On 20 March 2026, a meeting was held in Daugavpils with the Director General of the State Revenue Service (VID), Baiba Šmite-Roķe. The meeting was organised by the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LTRK), and we took part in it as its member. The discussion covered taxes, administrative processes and how to improve cooperation between entrepreneurs and the state.

Ask a small seamstress what wears her out

The answer is rarely the market or competition. Most often it will be paperwork.

Imagine a small sewing workshop. There are five, maybe ten people. The owner is also the head seamstress, the bookkeeper and the supplier in one person. Her biggest battle is often not for orders, but to fill in correctly and on time everything the state demands.

A thousand small absurdities

In Latvia there is no single, terrifying bureaucracy. There is something harder to grasp. There are thousands of small absurdities. One report here, another there. Changing requirements. Forms that duplicate each other. Deadlines that are easy to miss and hard to track.

Each one on its own looks like a trifle. But together they take hours that the small business owner could spend on work, on customers or on family. This constant flow of small things is what tires people out the most.

Numbers that make you think

It is not just a feeling. Latvia accounts for only around a fifth of all new companies founded in the Baltics. Our neighbours Estonia and Lithuania are ahead of us on this. Our labour productivity is about 54 percent of the European average.

What is worse is what these rules do to honesty. High taxes and complicated requirements push some entrepreneurs into the grey economy. Not because they are dishonest, but because otherwise it is hard to survive. That is bad for everyone, including those who work honestly and pay the full price.

Why this hurts textile especially

The textile sector has many small businesses and self-employed people. Seamstresses, craftsmen, small workshops. They feel the bureaucracy burden the most, because they do not have a separate legal or accounting department. Every new requirement falls directly on the owner’s shoulders.

If we want new textile companies to grow in Latvia, they need room to breathe. Clear rules and a predictable tax environment are as important as orders.

What we do

That is why we attend meetings like this. So that members’ questions reach the place where they can be heard and answered. Not as an angry complaint, but as a serious conversation.

We collect our members’ experience and bring it into the dialogue with the state. So that officials understand what the entrepreneur struggles with day to day. And so that the entrepreneur understands what the state asks and why. Conversation will not solve everything, but without conversation nothing changes.

Honest: we are not lawmakers

We do not promise that bureaucracy will disappear tomorrow. We do not pass laws and we do not run the tax service. The state itself has begun to work on reducing this burden, and that is good. But words have to be followed by deeds.

Our task is simple and important. To be there when decisions are made and to bring the industry’s voice into them. So that nobody forgets the small entrepreneur.

What is your absurdity?

Do you have a specific problem with taxes, reporting or rules? Send it to us. We collect members’ questions and bring them into our conversations with the state. Hard alone. Heard together.