President Vladimir Putin has recently signed several new laws impacting Russian citizens in areas such as real estate, family benefits, employment, and consumer protection. These changes span a wide range of issues, from streamlining access to maternity capital to regulating the sale of energy drinks and dietary supplements.
The sale of non-alcoholic tonic and energy drinks to minors will now result in fines. For citizens the fines range from 30,000 to 50,000 rubles; for officials, from 100,000 to 200,000 rubles; and for legal entities, from 300,000 to 500,000 rubles. Local state control bodies will handle administrative cases related to these violations, with police officers able to act upon discovering offenses themselves.
In the realm of real estate, a law allowing the use of the Unified Biometric System for property transactions will take effect on July 1, 2026. This will enable electronic submission of applications and documents for state registration of property rights, signed with a qualified electronic signature, following mandatory personal identification through the biometric system.
Changes are coming for management companies, who will be required to provide residents with a standardized annual report on the management of their apartment buildings, published in the State Information System of Housing and Communal Services (GIS ZhKH). These requirements extend to homeowners associations and housing cooperatives.
An experiment legalizing guest houses will take place from September 1, 2025, to December 31, 2027, in multiple regions. Guest houses in these regions must be included in a special register and receive a unique number, with the law defining a guest house as a type of accommodation within an individual residential building used for providing guest services.
To protect workers from unfair reductions in bonuses, a new law taking effect September 1, 2025, sets guidelines for disciplinary sanctions. Employers must clearly define bonus systems in employment contracts, limiting bonus reductions for labor discipline violations to the period in which the penalty was applied and capping the total salary reduction at 20% per month.
Access to maternity capital will be simplified through a digital platform, reducing the application review period from ten to five days. Automatic transfer of maternity capital rights will occur in cases of the certificate holder’s death or parental rights deprivation. All data related to maternity capital will be centralized on the “Social Treasury” digital platform.
Websites selling unregistered biologically active additives (BAA) will be blocked. Rospotrebnadzor will identify and flag information about the retail sale of dietary supplements that do not meet safety requirements, and medical professionals are now prohibited from entering into agreements with manufacturers to recommend specific products or receive samples.