Digital currency under Russian law: property you cannot pay with

In Russian law, cryptocurrency is called digital currency and is recognised as property. You may own it, you may buy it and sell it, but paying with it for goods, work and services in Russia is prohibited. Since 1 September 2026 these rules have been set out in Federal Law No. 282-FZ of 4 August 2026 "On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights", which is replacing Federal Law No. 259-FZ of 31 July 2020 in stages.

This article deals with status only: what digital currency is in the eyes of the law, where the prohibition lies and what the new law has added to the old one. The purchase procedure itself — through whom and on what terms — is described in the article on how to buy cryptocurrency legally in Russia. There are no prices in this text: they change continuously and live in the coins section.

One thing under two names

"Cryptocurrency" is an everyday word. The law is called "On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights", and when the subject is legal rules it is more accurate to use the law's own term: digital currency. The same term appears in the title of the earlier Law No. 259-FZ, alongside digital financial assets.

The title of the new law names two subjects, and they are easy to confuse. A digital right, the category that includes digital financial assets, is a claim against a specific person: someone issued the asset and is liable under it. Digital currency has no obligated party: there is no one to bring a claim against, whereas for a digital financial asset the issuer is answerable. Everything else rests on this distinction — the rules, the access, the tax. It is examined in detail in the article on how digital currency differs from digital financial assets.

Property: what follows from this and what does not

Recognition as property makes digital currency something that can be the subject of a transaction. It has an owner, it can be sold, the sale produces income, and tax is paid on that income. The tax side is governed by Federal Law No. 418-FZ of 29 November 2024: income from the sale of digital currency is subject to personal income tax, purchase costs reduce the tax base if they are supported by documents, and such transactions are not subject to VAT. The rates and the calculation procedure are the subject of the article on the tax on selling cryptocurrency.

The status of property does not mean that digital currency is backed by anything. The law describes what may be done with it and makes no promise about what it will be worth: its price is not backed or guaranteed by anything, and there is no insurance scheme for it. What else, apart from price, can add up to a loss is examined in the article on the risks of buying cryptocurrency.

This article makes no claim about what the status means for inheritance, the division of property or the enforcement of debts. Such questions are settled by reading the rules in force, not by drawing conclusions from the single word "property".

The payment ban: a subject of a transaction, but not a means of settlement

Using digital currency in Russia as a means of payment or as consideration for goods, work and services is prohibited. The ban was in force under Law No. 259-FZ and has been kept by Law No. 282-FZ: the new law restructured the way digital currency circulates but left this rule in place.

The wording is broader than it seems. A "means of payment" is settlement in coins instead of money. "Consideration" is the transfer of coins in exchange for goods, completed work or a service, even if it is not called payment.

The line is drawn by the role digital currency plays in the transaction. When it is bought or sold, it is itself the subject of the transaction — that same property — and the payment ban does not touch such a transaction. When it is used to settle for goods, work or a service, it becomes a means of settlement, and that is prohibited. A practical consequence follows: to spend what has been invested on goods and services, the digital currency is sold first, and it is the sale that turns out to be the event to which the tax is tied.

This article makes no claim about what liability arises for breaching the ban or how it applies to settlements with sellers outside Russia: that has to be read in the current version of the law.

What Law No. 282-FZ added to the earlier one

The earlier law described digital currency in two statements: you may own it, you may not pay with it. The new one answers the question that stands between them — how and through whom transactions are carried out.

Market participants. The law introduces categories of licensed intermediaries, which it calls circulation organisers: digital currency exchanges, brokers, asset managers, depositories and exchange services. Their register is kept by the Bank of Russia. The requirements for each category are set by the law itself and by the regulator's acts.

Residents' transactions go through these intermediaries. The requirement to carry out transactions only through them takes effect later than the basic rules: under the law, from 1 July 2027.

Access depends on investor status. A non-qualified investor is admitted after testing and only to a limited list of the most liquid digital currencies; the list and the criteria are set by the Bank of Russia. Under the draft Bank of Russia directive published on 11 August 2026, such purchases are capped at RUB 300,000 a year with one intermediary. This is a draft, and the version in force has to be checked. For a qualified investor there is no such cap. How the test, the list and the cap work is examined in the article on the purchase of cryptocurrency by a non-qualified investor.

The change of laws by date

Law No. 282-FZ did not repeal the earlier one in a single day: it is replacing it in stages. The known dates are as follows:

• 21 July 2026 — the law is adopted by the State Duma;
• 4 August 2026 — the date of Law No. 282-FZ itself;
• 11 August 2026 — the draft Bank of Russia directive with the cap for non-qualified investors is published;
• 1 September 2026 — the law is in force, the basic rules have taken effect;
• 1 July 2027 — the requirement to carry out transactions only through licensed intermediaries takes effect for residents.

The interval between the last two dates is the transition period for the intermediary requirement. Which provisions of Law No. 259-FZ continue to apply, and until what day, cannot be determined from a retelling: the current versions of both laws are needed. The same goes for a transaction carried out within the transition period. The intermediary requirement has not yet taken effect by then, but it does not follow that the other rules are silent about such a transaction.

The glossary has a name for this situation — regulatory risk: the conditions change not because of the market but because the next date in the law has arrived.

What our coins section contains and what it does not

The coins section brings together prices, market capitalisation and history — for example, on the bitcoin page. The section is for reference: no transactions are carried out through the site.

The list of digital currencies available to a non-qualified investor is set by the Bank of Russia according to its own criteria. Our ranking measures something else, and exactly what is explained in the article "The largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalisation". The presence of a coin in the section and its position in the ranking say nothing about whether it is on the regulator's list.

When what is said here stops being true

The rules were checked on 6 October 2026, and that check has a short shelf life.

The cap for a non-qualified investor is taken from a draft directive. The adopted document may differ in both the amount and the conditions, which is why the amount is shown together with its source and the date of the check.

The transition from Law No. 259-FZ is proceeding in stages. On the day you read this, a different version may already be in force, and after 1 July 2027 the very procedure by which residents carry out transactions changes.

The article describes the position of an individual who is a resident. The rules for organisations, for the mining of digital currency and for those who are not residents are not examined in it. The sense in which the law uses the word "resident" has to be read in the law itself.

Anyone looking for the name of a platform will not be helped by this text: we do not name or compare intermediaries.

There remain questions that only the reader can answer: in what status — qualified or non-qualified investor — they approach the transaction, and which version of the rules is in force on the day they carry it out.