> Are you prepared to travel to Tallinn and visit local banks in person to try convince one to open you a business account?

This can be deferred though. You can open an account with Transferwise or Holvi online and recieve payments/pay yourself a salary. You only need a bank account once you want to pay the share capital or withdraw dividends.

Also, if you use leapin.eu they get you a "pre-acceptance" from LHV bank _before_ you travel to Tallinn

> If you pay a dividend at the end of the year, it’s taxed as capital gains

Really ? I'm not in the EU but I would assume dividends would be taxed at regular income tax rate or a special dividend tax rate (and the company would pay corp tax). Only if you sell your shares in the company, the profit would be taxed as capital gains.