The tills are ringing again in Estonia's showrooms. The country's new car market has grown by more than 50% this year, with 16,384 new cars registered in the first ten months alone — an unexpected leap that has surprised even seasoned observers. The motor vehicle tax that once spooked buyers is still on the books, but the fear surrounding it has clearly evaporated.
Yet walk from the sales floor to the service bay and the mood changes. Car dealers across the country are complaining that it is increasingly difficult to find good, knowledgeable specialists for their repair workshops — and vocational school graduates are not filling the gaps. Every car sold today is a service booking tomorrow, and Estonia's aftersales sector is running short of the hands needed to honour those bookings.
The tax itself is about to reach much deeper into the fleet. From next year, roughly 86,000 vehicles with suspended registration in Estonia will fall under the motor vehicle tax, and their owners had until the beginning of November to decide whether to remove them from the register. Whichever way those decisions go, tens of thousands of vehicles are suddenly in play — and every one that stays on the road adds to the workload of an already stretched workshop network.
