Russia

Salary in IT

$ 13 656 – $ 45 520

Median

$ 25 036

Visa speed

A work permit for a highly qualified specialist — 14 working days (cl. 9, art. 13.2 of Federal Law No. 115-FZ). For other categories the timeframe depends on the type of permit and the regional quota; no uniform standard was found.

Degree required

no

Language at work

not required

Changing employer

freely

Visa types: Temporary residence permit (RVP) — arts. 6 and 6.1 of Federal Law No. 115-FZ: three years, not extendable, either within the government quota or on one of the quota-free grounds of article 6(3). A year of living on it opens the right to apply for permanent residence. · Temporary residence permit for the purpose of study — art. 6.2: a separate category for full-time students of state universities and scientific organisations, for the length of the programme plus a hundred and eighty days after graduation; after the studies it leads to permanent residence without a temporary residence permit. · Permanent residence permit (vid na zhitelstvo) — art. 8: issued without a time limit (to a stateless person, and in the form of a card with an electronic chip, for ten years; to a highly qualified specialist, for the term of their work permit). Twenty-two grounds in paragraph 2 allow it to be obtained AT ONCE, bypassing the temporary residence permit. · An ordinary work visa — for citizens of visa-required countries, on an employer's invitation and on the basis of a work permit (art. 18 of Federal Law No. 115-FZ) · A patent to carry out employment activity — for foreign nationals who arrived under the visa-free regime (mostly CIS countries outside the EAEU), employed by individuals or organisations (art. 13.3 of Federal Law No. 115-FZ) · Highly Qualified Specialist (VKS) status — a simplified procedure outside the quota system, subject to a salary no lower than the statutory threshold; the work permit is issued within 14 working days (art. 13.2 of Federal Law No. 115-FZ) · A study visa — for study at accredited Russian educational institutions · Citizens of EAEU states (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan) do not need a work permit or a patent — they may work on the same footing as Russian citizens (Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union of 29 May 2014, art. 97) · Participants in the State Programme to Assist the Voluntary Resettlement of Compatriots — a simplified procedure for obtaining a temporary residence permit (RVP)/residence permit (VNZh) and the right to work

