In accounts: why the regime for non-residents has not found a mass investor

When the wording “special account for non-residents” sounds, almost everyone has an association with “C” accounts. This is the main misunderstanding around the new regime. The bottom line is that the In account was created not to hold the previously invested funds, but to give a foreigner the opportunity to invest in Russia new. Below is how the mechanism works, what tools are available on it and what prevents it from becoming mass.

How "In" is different from "C"

The difference is in the idea of “from scratch”. The funds that non-residents have invested in Russia before and which are now here, as well as payments on them – dividends, repayments – remain unchanged and are paid according to the rules established for accounts of type “C” or in some cases to ordinary accounts. The new account is made for money that a foreigner is ready to invest in the Russian economy after the introduction of restrictions.

The line between new and old money is clearly drawn in the regulation. The principle is simple: if money or securities came to Russia from abroad, that is, they were not in the contour of the Russian financial system, these are new funds. They can be credited to the account type “In”, purchase tools on them, and then withdraw back everything that was formed in the account, including income.

Statistics on accounts such as "In" are still scant. During the first year of the regime’s existence (the data for July 2025 – September 2026 were analyzed), it remained a niche tool. Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev noted in May 2026 that non-residents opened several such accounts, but there are no active operations on them.

How a bank distinguishes new money

A bank that accepts funds for such an account has two options for verification. Or the money actually comes from the account of a foreign bank – then the issue is removed by the payment itself, it is clear that the funds came from abroad. Or they come from another Russian credit institution or broker – then the Bank of Russia obliged professional participants and credit institutions to indicate in the appointment of payment a special code that determines that the payment is made from an account of the type “In”.

Accepting such a payment, the bank looks at the destination: if there is a code, then the money has already come to someone from abroad to an account of this type. The same works on the conclusion: the client either receives funds for his details in a foreign bank, or the bank sends them to the specified details, again specifying the code and taking confirmation from the client that he really has an account of the type “In”.

Where difficulties arise in practice

The main difficulty is related to the limited opportunities for cross-border transfers. Previously, money could be sent abroad through SWIFT in different currencies and through a large number of banks, now most often it is the transfer of rubles through accounts in banks of friendly countries of the near abroad.

A foreigner usually has currency, not rubles. It means that the currency has to be converted in a foreign bank of friendly jurisdiction, paying a spread or commission, and the already received rubles are credited to Russia - ruble payments go without any problems. Currency controls at banks may request documents on the basis of a transfer, but this is standard practice for any cross-border transfer. There are no significant features here.

What's available in the account

Scope (volume) of instruments for In accounts is defined very clearly: Russian securities and derivative contracts for Russian securities, as well as the ability to convert currency. Shares and bonds of Russian companies, OFZ, shares, instruments on initial placement – all this is available. The key limitation: buying only on organized bidding, either in an unaddressed mode, when paper is taken from a glass, or on an initial placement on the exchange. Everything that is placed outside the exchange is not included in the scope account.

This leads to a second limitation: services. An ordinary client in an ordinary brokerage account can lend securities to a broker, can conduct a targeted transaction, finding a counterparty and agreeing on a different price. This is inaccessible to a foreigner, because you can only work in a non-targeted mode. In fact, tools are available, but a set of services is not: trading goes on its own funds, at least without margin lending. And if the paper for some reason is not Russian, you will not be able to trade it either.

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What fuels interest

The first factor is the high level of rates. Even though the key rate is declining, the trend of this decline has slowed and rates remain quite high. Getting 15-16% per annum in OFZ is still a very good opportunity. Plus, the ruble for a long time stood quite firmly against the main currencies and did not devalue: if you convert such a yield into currency over the past year or one and a half, these are double digits, which in other foreign markets in dollars and euros simply do not get.

The second factor is the fundamental undervaluation of the Russian stock market. The profits that companies generate imply a higher valuation than they currently are.

But the reasons for entering are quite different. We see cases when it is not so much an investment idea as a relocation: a person moves to Russia and is interested in transferring and investing funds here. We cooperate with agencies that are engaged in the relocation of foreigners to Russia, and there is such a flow.

Who comes to market

Now come mainly individuals, wealthy investors. It's not a mass customer. The reference check is у10-30 million. The reason is the cost of entry: you need to transfer funds, open an account, and you can not remotely identify a foreigner – he has no “public services”, you have to come to the office. For the sake of a million or two, such difficulties do not pass.

Foreign financial institutions request such services, but cautious. The main brake is sanctions risks: investors from unfriendly countries, on which the regime is designed, are largely afraid of secondary restrictions. Even if you find an unauthorized broker and bank, the investor will still trade on the Moscow Stock Exchange – for any foreign institutional player, this is a negative argument. A client from a friendly jurisdiction does not need such an account in principle: it is not subject to restrictions, and he must open a regular brokerage account. A separate category is brokers from friendly countries, there is demand from them and, we think, will grow.

We do not see hidden Russian capital and much sense in such a design. If investors are interested in it, they have other options, for example, through legal entities from friendly countries. One thing is the rules of work on the account, another is the taxation of income. It implies that the foreign person confirms the status of the beneficial owner of income and the applicable tax rate, the rules for non-residents apply to him. Attempts to hide Russian capital in this way will either open up or be unprofitable from the point of view of taxes.

General statistics on the accounts of non-resident individuals show a different picture than the dynamics of the In accounts. According to the Bank of Russia, the number of such accounts increased from 142.1 thousand in December 2024 to 694.6 thousand in June 2026 - almost five times.

The volume of assets on them for the same period almost did not change: .62.3 billion against .66.9 billion, and in the second quarter of 2026 decreased by 3%.

The share of active accounts among non-residents is only 2.7% (19.1 thousand), while among Russians - 9.5%. Experts explain this by the fact that when changing a broker, non-residents often do not close old accounts.

What is holding back the mass flow

The first limitation is that it is really not easy to transfer funds to Russia.

The second is on the other side of the scale with attractiveness: high rates and undervalued markets are countered by the high risk of these investments. Economic risk – the bet may or may not play; in recent months, everyone has seen the market fall on shocks. Plus, geopolitics is stopping many.

Then there are institutional investors, and they are stopped by the risk of secondary sanctions.

Finally, infrastructure. It is ready, but the question is how much: for a Russian client, an account opens online in a few minutes, and for a non-resident, this has not yet been achieved. If a foreigner could be identified remotely, there would be a flood of those who are not going to come to Russia, but want to try to invest.

Separately, it is worth mentioning secondary sanctions risks. We cannot remove these concerns from customers because we cannot guarantee that sanctions risks will not occur. But the scale of the risk depends on the profile: for an individual with several tens of millions of rubles, it does not look serious. Sanctions risks affect legal entities the most – their operations fall to the auditors, the reporting, the regulator, and they are afraid of it.