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Press release: Estonian companies delay their payments for just 7 days

19. Feb 2014

As demonstrated by the study “Credit policy of Estonian companies in 2014” performed by Krediidiinfo, an increasingly growing number of companies think through their activities and take reasoned credit decisions. As a result, the average payment delay in Estonia is now merely 7 days (in 2013 this figure was 9.4 days).

Over the years the share of timely paid invoices has increased and now reaches 67 percent of all issued invoices. The number of delays for 1-7 days has increased by 3 percent. Similar decrease is observed among longer delays of 8-30 days. 4.8% of all payments are delayed for over 30 days. 

The average invoice payment time in Estonia has reached 15 days. One third of all issued invoices have the payment time of 15-30 days. At the same time pressure is increasing towards extending payment terms even further – the share of invoices with payment time of 31-60 days has increased during the last year by 3 percent and currently forms 8% of all issued invoices. One should also note the share of prepayment invoices (14%). 

The majority of Estonian companies (87%) is generally content with payment discipline of their customers. 

In comparison with the last year, credit behavior of companies has become more systematic. One fourth of all companies have written regulations in the field of credit policy. 52% of respondents close crediting for the customers in debt. Use of such sanctions as decreasing credit limits and decreasing future periods of payment has grown dramatically. 

Krediidiinfo AS performs credit policy studies in Estonia since 2007. This study took place from 30 January to 3 February. The sample group included one thousand randomly selected companies registered and active in Estonia.