Employers: Yandex, VK, Sber, Tinkoff

The sources are not the agency's own site. The domain of the interior ministry (мвд.рф) and that of its main migration directorate (гувм.мвд.рф) DO RESOLVE from the collecting machine, but no connection is established: the request stays silent until it times out. That is not “the site does not exist” — it is “it does not answer from here”, and such an address cannot be recorded as a source. All thirty-six grounds are therefore taken from the state legal information system (pravo.gov.ru), which holds CONSOLIDATED texts: Federal Law No. 115-FZ “On the legal status of foreign citizens in the Russian Federation”, part two of the Tax Code, the interior ministry's administrative regulation on permanent residence (order No. 417 of 11.06.2020 as amended by order No. 868 of 16.11.2022) and government decree No. 2573 of 31.12.2022 on the investor criteria. The texts are as they stood on the day of collection. The consolidation has an edge, and it matters. The list of editions of Law No. 115-FZ in that system ends with the amendment of 26.06.2026 (Law No. 189-FZ), whereas Law No. 241-FZ of 26.07.2026 “On amendments to the Federal Law ‘On the legal status of foreign citizens in the Russian Federation’” has already been published — forty-six pages of official publication — and has not yet been folded in. Everything recorded here reflects the edition BEFORE it. Five requirements are common to almost every ground, and are therefore stated here rather than in each record; the records themselves list only what makes a ground different from its neighbours. The first is an identity document recognised by Russia as such. The second is the receipt of payment of the state fee (with a permanent-residence application it is optional: the agency checks the payment itself). The third is the medical examination: no use of narcotic or psychotropic substances without a doctor's prescription, no infectious diseases from the government list, and a certificate of freedom from HIV. The fourth is compulsory state fingerprinting and photographing. The fifth is the examination: command of Russian, knowledge of Russian history and of the basics of the legislation (art. 15.1), proved by a certificate, by a Soviet school certificate issued before 1 September 1991, by a Russian document of education, or by a decision recognising the applicant as a native Russian speaker taken before 26 October 2023. Exempt from the examination when applying for temporary or permanent residence are persons who are legally incapable or of limited capacity, minors, men from sixty-five and women from sixty, participants in the state resettlement programme and their family members, highly qualified specialists with their families, citizens of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, citizens of Ukraine, those who have a parent or a child who is a Russian citizen, and those who have entered military service or signed a contract. When applying for a work permit, highly qualified specialists, journalists of foreign-language media and those working within the government quota are exempt. On top of the fee for the ground itself, the Tax Code takes: 960 roubles for an invitation to enter, per invitee; 12,000 roubles for the employer's permission to engage and use foreign workers, also per worker; 1000 roubles for registration at a place of residence; 500 roubles for registration at a place of stay; 1000 roubles for extending the term of temporary stay; 4200 roubles for admission to citizenship. We have not added these amounts together: the sum would be our arithmetic, not a figure from the source. The patent is a case of its own: on top of the 4200-rouble fee it rests on personal income tax in the form of a fixed advance payment, which article 227.1 of the Tax Code names as 1200 roubles A MONTH, to be indexed by the deflator coefficient and by a regional coefficient set by the law of the constituent region. A product of three factors is a calculation, so the record carries only the fee and the factors are named here. The term of temporary stay for someone who entered visa-free is ninety days IN TOTAL within a calendar year, and no more than ninety continuously either (art. 5(1)). That is not the same as the former “ninety out of a hundred and eighty” rule: leaving and re-entering does not reset the counter. Citizens of the Eurasian Economic Union states — Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan — need neither a work permit nor a patent: the right to work comes from the EAEU Treaty. The residence grounds apply to them on the general terms. For seven permanent-residence grounds the processing field is marked as unpublished, and the reason is the same for all of them: the law refers the term to the interior ministry's administrative regulation (art. 8(10)), and the list of applicants in that regulation LAGS behind the law. The 2020 regulation knows fifteen categories, the 2022 amendment added five more and set out their terms — four months, three, two and fifteen working days — but the grounds that appeared in the law after 2023 (ancestors in Russia, service personnel and their families, repatriates and their family members, parents of children who are citizens) are not in that list at all. Assigning them a neighbouring category's term would be inventing a standard. Not found either in the law or in the subordinate acts: the figure of the annual quota for temporary residence permits (approved by a separate decree for each year), a list of the international resettlement treaties two of the grounds refer to, and a processing standard for the work permit — neither the general one nor the one for staff transferred to branches; only fourteen working days for highly qualified specialists and ten (five where there is information about tax registration) for the patent are named.

Permanent residence after

1 years

Citizenship after

5 years

Language

Russian language — admission to citizenship under the general procedure requires confirmed command of the Russian language and knowledge of Russian history and the basics of legislation (part 1, art. 15 of Federal Law No. 138-FZ); no separate language exam is set for obtaining a temporary residence permit (RVP) or a residence permit (VNZh).

Dual citizenship

allowed

Dual citizenship: Article 62 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation allows a Russian citizen to also hold the citizenship of a foreign state. Admission to Russian citizenship under the general procedure is not conditioned on renouncing an existing other citizenship (art. 15 of Federal Law No. 138-FZ). At the same time, a Russian citizen who holds another citizenship or a foreign residence permit is required to notify the territorial office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs — within 60 days of acquiring it, or within 30 days of entering Russia if it was acquired abroad; wilful evasion of this notification, under certain conditions, constitutes an offence under art. 330.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

The stages are different: a temporary residence permit (RVP, issued for 3 years) and a residence permit (VNZh) are not the same thing. A VNZh can be obtained after living in Russia for at least one year on an RVP (cl. 1, art. 8 of Federal Law No. 115-FZ); since 1 November 2019 (amendments by Federal Law No. 257-FZ of 2 August 2019), the VNZh has been issued with no time limit. Admission to citizenship under the general procedure (part 1, art. 15 of Federal Law No. 138-FZ) requires continuous residence in Russia from the date the VNZh is obtained until the date of application, for five years, command of the Russian language, and knowledge of Russian history and the basics of legislation; the law does not require renouncing an existing other citizenship. Part 2 of the same article exempts certain categories of applicant from some of these conditions (including those married to a Russian citizen, those with a parent or adult child who is a Russian citizen, and former citizens of the USSR), while part 3 exempts people over 70 and category-I disabled people from the language requirement and the history exam; the exact list of eligible categories and reduced terms for each has not been checked line by line against the primary source, so citizenshipYears states the general procedure.

Document certification

apostille

The country is party to the 1961 Hague Convention: a degree or certificate is authenticated with a single apostille in the country that issued it.

