Russian tax non-resident in 2026: what taxes to pay

30% of the full flat price instead of 13% of the profit is the most expensive surprise after leaving, but not the only one. What a non-resident pays on salary, deposits, rent and business, what to file and where the law is gentler than it looks.

Take, as an example, a Russian tax non-resident who sells for 15 million roubles a flat bought three years ago for 12 million: the state gets 4.5 million. A resident would pay about 402,000 on the same deal. The more than tenfold gap is not the tax inspector's malice but the design of the Russian Tax Code: non-residents get no deductions, so the tax is charged on the full price rather than on the profit.

Tax non-residency is not a stamp in a passport but arithmetic with a calendar. Article 207 of the Tax Code treats as resident anyone physically present in Russia for at least 183 days within 12 consecutive months. Everyone else plays by different rules: a 30% headline rate, but with a long list of exceptions where the tax is 15%, 13% or even zero. How to count the days is covered in a separate article on the 183-day rule. This one is only about the consequences of the status: what to pay on salary, deposits, rent and a flat sale, what to file with the tax office and where the law turns out to be gentler than people assume.

The starting point is simple: a non-resident pays Russian tax only on Russian-source income (Article 209 of the Tax Code). A salary from a foreign company for work done abroad, interest from a Serbian bank or rent from a flat in Tbilisi are of no interest to the Russian tax service. Russian income very much is.

What taxes a Russian tax non-resident pays in 2026

The most common mistake is to assume a non-resident pays 30% on everything. In reality the rate depends on the type of income, and for half of the usual income streams it is the same as for a resident, or even lower. The 2026 rates at a glance:

NDFL (nalog na dokhody fizicheskikh lits) is Russian personal income tax. NPD (nalog na professionalny dokhod), the professional income tax, is the regime for the self-employed. USN (uproshchyonnaya sistema nalogooblozheniya) is the simplified tax system for sole traders and companies. Since 2025 the progressive scale works like this: 13% on annual income up to 2.4 million roubles, 15% on the part between 2.4 and 5 million, 18% between 5 and 20 million, 20% between 20 and 50 million and 22% above 50 million (Article 224 of the Tax Code as amended by Federal Law 176-FZ of 12.07.2024).

The conclusion surprises many: remote work for a Russian employer, deposits, dividends, a business on the simplified regime and self-employment barely get more expensive when the status changes. The status hurts in three places: salary for work done on Russian soil, selling property too early and renting out without a special regime.

What to do after losing Russian tax residency: step by step

The status changes on its own, with no application and no stamp: the FNS (Federalnaya Nalogovaya Sluzhba, the Federal Tax Service) does not issue a certificate of non-residency. The consequences, however, reach everyone who pays money: the employer, the broker, the bank, the tenant. The sequence that saves nerves and money:

1. Document the days. The status on the date of each payment is determined by the previous 12 months, and the final one by the calendar year. Passport stamps, tickets and boarding passes are best kept in one folder: in a dispute they are what proves where the passport holder actually was.
2. Tell the tax agents. The employer, the broker and any company paying dividends withhold tax themselves and decide which rate to apply. If they do not know about the move and find out later, they recalculate the tax retroactively and deduct the difference from future payments.
3. Check the employment contract. The reduced 13-22% rates apply only to remote work under an employment contract with a Russian company. If the contract says the job is done in the Moscow office while the employee has been writing code from Yerevan for a year, the tax office will see a question rather than remote work.
4. Sort out deposits and the brokerage account. Tax on deposit interest is calculated by the tax office itself, which sends a notice. The broker withholds 15% on dividends from Russian companies and 30% on gains from selling securities, with no investment deductions.
5. Do not sell property blind. Before the deal, count the holding period: after 3 or 5 years there is no tax at all, before that it is 30% of the full amount.
6. File a 3-NDFL return where there is no tax agent. This covers selling a flat early, renting out without a special regime and any other income nobody withheld tax on. The filing deadline is 30 April of the following year and the payment deadline 15 July (Articles 228 and 229 of the Tax Code). The return can be filed through the taxpayer's online account, by post or via a representative holding a notarised power of attorney.
7. Cross foreign-account reports off the calendar. The currency control law (173-FZ, Article 12) exempts anyone who spent more than 183 days outside Russia in a calendar year from notifying the tax office about foreign accounts and from filing reports on account movements. On return the obligation comes back: the accounts must be reported by 1 June of the following year.

