Russia

Yes, but the route is far narrower than the phrase suggests. Criterion (d) of Government Decree No. 2573 is the only property-based residence channel in Russia, and it is measured on cadastral value rather than price paid — RUB 50m in Moscow, RUB 25m in most regions, RUB 20m in the Far Eastern Federal District. Cadastral value typically sits well below market, so the qualifying purchase is considerably larger than those numbers imply. The property must be new-build, acquired off-plan or within two years of commissioning, and held unencumbered for a full year before you apply. Resale stock does not qualify at any price. A separate bill to create a straightforward residence-for-property-buyers programme circulated in 2021 and 2022 but was never enacted; the concept survives only in this narrowed decree form.

No. Federal Law No. 138-FZ, in force since 26 October 2023, dropped the renunciation requirement that the previous law imposed. But two things follow that people miss. First, Article 10 means Russia recognises only your Russian citizenship while you are inside Russia: the other country's consulate has no standing, and every obligation of a Russian citizen applies to you in full. Second, Russia's position does not bind anyone else — several states treat voluntary acquisition of another nationality as automatic loss of their own, so the question you actually need answered is what your existing country does, not what Russia does.

On the general route, six to eight years from first arrival. The statutory decision deadlines are the fast part — three months at the territorial Interior Ministry, extendable by three more. The slow part is everything before it: a temporary residence permit, then the permanent permit, then five years of continuous permanent residence counted from the date that permit was issued. If you qualify under Article 16(2) — born in the RSFSR, a direct ancestor from within today's Russian borders, or a parent or child who is a Russian citizen living in Russia — the five years and the language exam both disappear, and you can file as soon as the permanent permit is in hand. That is typically a year to eighteen months rather than six years.

Citizenship by birth cannot. Citizenship you acquired can, and this is the single most important thing to understand before naturalising. Articles 22 to 26 of Federal Law No. 138-FZ allow termination of acquired citizenship on conviction under a list of roughly sixty to seventy Criminal Code articles, and Article 24 states expressly that it applies regardless of when the offence was committed — there is no limitation period. Only the forged-documents ground carries a cut-off, at ten years. The list is not confined to violent crime: it includes false information about the armed forces, discrediting the armed forces, and involvement with organisations designated undesirable. Failure to complete first-time military registration was added as an independent ground in August 2024.

The passport does; the permit does not. Foreign citizens holding a temporary or permanent residence permit are not liable to conscription or to military registration. Men who acquire citizenship must complete first-time military registration, and failing to do so is itself a ground to strip the citizenship. Conscription covers ages 18 to 30 and has run year-round since 1 January 2026 rather than in two seasonal campaigns. The enforcement mechanism matters as much as the rule: a summons entered in the electronic register bars you from leaving Russia the same day, is deemed served after seven days whether or not you received it, and after twenty days of non-appearance triggers automatic suspension of your driving licence and bans on property transactions, loans and registering as self-employed. The partial mobilisation decree of September 2022 has never been repealed.

No. Visa, Mastercard, Maestro and American Express cards issued outside Russia stopped working in March 2022 and still do not work — not at a supermarket till, not on a Russian website, not at an ATM. Apple Pay and Google Pay do not function. UnionPay works patchily at a minority of banks. The practical answer is cash on arrival, up to the equivalent of USD 10,000 without a declaration, and then a Russian bank account and a Mir card. Mir in turn works reliably in Belarus and Abkhazia and patchily beyond them — the operator has withdrawn its official country list, so no authoritative version exists, and the EU prohibited its own entities from connecting to Mir, the SPFS messaging system and the SBP fast-payment system from 25 January 2026. Note also that the banks most willing to serve foreigners are largely sanctioned ones, which can create its own compliance problem with your bank at home.

It is real, and it is small. Presidential Decree No. 702 of 19 August 2024 lets nationals of listed Western states declare in writing to a Russian consulate that they reject policies imposing what the decree calls destructive neoliberal ideological attitudes. The declaration opens a single-entry private visa of up to 90 days and, after arrival, a temporary residence permit outside the quota and without the Russian language, history and law examination. It does not grant citizenship or residence on arrival — the ordinary permanent-permit and five-year stages still follow. Russian missions issued 1,112 of these visas worldwide in the whole of 2025, led by Germany at 168, France at 140 and the United States at 105. Worth weighing separately: the declaration is a written statement of political alignment lodged with a foreign government, and it is discoverable.

Legally it is possible on both sides in narrow channels, and practically it is very hard. On the Russian side, a person from a state Russia designates unfriendly needs Government Commission permission under Presidential Decree No. 81 to acquire real estate, securities or company stakes, with no published timetable. Presidential Decree No. 436 of 1 July 2025 created a protected route for new money through type И accounts, exempt from eight counter-sanction decrees and freely repatriable — but only for new money, not for anything held since before 2022, which sits in blocked type C accounts. On the Western side, EU, UK and US measures ban new investment in Russian energy and mining, restrict deposits and payment services, and bar your own advisers from providing accounting, tax, legal and consulting services into Russia. And exit is priced to punish: a seller from an unfriendly state faces a mandatory discount of at least 60% to appraised value plus a 35% budget contribution, leaving roughly 5% of appraised value.