Limit

2

Quarantine

no

Antibody titre test

needed

Preparation

~2 months

Source: the Rosselkhoznadzor instructions on bringing pets into Russia (fsvps.gov.ru), checked 2 August 2026. No more than 2 dogs or cats for personal use, accompanied by their owner, may be brought in without a Rosselkhoznadzor permit and without institutional quarantine. Requirements: rabies vaccination no later than 20 days before dispatch (unless vaccinated within the previous 12 months); a clinical examination noted in the veterinary passport no earlier than 14 days before dispatch; puppies/kittens under 3 months old are brought in under veterinary certificate form No. 15. Unlike its EAEU neighbours Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, where an antibody titre test is not required for personal import, Russia separately requires laboratory confirmation of rabies immunity of at least 0.5 IU/ml, or veterinary confirmation that the vaccine used provides protection for up to 3 years and that period has not expired. No list of breeds banned from import was found in the instructions (the internal list of potentially dangerous breeds under Government of Russia Resolution No. 974 of 29 July 2019 concerns keeping — a muzzle and leash — not import). The legal basis for animals above the limit and for other species is chapters 15 and 40 of Customs Union Commission Decision No. 317 of 18 June 2010 (unified EAEU veterinary requirements): such consignments are subject to quarantine at the animal's place of residence before import. estimatedCostPerAnimalEur is left blank: no reliable official estimate of preparation cost was found.

Situation

conflict

The country is engaged in military action. International sanctions and restrictions on financial transactions and air travel are in force. Many Western countries have issued travel warnings.

Crime: The homicide rate is 5-8 times higher than in EU countries. Very high corruption.

The spread across regions is enormous. The main risks: wildfires in Siberia, floods, and seismic activity in the Far East.

Type

From temperate to subarctic

Sunny days

~115 a year

Data for Moscow. A cold snowy winter, a warm summer. Little sun in winter.

Life expectancy

73.4 years

Migration

outflow

Healthcare: Compulsory health insurance is free; quality varies widely by region.

Air: Problems in industrial cities (Norilsk, Chelyabinsk, Krasnoyarsk).

Flows: A significant outflow since 2022, IT specialists included. Estimates of the exact figures differ.

Bread, 500 g

$ 0,82

Milk, 1 l

$ 1,27

Eggs, 12

$ 1,80

Chicken breast, 1 kg

$ 5,93

Cheese, 1 kg

$ 12,2

Rice, 1 kg

$ 1,38

Potatoes, 1 kg

$ 0,86

Apples, 1 kg

$ 1,99

Coca-Cola / Pepsi, 2 l

$ 1,97

Total

$ 28,3

The same set for every country, so the comparison is fair.

Rent, 1 bedroom

$ 655 a month

Rent, 3 bedrooms

$ 1 305 a month

Utility bills

$ 127 a month

Home internet

$ 9,24 a month

Monthly transport pass

$ 29,6 a month

Single transport ticket

$ 0,73

Petrol, litre

$ 0,88

Cold medicine

$ 6,56 for a week

Country averages. City prices, where collected, are shown above and are more precise.

Life expectancy

73,4 years2024

Homicides

7,8 per 100k2024

Road deaths

10,6 per 100k2021

Unemployment

2,1 %2025

Unemployment, ages 15–24

7,6 %2025

Inequality (Gini)

332023

Health spending per person

$ 1 003 a year

Air pollution, PM2.5

11,6 µg/m³2023

Access to clean water

96,9 %2024

Governance

Political stability

below average · -0,9

Control of corruption

below average · -0,9

Rule of law

low · -1,2

Government effectiveness

below average · -0,3

World Bank estimates on a −2.5 to +2.5 scale, higher is better.

Natural hazards

Earthquakes

4,2 out of 10

River floods

8,4 out of 10

Coastal floods

5,3 out of 10

Tropical cyclones

2,2 out of 10

Droughts

5,8 out of 10

Tsunamis

4,1 out of 10

Policy towards newcomers

Migrant integration, overall score

32 out of 100 · 2019

Family reunification

46 out of 100 · 2019

Permanent residence

46 out of 100 · 2019

Access to citizenship

44 out of 100 · 2019

Access to the labour market

28 out of 100 · 2019

Measures how favourable the law is towards newcomers, not one person's chances of getting a visa.

Each value carries the year it refers to. “Data lags behind” means this country's figure was collected noticeably earlier than the rest. Natural hazards use one 0–10 scale and are meant to be compared against each other.

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