New 2025 Russian law for foreigners - what to be afraid of?

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The law «On the Legal Status of Foreign Nationals in the Russian Federation» is being amended to, among other things, introduce a new concept - «expulsion regime». This law was signed in the summer, 2024 and comes into effect beginning from February 02, 2025.

What is it? This is a regime that will apply to foreigners who are in Russia illegally, for example:
if their visa or residence permit has expired,
they were denied refugee status or asylum,
They were sentenced to expulsion from Russia,
They crossed the Russian border illegally, etc.

Such people are restricted in their rights - they won’t be able to:
get married in Russia;
open a company or register as an individual entrepreneur;
acquire and register real estate and vehicles in their name;
open a bank account and carry out certain banking operations (namely, transfer money and manage funds in accounts, with the exception of purchasing goods at the rate of 30,000 rubles per month and travel documents for leaving Russia, as well as paying fines;);
drive vehicles and be admitted to exams for the right to drive vehicles, etc.

Can we say this greatly limits the rights of non-citizens compared to what it was before? Not really, foreigners staying in Russia without required valid documents were in fact prohibited from doing many of these things even without the new rule - the Registry Office refused to perform marriage if one of the future spouses was staying in the country illegally, banks did not open account for such individuals, and property transactions were also practically impossible in this case. However, at that time there was no specific law that would clearly state this. Authorities were faced with an ambiguous situation - on the one hand, there is no direct prohibition to provide the service, but on the other hand, the person does not even have the right to be here. In the end, such foreigners were still mostly refused; and now this refusal will be based on the new law.

But this law introduces some innovations, namely, limiting the amount that can be spent, although how this will be implemented is not entirely clear.

The persons whose stay in Russia is illegal will be called «controlled».

In addition, it's proposed to place a person under expulsion regime in temporary detention facilities without a court decision for up to 48 hours. Also, officials of the internal affairs bodies will be granted the authority to carry out administrative expulsion from Russia of foreigners without a court decision. Before this law, only judges could do so.

The police, for their part, will have the right to enter the premises where such a foreign national is located, including by overcoming resistance. But in fact, this is nothing new - it's just that now the law specifically states this.

Border officers will assess the risk of a possible violation of the state border regime or creating a threat to state security by a foreigner entering Russia; in other words, such foreigners will be denied entry. Although this is factually carried out even now.

What else? Currently, foreigner nationals from visa-free countries have the right to stay in Russia 90 days each 180 days, while the new law increases this period to one year - that is, such foreigners will be able to stay 3 months not within half a year, but within a year. It's something new.

Thus, although the 2025 law makes some changes and introduces new terms, it is mostly needed to specifically establish the restrictions on foreigners that already existed before.
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