In 2026, Russian oligarchs transferred 471 billion roubles, or more than $5.6bn, to Russia’s state budget in the form of so-called “voluntary contributions”. This amount covers more than 1% of Russia’s state spending this year.
Reuters reports this, citing documents from Russia’s state budget.
As the agency notes, Russian billionaires agreed on these “contributions” after a closed-door meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in March. Russia’s biggest businessmen attended, most of whom are under Western sanctions. The full list of participants was not made public.
In September, dictator Vladimir Putin said that after the March meeting, “hundreds of billions” of roubles had been received by the budget.
Russia plans to end this year with a budget deficit of 3.2% of GDP – 7.3 trillion roubles ($87bn). That is twice the originally planned figure of 1.6% of GDP. Without the “voluntary contributions”, the deficit could have risen to 3.4% of GDP.
The Kremlin previously said that one of the businessmen had proposed the initiative, arguing that many wealthy Russians built their fortunes in the 1990s thanks to ties with the state and therefore should now contribute to the state budget.
After the meeting, the Kremlin said that one of the participants had proposed paying a “very large sum of money”, and Putin backed the initiative.
In 2026, the Russian government plans to receive 385 billion roubles from the sale of assets confiscated from private companies in recent years. This is part of a large-scale redistribution of property that the authorities are carrying out, citing, among other things, legal violations, corruption and foreign ownership of strategic assets.
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In 2025, the Russian authorities raised taxes and increased borrowing to finance the deficit and sustain spending on the defence sector. This year, they plan to allocate 38% of all budget expenditure to it.
Revenue from the “voluntary contributions” has already exceeded the amount raised by the corporate windfall tax, which is paid mainly by highly profitable metals and chemicals companies.
Against the backdrop of the war against Ukraine, the Kremlin is looking for new sources of income. In particular, the authorities are planning further tax rises in 2027 and a tougher crackdown on schemes to evade payment.
One of the expected tax increases is set to bring the budget an additional roughly 1 trillion roubles in 2027. It will apply to income from bank deposits, which, due to high interest rates, have become a significant source of profit for many Russians.