If by the end of the year enough days in Russia have accumulated and residency is back, the difference between 30% and the resident rate on salary or a sale can be reclaimed through a 3-NDFL return: once the year is over the employer can no longer recalculate the tax, and the refund comes from the tax office (Article 231 of the Tax Code).

Controlled foreign companies (CFCs, known in Russia as KIK), meaning foreign firms owned by a Russian tax resident, are a separate story. The CFC rules, notifications and tax on CFC profits apply only to residents (Article 25.13 of the Tax Code). As long as non-resident status holds, there is nothing to report in Russia about a foreign company. Spend 183 days in Russia, though, and all the obligations return, with fines for missed deadlines. Murblz specialists prepare CFC notifications and reporting end to end: CFC notifications and reporting.

Selling a flat as a Russian tax non-resident: how much tax

Good news for those who left long ago: a flat owned for longer than the minimum holding period is sold tax-free and without a return, whatever the status. This follows directly from Article 217(17.1) and Article 217.1 of the Tax Code, and since 2019 the exemption has applied to non-residents regardless of when the property was bought. The Ministry of Finance confirmed it again in letter No. 03-04-05/80128 of 18.08.2025.

Bad news for those who sell early. A non-resident cannot reduce the income either by the 1 million rouble property deduction or by the purchase costs: the deductions under Articles 218-221 are available only to residents (Article 210(4)). The 30% tax is charged on the full price, and if the contract price is below 70% of the cadastral value on 1 January of the year of sale, on that 70% (Article 214.10). Understating the price in the contract to save tax will not work: the cadastral value is the tax office's safety net.

Minimum holding period: 3 years or 5 years

The sole-home rule has a catch people remember too late. The law refers to owning no other residential property without saying that it has to be in Russia. If a flat has already been bought abroad, it is safer not to count on the three-year period until the situation has been checked before the deal. For new builds bought under a shared construction agreement, the period runs from the date of full payment rather than from registration of ownership.

Worked example: a flat sold for 15 million roubles

The flat was bought in 2023 for 12 million roubles and is sold in 2026 for 15 million. No other reliefs apply, so the minimum period is 5 years. Conversion at the Central Bank of Russia rate of 85.7 roubles to the dollar on 7 October 2026.

Almost 4.1 million roubles of difference is the price of a year or two of impatience. There are three legal ways to shrink it:

• Wait for the minimum period. After 3 or 5 years of ownership the tax is zero and the status stops mattering.
• Sell in a year when residency is restored. For a property sale, what counts is the status at the end of the calendar year. If by 31 December the seller has spent 183 days in Russia, the tax is calculated at the resident rate with deductions, even if the deal closed in February.
• Check whether the three-year period applies through inheritance, a gift from a relative or the sole-home rule.

From 2026 the rules became stricter for one category of sellers. Federal Law 425-FZ of 28.11.2025 stripped people designated as foreign agents of both the holding-period exemption and all reduced rates: they pay 30% on all income if the status applied for at least one day in the year.

If the flat in Russia stays for a long time, it helps to sort out the registered address and powers of attorney in advance: see the article on deregistering from a flat while abroad. Risks to the property of those who left are covered in our piece on asset freezes affecting relocants.

Income tax on a non-resident's salary: when 30% and when 13%

Since 2024, working remotely from abroad for a Russian company is no longer a tax puzzle. Federal Law 389-FZ of 31.07.2023 explicitly classed such salary as Russian-source income (Article 208(1)(6.2) of the Tax Code). The flip side is that the tax is always paid in Russia, wherever the employee sits. The upside is that the rate is the same as for a resident: since 2025, 13-22% on the progressive scale, only without the standard and social deductions. The Ministry of Finance confirmed this in letter No. 03-04-06/132155 of 26.12.2024.

