Self-employment in Penza: local demand, crafting and public procurement

In the Volga Federal District at the end of September 2026, 2.5 million tax payers on professional income were registered - 21.7% more than a year earlier. Leaders in the absolute number of self-employed remain unchanged: Tatarstan (505.4 thousand), Samara region (401.2 thousand) and Bashkortostan (397.2 thousand). Penza region with an indicator of 101.9 thousand closes the three regions of the Volga Federal District with the smallest number of self-employed, second only to Mordovia (48.5 thousand) and Mari El (57.3 thousand). However, this modest absolute figure hides a fundamentally different dynamics, which requires analysis not through the prism of comparison with the giant regions, but through the optics of internal structural shifts in employment and business activity of the Sur region.

The key feature of the Penza statistics of self-employment is its unevenness over short time periods. As of January 1, 2026, there were 87,807 NAP payers in the region - 1.3 times more than a year earlier. By the beginning of June 2026, the number of self-employed increased to 87.8 thousand, which actually meant stagnation in the first half of the year. However, by the end of August 2026, the region overcame the symbolic mark of 100 thousand, reaching 100.3 thousand self-employed. Thus, the main increase – about 12.5 thousand people – fell in the summer months, which can be explained by both seasonal factors (activation of tutoring, construction and repair works, beauty services), and the effect of support measures that worked in the second quarter. About 400 new self-employed people are registered every week in the Penza region, which sets a steady, albeit moderate, rhythm of legalization of microincomes.

The sectoral profile of the Penza self-employed is markedly different from the all-Russian one. If in Bashkiria, according to RBC Ufa, car services, beauty, information services, construction and repair, as well as IT dominate, in the Penza region the core of self-employment is formed by the production of clothes, toys and interior items, “craft” food, beauty services, cargo transportation and tutoring. In the district section, repairs, road transportation, training and sale of own-made goods are added to this set - for example, more than 1.5 thousand self-employed people are registered in the Serdob district, mainly employed in these niches. This structure reflects not so much the weakness as the specificity of the regional economy: Penza self-employment grows from grassroots entrepreneurship, from hobbies turning into microbusiness, and from services focused on local demand. At the same time, analysts note the opposite side: the low density of self-employed per thousand inhabitants is explained by a high level of economic anxiety and the departure of some artisans and builders in the “gray” zone – even a symbolic tax of 4-6% is perceived as unbearable with a falling flow of orders. However, it is this “shadow reserve” that explains the growth potential: every legalized self-employed person is not so much a new entrepreneur as a way out of the shadow of the already existing one.

The increase in the number of self-employed in the Penza region is not solely the result of market self-organization. The region is consistently building an institutional support infrastructure. The volume of public procurement from the self-employed under 223-FZ exceeded 92 million rubles - twice as much as in the previous year, which became possible due to the extension of self-employed preferences previously available only to SMEs. In the first quarter of 2026, the volume of purchases of the largest state customers from the self-employed reached 29 million rubles. At the same time, the region has a set of tax instruments: reduced USN rates for residents of regional development centers (up to 1% of income), a zero rate for newly registered individual entrepreneurs in agriculture, industrial production, education and the social sphere, and from 2026 an automated simplified taxation system (AUSN) has been introduced. A special emphasis is placed on creative industries: a regional law on the support of creative entrepreneurship was adopted, aimed at self-realization of citizens, protection of copyright and popularization of folk crafts. For the Penza region, where small and medium-sized businesses provide 35.6% of GRP – first in the Volga Federal District and sixth in Russia – this policy is a logical continuation of the structural bet on microentrepreneurship.

The backdrop for self-employment growth in the region remains controversial. On the one hand, the average monthly nominal salary in the Penza region for January-April 2026 reached 70,621.6 rubles, an increase of 13.6% compared to the same period last year, and real wages increased by 6.9%. Unemployment on January 1, 2026 was 1.5% lower than the average Russian, and the number of declared vacancies (8,706) is many times higher than the number of officially registered unemployed (1,959) – an indicator that has not been since 1991. On the other hand, these positive developments do not remove structural constraints: self-employment for many Penzens remains not so much a choice in favor of entrepreneurial freedom as a tool for combining multiple sources of income or a way to legalize part-time activities. The growth of the number of self-employed by 1.3-1.4 times a year, with a relatively modest absolute base, indicates that the region is in the initial phase of the formation of a culture of microentrepreneurship, while Tatarstan and the Samara region have already passed this phase and are showing mature, saturated markets.

The position of the Penza region in the district ranking of self-employment - among outsiders by absolute number - on closer examination turns out not to be a signal of weakness, but a reflection of another stage in the development of the institute. A region with a population of about 1.2 million people cannot and should not compete in shaft with Tatarstan or Bashkortostan, whose agglomerations are multiples larger than Penza in terms of economy. Other factors are significant: the pace of legalization (an increase of 1.3 times per year), overcoming the 100,000th milestone in the second half of 2026, doubling public procurement from the self-employed and the formation of tax and infrastructure incentives for microbusiness. Penza self-employment grows out of local specifics – crafts, crafts, services and tutoring – and it is this “bottom” nature that makes it resistant to market fluctuations. The question for the future is whether the region will be able to convert quantitative growth into qualitative – to transfer the self-employed to the status of individual entrepreneurs and full-fledged SMEs, expand their access to markets beyond local demand and thereby turn the “shadow reserve” into a visible sector of the regional economy.