IIS-3: open, transfer or convert — what the law decides and what the contract decides

There are different ways to get an IIS-3: sign a new contract with a broker or an asset management company, transfer an account that is already open to another intermediary, or convert an old-style account. The law sets the general framework — the holding period, the deductions, the range of eligible securities — while the procedure, the execution deadlines and the fees charged for them are written into the contract with the particular intermediary. Opening an account is therefore above all a matter of reading the contract, and below we look at which of its clauses change the outcome and which things do not depend on the intermediary at all.

How the account itself is built — the deductions, the minimum holding period, the withdrawal of money — is described in the piece on how the third-type IIS works. This article is about something else: how to set the account up, how to move it, and what gets lost along the way through inattention.

The year of opening fixes the minimum holding period

New-style accounts have been opened since 1 January 2024; accounts of the earlier types — with a deduction on contributions or with a deduction on income — have not been offered to new clients since that date. The basis is the Federal Law "On the Securities Market", namely its article on individual investment accounts; the tax side is Article 219.2 of the Russian Tax Code. The law gives the account no number: third-type IIS is an everyday name, and it may not appear in the text of the contract. What needs checking is something else: that the contract is specifically for maintaining an individual investment account, not an ordinary brokerage account.

The minimum holding period is tied to the year of opening. An account opened in 2026 has to exist for 5 years — the same as accounts opened in 2024 and 2025. For accounts opened later the period is longer: it grows with each subsequent year of opening until it reaches the ceiling set by law. This has a consequence that is rarely spelled out: the opening date is not a formality but a parameter that determines when the tax benefits become available. Accounts opened in 2026 and a year later give the same deductions with a different waiting time.

The law puts no annual cap on contributions to the account itself; only the base for the deduction on contributions is limited — RUB 400,000 a year. The minimum amount of the first top-up, if there is any, is set by the intermediary in its own terms. At any given time you may hold three accounts: the rule is written for new-style accounts, and while an IIS opened before 2024 is still in force, a new account cannot be opened alongside it — the old account is closed or converted first. Before signing a contract, count the accounts you already have, including forgotten empty ones. How a contribution turns into a tax refund, and when there is nothing to refund, is covered in the piece on the IIS-3 tax deduction, and you can plug in your own amounts and holding period in the IIS-3 calculator.

Broker or asset manager: who makes the decisions on the account

The account is run either by a broker or by an asset management company. With a broker, you make the trading decisions yourself. With an asset manager, the money is placed in discretionary management, and the manager determines the composition of the portfolio — according to the strategy written into the contract.

In a contract with an asset manager, read how the management fee is structured and whether it is charged in a loss-making year. In a contract with a broker, read the commission per trade, the subscription fee and the custody fee. On an account that by law lives for years, a recurring charge accumulates regardless of the result.

An IIS-3 can be used to buy securities of Russian issuers; foreign securities are not admitted to this account. Within the permitted range, the intermediary's own list may turn out to be narrower — that, too, is a question for the contract and the fee schedule. Which Russian securities trade on the market can be seen in our stocks and bonds sections.

Contract clauses that determine protection and payouts

Participation in the guarantee scheme. A guarantee scheme has been in force since 1 January 2026: if a broker or asset manager that participates in it goes bankrupt, the IIS Guarantee Fund pays out up to RUB 1.4m. Participation is voluntary, so the protection is a feature not of the account as such but of the particular intermediary. A fall in the price of securities is not a guarantee event, and this scheme has nothing to do with bank deposit insurance. What exactly is covered is described in the piece on the IIS-3 guarantee.

Where dividends are paid. The law allows them to be received in a separate bank account; tax on dividends is withheld at the time of payment, and the income exemption on closing the account does not cover them. Whether the intermediary offers this choice and how it is arranged is written into the contract. The answer determines whether dividends stay inside the account until the end of the holding period.

Exit terms. What it costs to have securities debited when transferring to another intermediary, how quickly the instruction is executed, and what happens to payments that arrive during those days.

Changes to fees. How the intermediary gives notice of new terms and whether you can leave in response without an additional charge.

The general procedure for vetting an intermediary, which is not tied to the type of account, is described in the piece on choosing a broker.

A transfer to another intermediary is not a closure followed by a fresh opening

An account can be transferred to another broker or to an asset management company without losing the time already accrued. Closing the account and opening a new one looks similar from the outside but leads to a different result.

The cost of such an exit is examined in the piece on closing an IIS early.

The sequence of steps, the deadlines and the list of documents for a transfer are determined by the law and by the contracts of both intermediaries. We do not restate them here: the version in force has to be checked at the moment of the transfer. Before submitting an application, you need written answers to the following questions:

• whether the securities are transferred as they are, by depository transfer, or whether they will have to be sold and the cash transferred; in the second case you are out of the market for a time and pay commission both on the sale and on buying back;
• whether the new intermediary accepts all of your securities — anything not on its list cannot be moved;
• what information about the account's holding period and the deductions received the previous intermediary passes on to the new one, and who requests it;
• how the purchase price of the securities is preserved for future tax accounting.

How the transfer of securities between brokers itself works is described in the glossary.

An old account: the time counts, but not all of it

The holder of an earlier-type account can convert it into an IIS-3. The time the old account has existed is credited, within the limits set by law. Where the application is filed, within what period, and what happens to the deductions already received on the old account are not things we make claims about — they are determined by tax legislation and the regulator's rules, and these need to be checked before the application is filed, not after.

When the above stops being true, and whom the account does not suit

The deduction on contributions refunds only tax actually paid on other income, and at the rate at which it was paid. Without taxable income, opening the account does not deliver this benefit: what remains is the exemption of income on closing, within RUB 30m.

There is no partial withdrawal without closing the account; the exception is payment for costly medical treatment from a list approved by the Government. Money whose time horizon you cannot name ends up locked in such an account — a comparison with an ordinary account is given in the piece on the IIS versus a brokerage account.

Protection in the event of bankruptcy extends only to clients of those intermediaries that have joined the guarantee scheme.

And the last condition is time. The holding period, the deduction limits and the guarantee rules are changed by the legislator, while intermediaries change their fees and lists of securities more often than the law changes. A contract read a year ago is not the contract that is in force today.

It is convenient to track the account's holdings as a separate portfolio, so that you see the result of these particular securities and not of all your investments at once.