Foreigners in Moscow will now be subject to a new experimental law that affords the state enhanced tracking mechanisms via a smartphone app.
The new law, announced by Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the State Duma – the lower house of the Russian Parliament – is pitched as a means to tackle migrant crime.
A proposed four-year trial period begins on September 1, 2025, and runs until September 1, 2029. It’s expected to receive approval from the upper house and President Vladimir Putin in the coming weeks, according to independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
If it’s successful, the plan is to roll it out to additional regions beyond Moscow and the larger Moscow region.
The announcement stated that these enhanced tracking mechanisms would apply to foreign citizens, meaning permanently settled migrants, but Volodin said via Telegram they wouldn’t affect foreign diplomats or Belarusian citizens. A draft copy of the proposals also excludes minors from the new state tracking regime.
Those who fall within the scope of the new law will have to provide the state with details of their residence within Moscow, their fingerprints, biometric photography, and allow devices to be monitored via geolocation. They will also have to install a mobile application the state will specify.
In-scope migrants must inform the state of any change of residence within three working days, Volodin’s announcement stated.
“If migrants change their actual location, they will be required to inform the Ministry of Internal Affairs within three working days. These measures will not affect diplomats and citizens of Belarus.
“The adopted mechanism will allow, using modern technologies, to strengthen control in the migration sphere, and will also help reduce the number of offenses and crimes in this area. If the experiment proves successful, it can be extended to other regions.”
According to stats from CEIC Data, the number of foreign nationals living and working in the greater Moscow area stood at around a million people in January 2024. This is a decrease from the previous number of 1.84 million recorded in the previous year. Around 12.5 million people are resident in the Russian capital altogether.
The announcement comes just a few months after the state rolled out its error-strewn nationwide Register of Controlled Persons, on which those who don’t follow the experimental tracking law could be placed.
The register monitors designated illegal immigrants, or those who exceed their terms of temporary residence (work, school permits, etc), across the whole of the Russian territory. Once placed on the list, individuals lose access to many of the most fundamental aspects of society.
These include being able to move house, access their bank accounts, the ability to work, attend university, and more.
According to the BBC Russian Service, which investigated the initiative, those who have had the misfortune of being added to the register are forced to make the journey to Sakharovo, around 60 km southwest of Moscow.
Sakharovo is a migrant center where people can apply to have their stay in Russia extended and more. The facility’s poor conditions have been widely reported, and many of those who visit claim they are treated inhumanely.
Examples include being forced to use nonfunctional lavatory facilities, being screened for diseases like HIV, and threatened by armed guards while queuing for entry.
In just the first month after the register came into effect, 685,000 people were added to it out of an estimated 6.2 million migrants, per Russia’s interior ministry, although the real number is thought to be much higher. ®