May 23, 2025. The Russian President signed a Federal Law^[1] which introduces new requirements for cars to be added to the regional register of passenger cabs (hereinafter the "Register") as of March 1, 2026. Carriers must use as passenger cabs, in particular, vehicles the information about which is entered in this Register.

1. NEW REQUIREMENTS FOR INCLUSION IN THE REGISTER

In order to be included in the Register, a vehicle must meet at least one of the following criteria:

1.1. The vehicle complies with the legal requirements for public procurement of automotive industry products. These requirements are stipulated by a Resolution of the Russian Government.^[2] Under this decree, each action in the production of a car is evaluated and a certain number of points is assigned; the more operations in the creation of the car are carried out in Russia with the use of domestic technologies and materials, the more points it receives for this.

The following required number of points has now been established:"from January 01, 2023 no less than 3200 points, from January 01, 2027 no less than 3500 points, from January 01, 2028 no less than 3700 points."

1.2. The car was produced under a special investment contract (hereinafter "SPIC"), in the period from March 01, 2022 to March 01, 2025inclusive, or during this period it was changed to involve for production an organization that was previously an investor or a party to another SPIC.

1.3. The vehicle was manufactured under a SPIC after March 01, 2025 and in respect to it the Russian Government made a decision to allow it to be used as a passenger cab.

Regardless of the criterion a vehicle meets, the notice on including information in the Register will need to contain the year of manufacture of the vehicle and the number of points. Information on points will have to be taken from the register of Russian industrial products https://gisp.gov.ru/pp719v2/pub/prod/.

At the moment, the localization requirement of 3200 points is met primarily by AvtoVAZ models – Granta, Vesta, Iskra, Aura.

In addition, cars produced under SPICs entered into from March 01, 2022 to March 01, 2025 – in particular, this includes agreements between Moskvich and Motorinvest (the manufacturer of Evolute) – will be allowed. However, as of September 01, 2033, only the point criterion, not SPICs, will apply.

There is heated discussion among industry experts as to whether, for example, Haval, KAIYI, Chery and JAC cars will be included in these lists. However, we believe that cars from the List^[3] of priority cars for civil servants will also be allowed to be used as passenger cabs, and in addition to Lada Vesta, Lada Granta, Moskvich 3, Evolute, etc., there are, for example, Haval JOLION, KAIYI E5b and so on.

2. WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO VEHICLES ALREADY IN THE REGISTER AS OF MARCH 01, 2026

2.1. These changes do not apply to vehicles whose details have already been entered in the Register prior to March 01, 2026. Accordingly, such carriers are not required to comply with the new localization requirements until the transport permit expires.

2.2. These changes do not apply to vehicles registered in the Register of individual regions, in particular:

• In the Kaliningrad Region until March 01, 2028.
• In Siberia (Siberian Federal Circuit) until March 01, 2028.
• In the Far East (Far East Federal Circuit) until March 01, 2030.

3. WHAT'S COMING FOR BUSINESS CLASS TAXI:

The legislation differentiates between the concepts of transportation of passengers and luggage by order and transportation of passengers and luggage by passenger cabs according to Clause 5 of the Road Transport Charter.^[4]

For example, at Yandex Taxi, passenger transportation at Business and Premium fares is formalized specifically on the terms of a contract of chartering a vehicle for the transportation of passengers and luggage by order: https://yandex.ru/legal/taxi_termsofcarriage/.  And the changes made regulate only the transportation of passengers and luggage by passenger cabs.

Thus, it seems these changes in the current edition will not affect business class cabs.

4. WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO CARSHARING

In conclusion, we should say that such restrictions are provided only for cabs, and as for carsharing, the work on the draft law is only in progress, confirmation of which can be found on the web site of Parlamentskaya Gazeta: https://www.pnp.ru/social/v-gosdume-rabotayut-nad-zakonoproektom-o-lokalizacii-karsheringa.html.

We hope you find this information useful.

Additional information

Should any questions arise in connection with the above or if you need any additional materials, please contact the CLS office in St. Petersburg or Moscow.

This information letter keeps clients of CLS and other interested parties abreast of information that may, to some extent, affect their activity or cater to their interests. The opinions and commentaries expressed in this information letter shall not be deemed legal advice and do not cancel the need to obtain legal advice or legal opinion on separate issues.

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