Residents still have until the end of January to sign up to receive their property tax bills electronically. Local governments will send property tax bills to property owners by February 15, 2025.
Due to rising postal costs, Latvian municipalities are expected to face significantly higher expenses in 2025 for mailing property tax payment notices both within Latvia and abroad.
“Estimates show that for a medium-sized municipality, mailing property tax notices costs around twenty thousand euros per year. Postal expenses will increase significantly in 2025, which means even higher costs for municipalities unless residents actively opt to receive property tax payment notices electronically. For example, it is projected that in the city of Riga alone, the costs of delivering property tax notices will increase by approximately 70,000 euros in 2025 and will exceed 300,000 euros in total. Real estate owners who receive property tax payment notices in their mailboxes are encouraged to sign up to receive them electronically, allowing local governments to invest the savings in development. SIA “ZZ Dats” has been raising this issue for several years, noting that the preparation and delivery of property tax notices by mail costs Latvian municipalities more than one million euros annually. It should be noted that the situation is improving rather slowly—in 2021, only 25.5% of property tax notices for individuals were sent electronically, while in 2024, this figure had risen to 41.9%. However, it must be acknowledged that these figures are still very low,” says Edžus Žeiris, developer of the portal www.epakalpojumi.lv and director of SIA “ZZ Dats.”
In 2024, several municipalities exceeded the symbolic 50% threshold for payment notices sent electronically to individuals. This was achieved by the municipalities of Ādaži, Kuldīga, Ogre, and Olaine. SIA “ZZ Dats” forecasts indicate that in 2025, the number of electronically sent property tax payment notices will also exceed half in the municipalities of Cēsis, Ķekava, Limbaži, Ludza, Mārupe, Preiļi, Ropaži, Saulkrasti, Smiltene, and Ventspils counties, as well as in the city of Riga—in these municipalities, 45–49% of property tax payment notices to individuals were sent electronically in 2024.
Over a two-year period, the most stable growth has been maintained by the municipalities of Kuldīga, Olaine, Saulkrasti, and Valka, as well as the city of Riga, where growth exceeds 17% compared to 2022 figures.
Three steps to sign up to receive your property tax notice electronically
Any individual can sign up on the portal www.epakalpojumi.lv in just a few minutes to receive their property tax payment notice electronically, thereby saving budget funds that the municipality could redirect to other purposes:
- Property owners must authenticate themselves on the portal www.epakalpojumi.lv using online banking or e-signature authentication tools.
- In the “Real Estate” section under “Email and SMS Registration,” you must specify the municipality, email address, and mobile phone number. By providing a mobile phone number, you can sign up for SMS reminders about the approaching real estate tax payment deadline.
- Confirm the accuracy of the entered email address by opening the link in the email confirmation message you received.
For individuals and legal entities, activating the official email address requires no further action, and the municipality will automatically send the real estate tax payment notice to the official email address next time.
If the owner does not have electronic authentication means, the application to receive the property tax payment notice electronically can be filled out at municipal customer service centers. If a resident owns multiple properties in different municipalities, a separate application must be submitted to each municipality.
