Immigration to Russia

Immigration to Russia is an entry process of foreign citizens for permanent residence in the territory of the Russian Federation. The standard immigration procedure consists of the following steps: obtaining a temporary residence permit; obtaining a permanent residence permit and obtaining Russian citizenship.[1] Under current law, the citizenship of Russia can be received after five years of residence and after passing an exam in Russian language. The immigration to Russia is regulated by the Main Directorate for Migration Affairs.[2] The immigration plays an important role in modern Russian demographic processes, since it is the cause of the increase of the population from 2011.[3]

Russia maintains one of the world's most liberal immigration policies; anyone who works in Russia for five years and develops fluency in the Russian language can become a citizen, provided he or she has not committed a crime. Almost anyone who is hired by a Russian firm can stay in the country and work indefinitely [4] This reflects a policy change on the part of the government of Vladimir Putin from the more restrictive policy enacted after the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, in response to declining birth rates.[5] The large non-Slavic immigrant populations arriving in response to Putin's liberal policy have sometimes been met with xenophobia. To counter this, the Russian state has shut down various anti-immigrant group pursuant to Russian hate speech laws, such as the Movement Against Illegal Immigration.

Russian language native speakers, those married to Russian citizens, highly qualified specialists, businessmen and refugees are eligible for a simplified immigration procedure. It allows to get citizenship in 3 years (instead of 5 under the standard procedure) or sometimes to skip temporary or permanent residency.[6]

Statistics

Recent trends

Countries with at least 1,000 persons, immigrating each year.[7]

Country	Gross immigration								Net immigration
	2000	2005	2010	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2000	2005	2010	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Ukraine	74,748	30,760	27,508	194,810	178,274	150,182	137,776	160,700	39,147	18,120	21,230	146,131	118,819	47,691	14,822	65,145
Tajikistan	11,043	4,717	18,188	47,638	52,676	63,467	67,929	88,477	9,885	4,283	17,494	11,362	27,288	34,639	31,028	47,759
Kazakhstan	124,903	51,945	27,862	65,750	69,356	71,680	72,141	85,982	106,990	39,508	20,533	34,767	37,130	32,736	26,516	39,092
Armenia	15,951	7,581	19,890	45,670	43,929	46,898	46,442	71,458	14,432	6,961	19,192	20,533	11,993	13,999	14,358	35,546
Uzbekistan	40,810	30,436	24,100	74,242	60,977	64,073	55,378	60,002	37,724	29,841	23,266	−20,668	19,672	22,167	6,807	19,089
Kyrgyzstan	15,536	15,592	20,901	26,045	28,202	41,165	44,408	53,324	13,679	15,119	20,260	9,935	11,043	19,355	8,978	14,902
Azerbaijan	14,906	4,600	14,500	24,326	24,109	25,602	26,690	34,263	11,719	3,326	13,389	10,660	10,439	8,599	8,737	16,849
Moldova	11,652	6,569	11,814	34,026	32,418	31,369	30,676	26,405	9,415	5,783	11,197	17,380	14,364	9,605	7,688	5,521
Belarus	10,274	6,797	4,894	17,741	14,590	21,282	19,045	18,366	−3,002	763	1,995	4,909	2,127	11,770	7,191	6,307
China	1,121	432	1,380	9,043	8,027	8,237	7,067	15,195	463	−24	1,132	−778	−810	637	−477	6,609
Turkmenistan	6,738	4,104	2,283	6,539	7,242	8,734	10,509	14,573	6,062	3,979	2,178	2,320	2,418	2,873	2,951	6,214
Georgia *Abkhazia (disp. status) *South Ossetia (disp. status)	20,213 – –	5,497 – –	5,245 814 33	7,038 2,267 342	6,511 2,261 216	6,809 2,357 270	6,345 1,975 260	6,862 1,426 110	18,411 - -	4,806 - -	4,786 732 23	3,309 1,272 -282	2,294 1,240 83	2,586 1,975 180	2,031 1,975 96	2,914 241 -2
India	203	54	110	2,894	4,768	5,622	5,032	9,572	−	41	93	1,282	1,421	1,437	−185	4,349
Vietnam	182	114	921	4,012	3,735	3,912	3,981	6,650	149	69	889	1,004	394	1,194	684	3,376
Germany	1,753	3,025	2,621	3,976	4,153	3,704	3,247	2,622	−38,690	−18,433	−1,104	−555	−541	−668	−1,962	−1,660
Syria	358	68	150	1,221	1,107	1,370	1,270	2,371	304	14	128	190	352	704	328	1,368
Turkey	164	86	562	2,091	1,626	1,600	1,765	2,268	60	1	415	−109	312	381	672	812
Afghanistan	288	60	236	831	846	1,183	1,206	1,806	263	49	222	219	270	637	570	910
North Korea	32	5	59	6,079	7,377	6,031	1,786	1,536	−15	0	44	−401	1,300	−793	−4,252	−314
Latvia	1,785	726	811	1,533	1,428	1,432	1,259	1,420	1,447	515	672	587	502	433	235	422
Total	359,330	177,230	191,656	598,617	575,158	589,033	565,685	696,371	213,610	107,432	158,078	245,384	261,948	211,878	124,854	285,792