The same rule covers civil-law (freelance) contracts if the contractor works through Russian domain names, network addresses in the Russian zone or information systems hosted on servers in Russia, and the payer is a Russian company or sole trader (Article 208(1)(6.3)). For a programmer contracting with a Russian company, that is almost any project.

The 30% rate remains for pay for work done on Russian territory. The classic scenario: an employee has formally moved away but came back to the Moscow office for a few months, and residency for the year is already lost. The employer must withhold 30%, and pointing to the remote-work clause in the contract does not help: the work was done in Russia.

By law, the reduced 13-22% rates for non-residents also apply to highly qualified specialists, workers on a labour patent, participants in the programme for resettling compatriots, refugees and crew members of ships under the Russian flag. From 2026 the list explicitly includes citizens of EAEU countries (the Eurasian Economic Union: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan) who work in Russia and are themselves tax residents of one of those countries.

Deposits and brokerage accounts of a non-resident

A non-resident pays 15%, not 30%, on interest from deposits in Russian banks (Article 224 of the Tax Code). The tax-free allowance is the same as for a resident: Article 214.2 does not split depositors by status. The allowance equals 1 million roubles multiplied by the highest Bank of Russia key rate in effect on the 1st of any month of the year.

Worked example: a deposit of 3 million roubles at an illustrative 15% a year earns 450,000 roubles of interest in 2026. Minus the 160,000 allowance, 290,000 remains; the non-resident's tax is 43,500 roubles, a resident's 37,700. The gap is smaller than a return flight to Moscow. Nothing has to be paid proactively: the tax office calculates the tax from bank data and sends a notice, with payment due by 1 December of the following year.

The brokerage account is stricter. Dividends from Russian companies are taxed at 15%, while gains from selling Russian securities are taxed at 30%. The long-term holding relief and the individual investment account reliefs are investment deductions, and non-residents do not get those. What to do with frozen securities is covered in a separate piece on unfreezing brokerage assets.

Russian tax non-residents as sole traders and self-employed

Special tax regimes are the Tax Code's best-kept gift to non-residents. The simplified system and the self-employed regime do not depend on tax status, so a sole trader or self-employed person living abroad pays exactly what they would in Moscow.

Sole trader on the simplified system. The Ministry of Finance has repeatedly stated that a sole trader may use the simplified system regardless of tax residency: the list of those barred from it in Article 346.12(3) of the Tax Code does not mention non-residents (letters No. 03-11-11/8328 of 09.02.2021 and No. 03-11-11/6946 of 30.01.2023). The rate is 6% of revenue or 15% of revenue minus expenses, and regions may lower it. On top come mandatory social contributions for the sole trader: in 2026 a fixed 57,390 roubles (about $670) plus 1% of income above 300,000 roubles, capped at 321,818 roubles. From 2026 a sole trader on the simplified system with more than 20 million roubles of income in the previous year also pays VAT.

Self-employment (NPD). The professional income tax under Federal Law 422-FZ is 4% on payments from individuals and 6% from companies and sole traders, with an income cap of 2.4 million roubles a year. Eligibility depends on citizenship (Russia or an EAEU country), not on tax status. In letter No. AB-4-20/16632@ of 12.10.2020 the FNS explained that a citizen may stay self-employed while living abroad permanently, and when providing remote services to Russian clients may name the client's region as the place of activity.

The catch with special regimes is foreign, not Russian. If the sole trader has become a tax resident of the new country, that country almost always wants to tax this income too. And tax treaties with most European countries are currently not working (more on that below). The result is double tax, unless the foreign law itself credits the Russian tax. How taxes work in popular relocation countries is compared in our overview of taxes in Europe.

Renting out a flat as a non-resident: 30% or 4%

A flat in Russia let for a year produces Russian-source income for a non-resident. Without a special regime it is taxed at 30% via a 3-NDFL return. The same income for a self-employed owner costs 4% if the tenant is an individual. The gap is so large that renting out without NPD simply makes no sense for a non-resident: Law 422-FZ expressly allows the self-employed to let residential property.

