Federal Law 241-FZ of 26 July amends the law on the legal status of foreign citizens. It was one of 37 laws signed that day.
The test is a multiplication. A foreign worker must hold income no lower than the per-capita subsistence minimum of the region where the work is done, multiplied by a regional coefficient and by the number of family members. Where the work spans regions, the highest of those minimums applies. The requirement is capped at the average monthly wage in the region. Tinkoff Zhurnal’s worked example puts a citizen of Tajikistan supporting a family of four in Moscow at about 101,368 roubles a month at a coefficient of 1. Students, pensioners, disabled people, minors and Belarusian citizens are exempt.
Fall below the line and the employment contract is treated as terminated and the permitted period of residence is shortened. If a patent lapses or is cancelled, the holder has 15 days to leave the country.
The fixed advance income tax is 1,200 roubles a month for patent holders employed by organisations or individual entrepreneurs, and 1,700 roubles for those working for private individuals in households. Each dependent family member in Russia adds half a payment again. Regional legislatures may set a higher coefficient on top of that. Children turning 18 have 30 days to leave or must take out their own patent.
From 1 October 2026 the tax service reports migrants’ earnings to the interior ministry at three, six, nine and twelve months. Separately, telecom operators face criminal liability for breaching the special rules on issuing SIM cards to foreigners, with fines to 500,000 roubles or up to a year, rising to four years for organised cases, and a ceiling of 10 cards per foreigner. That part takes effect ten days after publication.
The fees are already in force, from 27 July. A residence permit goes from 6,000 roubles to 30,000. Temporary residence goes from 1,920 to 15,000. A work permit goes from 4,200 to 5,000, an employer’s authorisation per worker from 12,000 to 15,000, and citizenship from 4,200 to 50,000, which is twelve times the old figure.
The cost of a Moscow work patent is now a function of how many children came with the worker.
The exposure is the region’s largest single economic dependency: Uzbekistan took $9.28 billion in remittances in the first half of 2026, up 13%, with Russia’s share falling from 77.6% to 72.4%. Russia still supplies the majority of the money that reaches Kyrgyz, Tajik and Uzbek households from abroad.
Across two sweeps the desk found no statement on the law from any government, labour ministry, migration service or embassy in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan or Uzbekistan. Coverage in all three countries reproduces the Russian legislative detail with no domestic voice attached to it. Several national outlets were serving stale caches when we checked, so read that as not found rather than as certain silence.
One institutional step did happen. On 27 July Putin ratified the Russia-Kyrgyzstan agreement of 26 November 2025 on the status of interior ministry and migration representative offices. It converts Kyrgyzstan’s migration service office in Moscow into a representation of the labour and social welfare ministry and opens a Kyrgyz interior ministry office in Moscow.
That agreement is about policing the flow. The law signed a day earlier is about pricing it. Pricing will reach households in Osh and Kulob long before policing reaches a courtroom.