Currency Control in Russia: What Importers and Exporters Must Do
Every payment a Russian company sends to or receives from a foreign counterparty passes through currency control. It is not a tax and not a customs procedure — it is a separate set of obligations towards your bank, and it is where cross-border payments most often get stuck. This page explains how the mechanism works, what the bank will ask for and where foreign-owned companies usually lose time.
What currency control actually is
Russian currency legislation is built on Federal Law No. 173-FZ. The state does not supervise your payments directly: it delegates the day-to-day checks to authorised banks. Your bank is obliged to verify that every cross-border transaction matches a real contract, that the documents are consistent, and that money moves within the agreed terms.
In practice this means a payment is not simply an instruction to transfer funds. It is an instruction supported by a set of documents that must agree with each other down to the contract number.
Registering a foreign trade contract with the bank
Once the obligations under a contract reach a certain amount, the contract must be put on record with an authorised bank before payments continue. The thresholds differ for import and export contracts, and they are set by the Central Bank rather than by the bank you work with.
Registration is not a formality. From that moment the bank tracks the contract as a whole: how much has been paid, how much has been shipped, and whether the two sides of the deal stay in balance. Amendments to the contract, changes of counterparty and early termination all have to be reported.
A frequent and expensive mistake is discovering the obligation retroactively — after several shipments have already been made. The situation is fixable, but it requires reconstructing the full history of the deal for the bank.
Documents the bank will ask for
- The contract with all appendices, specifications and amendments
- Invoices for each shipment
- Customs declarations, where goods cross the border
- Transport and shipping documents
- Acts of acceptance for services and works
- Explanatory letters where anything deviates from the standard pattern
The single most common reason for a blocked payment is not a missing document but an inconsistency between documents: the contract number written differently on the invoice, a payment purpose that does not repeat the subject of the contract, a currency or delivery term that does not match. The bank is not being difficult — it is legally required to refuse a payment it cannot reconcile.
Deadlines are the part people underestimate
Currency control runs on deadlines: for registering a contract, for submitting supporting documents after each shipment, for repatriating export proceeds. They are counted in working days from events that are not always obvious — the date of customs clearance rather than the date of the invoice, for example.
Penalties under the Code of Administrative Offences apply to the company and, separately, to its officers. They are calculated per violation, which means a single overlooked rule repeated across twelve shipments becomes twelve violations.
Why this is harder for foreign-owned companies
Three reasons, in our experience. The contract is usually drafted abroad, in a template that does not anticipate Russian requirements. Correspondence with the supplier is in English or Chinese, while the bank needs Russian. And the head office expects payment within its own schedule, not within the schedule the Russian bank imposes.
None of this is unsolvable, but it has to be built into the process before the first payment rather than after the first refusal.
How we handle it
- We review the contract before signature and flag the wording that will cause problems at the bank.
- We prepare the registration package and deal with the bank directly.
- For each shipment we assemble the supporting documents and submit them within the deadline.
- We keep a register of the contract so that payments and shipments stay reconciled.
- If something has already gone wrong, we reconstruct the history and prepare the explanation.
Frequently asked questions
Does currency control apply to services, not just goods? Yes. Contracts for services, works and intellectual property fall under the same rules, and the supporting documents are acts rather than customs declarations.
Can the bank refuse a payment that is completely legitimate? Yes, if the documents do not reconcile. The refusal is about the paperwork, not about the legitimacy of the deal.
We pay in Chinese yuan. Does that change anything? The currency does not change the obligations. What changes is the list of banks willing to process the payment and the questions they ask.
Talk to us before the payment, not after
Send us the contract and tell us what you are planning to pay and when. We will say what the bank will ask for and what needs fixing first. Pricing for full accounting support of foreign trade is on the international trade services page. See also accounting for foreign-owned companies and contact details.
Information current as of September 2026. Thresholds for contract registration, submission deadlines and penalty amounts are set by regulation and change periodically — check the current wording before relying on it, or ask us.