Foreign population

As of June 2019, there are 10.13 million foreigners residing in the Russian Federation (up from 9.63 million in 2018 and 9.96 million in 2017), with the vast majority (85%) being citizens of CIS countries. Central Asians make up the most numerous group, followed by Ukrainian citizens. Temporary migration from Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan increased after a marked decline in 2015-2016. Two countries—Moldova and Ukraine—have steadily demonstrated a decrease in the number of migrants.[8]

Foreign residents from the CIS in Russia:[8]

Country of origin	Population (2019)	2018–2019 change
Uzbekistan	2,188,835	+171,005
Ukraine	1,763,930	-177,519
Tajikistan	1,303,302	+179,348
Kyrgyzstan	716,118	+77,383
Belarus	655,846	+38,213
Azerbaijan	650,495	+42,759
Kazakhstan	496,096	+36,839
Armenia	491,767	-13,068
Moldova	326,178	-49,390

Foreign residents from selected EU countries and the US:

Country of origin	Population (2019)	2018–2019 change
Germany	92,997	-3,036
Finland	53,880	-5,232
United States	37,160	-1,574
France	30,736	+3,255
Italy	22,155	-315
United Kingdom	16,752	-3,394
Spain	12,938	-148

Citizenship of immigrants as of 4th March 2015:[9]

1	Ukraine	2,552,884
2	Uzbekistan	2,131,300
3	Tajikistan	963,489
4	Kazakhstan	626,594
5	Azerbaijan	562,787
6	Moldova	557,592
7	Belarus	529,953
8	Kyrgyzstan	523,221
9	Armenia	484,892
10	Germany	238,293
11	China	236,932
12	United States	141,115
13	United Kingdom	109,930
14	Turkey	103,395
15	Finland	68,963
16	Italy	52,541
17	France	50,622
18	Vietnam	49,465
19	Spain	45,445
20	Philippines	40,168
21	Lithuania	37,443
22	North Korea	33,336
23	Canada	31,916
24	Georgia	31,076
25	India	30,617
26	Israel	29,589
27	Serbia	29,499
28	Poland	27,591
29	South Korea	26,838
30	Latvia	26,677
31	Australia	25,809
32	Estonia	25,599
33	Japan	25,360
34	Turkmenistan	24,340
35	Brazil	23,958
36	Netherlands	21,093
37	Mongolia	15,749
38	Austria	14,588
39	Switzerland	14,233
40	Thailand	14,087
41	Mexico	12,478
42	Argentina	10,674
43	Sweden	10,587
44	Belgium	10,485
45	Greece	9,841
46	Denmark	9,554
47	Singapore	9,433
48	Iran	8,672
49	Bulgaria	8,543
50	Afghanistan	8,520

See also

• Illegal immigration to Russia

References

1. Immigrate to Russia https://www.immigratetorussia.com/russian-residence-permit-2/
2. "На просторах России". Retrieved 15 February 2016.
3. "Demographics". Retrieved 15 February 2016.
4. Malakhov, Vladimir S. (9 August 2014). "Russia as a New Immigration Country: Policy Response and Public Debate" (PDF). Europe-Asia Studies. 66 (7): 1062–1079. doi:10.1080/09668136.2014.934140. ISSN 0966-8136. Retrieved 3 October 2018.
5. Ragozin, Leonid (March 13, 2017). "Russia Wants Immigrants the World Doesn't". www.bloomberg.com. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
6. How to Immigrate to Russia // SDV Consulting, Inc. Retrieved on 22.04.2020
7. "Migration of the people" at gks.ru (Russian Statistical Bureau) website.
8. "Мониторинг экономической ситуации в России" (PDF). Retrieved July 8, 2020.
9. https://web.archive.org/web/20150316142557/http://www.fms.gov.ru/about/statistics/data/details/54891/