Estonia recorded 1.98 million rail passengers during the third quarter of 2026, an increase of 5% compared with the same period in 2025, according to new data from Statistics Estonia.
Passenger transport volume, measured in passenger-kilometres, increased by 9% year on year.
Anton Kardakov, lead analyst at Statistics Estonia, said that the number of rail passengers in the Baltic countries in general has increased in recent years. “This increase is likely to continue thanks to new trains and more frequent train services,” he commented. “On the other hand, freight transport by rail is in decline.”
Estonia recorded 7.7 million rail passengers in 2025, compared with 8.4 million in 2019, when passenger numbers reached their highest level. Rail passenger numbers fell furring the COVID-19 pandemic, before recovering in the subsequent years.
In 2025, passenger traffic volume in Estonia stood at 342.4 million passenger-kilometres – down 10% from the year before. The highest passenger traffic volume was recorded in 2018, when it stood at over 416 million passenger-kilometres.
Last year, Estonia ranked second among the three Baltic countries for rail passenger numbers. Latvia recorded 21.4 million passengers, while Lithuania recorded 5.4 million. Combined, the three countries carried 34.5 million rail passengers during the year.
By comparison, Finland recorded 89.7 million rail passengers in 2025.
Rail freight
Rail freight turnover in Estonia amounted to 91 million tonne-kilometres during the third quarter of 2026, a decrease of 9% compared with the third quarter of 2025. In 2025 as a whole, rail freight turnover in Estonia reached 485 million tonne-kilometres, a decline of 17% compared with 2024.
“In domestic rail freight traffic, it is possible that the same quantity of goods is carried by several enterprises, for example, on public railway by one carrier and on non-public railway by another carrier,” Kardakov commented. “For this reason, it is preferable to describe freight volume using freight turnover which shows the volume of work in rail freight transport in tonne-kilometres.” Read more here.
