appears in the guidanceEmta. Employers should therefore no longer rely on a custody exception and should test every absence against the calendar-month tax-obligation condition instead.

The general social-tax frame is unchanged: social tax on monthly pay is due at no less than the statutory monthly rateRiigiteataja. The register entry records the factual suspension: health-insurance suspension follows the registered dates under the two-month rule, while the social-tax minimum is assessed on the calendar month.

Legal basis: the Töölepingu seadus and the Avaliku teenistuse seadus for the covered relationships, Sotsiaalmaksuseadus § 2 and § 21 for the monthly rate, and Ravikindlustuse seadus § 6 for the two-month health-insurance suspension rule, as reflected in the Maksu- ja Tolliamet employment-register guidance on Töötamise peatumine.