Russia · Talent & extraordinary ability
"Shared Values" humanitarian visa and quota-free temporary residence (Decree No. 702)
Open since 1 September 2024 under Presidential Decree No. 702 of 19 August 2024. The eligible-country list was set by Government Order No. 2560-р of 17 September 2024 and covers most of the EU, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea — broadly the states Russia designates unfriendly. Consular pages variously state 43, 47 and 48 countries.
It is the only route in the world of its kind, and it is worth knowing the actual size of it. Russian consulates issued 1,112 of these visas worldwide in the whole of 2025 — roughly three a day globally — led by Germany at 168, France at 140 and the United States at 105. It is a real legal channel with a waived language exam and a waived quota, not a mass programme.
Qualifying routes
The applicant states in writing that they reject policies imposing what the decree calls destructive neoliberal ideological attitudes, contrary to the traditional values defined in Presidential Decree No. 809 of 2022.
The facts
- Total landed cost
- Consular visa fee plus, since 27 July 2026, RUB 15,000 for the temporary residence permit and RUB 30,000 for the permanent one. Both were a fraction of that a month earlier.
- Route type
- By qualification
- Timeline
- 2–8 months (A 90-day single-entry private visa first, then the temporary permit application from inside Russia. The permanent permit and the five-year citizenship clock follow ordinary timelines from there.)
- Physical presence
- Migration registration within seven working days of arrival, then medical screening and fingerprinting. Ordinary residence-permit presence rules apply afterwards.
- Family
- SpouseMinor children
- Permanent residency
- The decree opens a temporary residence permit outside the quota and without the integration examination. The permanent permit is applied for from there.
- Citizenship
- No shortcut. The decree grants entry and a quota-free temporary permit; the five-year residence requirement of Article 15 still applies unless another simplified ground fits.
- Language test
- Waived for the temporary residence permit under this decree. Not waived for citizenship itself unless you qualify under Article 16.
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- citizenship of a country on the Government Order No. 2560-р lista written declaration lodged with a Russian embassy or consulatemigration registration within seven working days of arrivalmedical screening and fingerprinting in Russia
- It is a visa and a quota exemption, not residence on arrival. You still have to complete the temporary permit, then the permanent permit, then five years, before citizenship is in reach.
- The declaration is a written statement of political and social alignment lodged with a foreign government. Consider how that reads to your home country's authorities, to your banks and in any future security clearance or visa application.
- The visa is single-entry, valid up to 90 days, and cannot be extended or converted outside the intended path.
- Volumes are tiny and consular capacity is thin. Nothing about this route is industrialised.
- Russia was added to the EU's own anti-money-laundering high-risk list by Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/46, applicable from 29 January 2026, and has sat on the EU tax blacklist since February 2023. Enhanced due diligence on any Russia-linked relationship is now legally mandatory across the EU, and de-risking is the common outcome. Expect account refusals and source-of-wealth demands elsewhere for as long as you hold Russian residence.
- THE BANK IS THE BINDING CONSTRAINT, NOT THE PERMIT. Visa, Mastercard and Amex cards issued outside Russia have not worked inside the country since March 2022 — not in shops, not online, not at ATMs — and Apple Pay and Google Pay are dead. The fix is a Russian account and a Mir card, but Mir works reliably in Belarus and Abkhazia and patchily in a short, shrinking list beyond them — the operator has withdrawn its official country list, so no authoritative version exists, and the EU barred its own entities from connecting to Mir, SPFS and the SBP fast-payment system from 25 January 2026. Over a hundred Russian banks are now under EU transaction bans.