[Translation prepared by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

"The Russian Ministry of Labor proposes to ban the hiring of migrants in the service sector without passing the Russian language exam", 01 August 2025

The Russian Ministry of Labor has prepared a bill that proposes to ban hiring foreign workers who do not know Russian for positions "that involve social interaction and communication with Russian citizens." This includes drivers, salespeople, and doctors, TASS reports , citing the press service of the Ministry of Labor.

The agency specifies that this concerns migrants from countries with visa entry: China, India, Turkey and others. There is a visa-free regime with the countries of Central Asia, from where most migrants come to Russia. However, people from these countries have to obtain patents for work, and the package of documents for the patent also includes a certificate of passing the Russian language exam.

As for the migrants, whom the Ministry of Labor is now going to oblige to take Russian again, they come from visa countries under quotas that are established based on employers' requests. We are talking mainly about qualified specialists.

At the end of July 2025, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a bill exempting such migrants from the language exam. But the document was criticized by Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin: "Why are you proposing to include those who may not know the language in the list? Categories such as drivers, salespeople, they need to communicate, they need to know the language, they need to know the laws." The response to this statement was the bill of the Ministry of Labor. Presumably, the Duma will consider it after the beginning of the autumn session.