If the tenant is a company, it becomes the tax agent and withholds 30% from the rent. If the flat is let with no contract and no tax, the risk is the same for everyone: a fine of 20% of the unpaid amount (Article 122 of the Tax Code) plus late-payment interest.

Property tax for a non-resident

Here the status plays no role at all. Property tax is paid by the owner (Article 400 of the Tax Code), the rate and cadastral value are set by the municipality and the region, and reliefs, for pensioners for example, remain after moving abroad. The notice arrives in the taxpayer's online account or by post to the Russian address, with payment due by 1 December of the following year. Property tax arrears pile up quietly and surface when trying to sell the flat or obtain a certificate of no tax debt, so the online account is worth keeping an eye on from abroad.

Double taxation: what happened to tax treaties after 2023

Not long ago a double tax treaty solved half the problems: it lowered the dividend rate and let the Russian tax be credited abroad and vice versa. On 8 August 2023 Presidential Decree No. 585 suspended the key provisions of such treaties with 38 countries, and Federal Law 598-FZ of 19.12.2023 enshrined the suspension in statute until those countries end their violations of Russia's interests.

The list includes the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, Singapore and most other EU countries. Suspended are the articles allocating taxing rights over almost every type of income (dividends, interest, royalties, income from real estate, employment) and the article on eliminating double taxation. Exchange of tax information keeps working. The United States responded by suspending the treaty from its side from 16 August 2024, and the treaty with Latvia, terminated by Russia, has not applied since 1 January 2024.

In practice, for someone living in Spain or Germany with income from Russia, this means Russia takes its tax at domestic rates and the country of residence taxes the same income under its own rules. Whether it credits the Russian tax now depends solely on its own law. Treaties with the UAE, Serbia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Turkey and other countries outside the list work as before, so choosing a destination is also a tax decision: life and taxes in the Emirates, for instance, are covered in our article on UAE residency.

What changed for non-residents in 2024-2026

The trend needs no decoding: the state is not raising the general rate for those who left, but it is methodically closing loopholes. Remote work became Russian income, foreign agents lost their reliefs, and the treaties that allowed lower taxes are frozen. Anyone planning to live abroad on Russian income is better off doing the maths in advance than relying on old structures.

Risks and pitfalls

• Status is assessed retroactively. An employer or broker may apply 13% and six months later find that the 183 days were not reached, then deduct the difference from the next payments. A flat sale is harsher still: the tax is set at year-end, and miscounted days turn into arrears, a fine and late-payment interest.
• Leaving does not cancel obligations. A 3-NDFL return for selling a flat early must be filed from anywhere in the world. The fine for not filing is 5% of the unpaid tax for each month, from 1,000 roubles up to 30% of the amount (Article 119 of the Tax Code), plus 20% for non-payment.
• A Russian non-resident is not automatically a resident somewhere else. It is easy to stop being a Russian resident without becoming a resident anywhere, and then face a bank asking for a tax residency certificate. Banks abroad check this ever more closely: see how to open a bank account abroad and how to prove the source of funds.
• Automatic exchange has not gone away. CRS (the Common Reporting Standard for automatic exchange of financial account information) operates between the tax authorities of many countries, and account data flows to the holder's country of tax residence. That is a fact, not a reason to hide: income must be declared wherever the law requires. More in our piece on accounts and CRS.
• Crypto and digital assets follow their own rules, covered separately in crypto and taxes when relocating.

Who loses out from this status should be said plainly: those selling property before the holding period ends, those working on Russian soil in stints, and those earning from a Russian business without a special regime. For them non-residency costs more than it seemed when buying a one-way ticket.

What we do

Murblz specialists calculate a non-resident's taxes before the deal, not after a letter from the tax office: what the status will be at year-end, what a flat sale costs now versus in a year, which regime to use for rent and remote work, and what will need declaring in the new country of residence.

If the move is still at the planning stage, start with our overview of where to move from Russia in 2026 and the breakdown of new restrictions on leaving.

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