Variations in the updated (1842–2016) Estonian sea level records are interpreted using the latest, extensive findings from the studies of crustal movements in Estonia and an attempt has been made to separate the main sea level trend components. Per recent semi-empirical land uplift (LU) model NKG2016LU_lev, the LU relative to geoid in Estonia (0.3–3.4 mm/yr) partly compensates for the global sea level rise (as estimated over the corresponding time-periods). Further analysis of trend components is needed, and particularly, a sizable time-varying residual component should be deconstructed, which mainly originates from local land subsidence and meteorologically (e.g. the NAO-) driven local scale hydrodynamic processes.