What Moscow has drafted
On 24 September 2026, Interfax reported that Russia's Finance Ministry had drafted Tax Code amendments, part of the 2027–2029 budget process, setting a 22% VAT rate on goods bought through cross-border e-commerce. E-commerce platforms would act as tax agents, collecting and paying the tax. The ministry framed the change as part of building a competitive environment and "legalizing" the economy.
The draft replaces an earlier phased option of 7% from 2027, 14% from 2028 and 22% from 2029. According to Interfax, the Industry and Trade Ministry pushed for the full rate immediately so that online marketplaces and traditional retailers would compete on equal terms. The text is a draft within the budget package and not enacted law. The Finance Ministry's press centre shows the 2027–2029 federal budget being presented to the Federation Council on 5 October 2026, so the package is moving through the legislative calendar. We could not confirm the final bill text or its effective date.
The strongest case for the tax
The case for acting is stronger than critics often admit. Foreign sellers currently ship small parcels to Russian buyers without charging VAT, while Russian retailers collect it on equivalent goods. That is a genuine distortion. According to Izvestia, Finance Ministry estimates put the share of cross-border purchases made without paying taxes and duties at up to 99%. Data Insight figures cited there say cross-border sales exceeded 400 billion rubles in 2025, growing almost three times faster than the online market overall. Economist Mikhail Khachaturian estimated that a full-rate VAT from 2027 could raise more than 100 billion rubles. That is an expert projection, not an official figure.
Collecting through platforms is also the sound design choice. It puts the compliance burden on a few large intermediaries rather than millions of individual buyers, and it is the standard approach for taxing cross-border digital trade. Principled objections to taxing consumption at the destination are weak. A neutral VAT that applies equally to domestic and foreign sellers is closer to good tax policy than the status quo.
Where the draft goes wrong: the cliff edge
The weakness is the speed. The Association of E-Commerce Representatives (APET) wrote to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin asking for a phase-in with the full rate reached by 2029. Meduza reported that APET warns an overnight increase would raise prices by 15–25%, hitting electronics, clothing, footwear, cosmetics and household goods hardest. APET also cites falling marketplace traffic and buyers shifting to unregulated channels.
Those are an industry lobby's projections, and should be read as such. But the mechanism is plausible. A tax that moves from zero to 22% in one step gives buyers and sellers a strong reason to restructure, and the evidence on abrupt consumption-tax changes is that avoidance grows with the size of the jump. A glide path would have let the Finance Ministry test its collection systems on a lower rate first. The ministry's own earlier 7% / 14% / 22% schedule did exactly that, and the draft drops it.
Why the enforcement design matters more than the rate
The agent model depends on platforms being able to identify and report cross-border sales. APET's warning that Chinese sellers could open Russian legal entities and ship from domestic warehouses points to the likely response. That would erode the delivery-time advantage Russian sellers currently have. It would also convert tax avoidance into relocation, with the same goods sold through local entities. Whether that outcome counts as success depends on whether the aim is revenue or competitiveness.
A draft summarised by B1 in October 2025 covered goods sold by non-EAEU foreign suppliers to individuals, irrespective of value. It made foreign sellers' own platforms, foreign intermediary platforms and Russian marketplaces selling foreign entities' goods the tax agents. The wider the agent definition, the more compliance falls on intermediaries that must verify seller status. Clear definitions and a safe harbour for good-faith platforms would reduce disputes.
The EAEU layer
VAT is only part of the cost stack. The Eurasian Economic Commission announced on 12 January 2026 that purchases up to 200 euros stay duty-free, with a 5% duty above that threshold on top of the nationally set VAT. The new procedure was planned from 1 July 2026. Russia's VAT therefore operates alongside a bloc-wide customs regime, and a national rate that is high relative to neighbours creates an incentive to route parcels through other member states. Coordination within the union matters as much as the domestic rate.
What a proportionate version looks like
The tax gap is a legitimate target, and the platform-agent model is the right tool. A proportionate package would keep the collection mechanism but restore a transition. It would publish the bill text and agent definitions early, and set a review date tied to measured collections rather than a fixed ideology about price parity.
The risk of the current draft is not the principle. It is that a one-step jump to 22% shifts activity to grey channels or local re-registration without delivering the revenue the budget assumes, while consumers pay more. Russia would do better to tax foreign online goods in steps and learn from the first one.