Banking and SIM cards will be obliged to produce in Russia from 2025-2026

All bank cards, passes and other types of smart cards will have to be produced in Russia from 2025. And from March 1, 2026, the requirement to localize production in the Russian Federation will apply to all SIM cards of telecom operators. This follows from the draft government decree prepared by the Ministry of Industry and Trade and published on regulation.gov.ru on August 16. The co-developers of the document are 19 Russian manufacturers of smart cards, RFID tags and integrated circuits, including Mikron, Goznak, Angstrem, NM-tech, NIIME, etc.

The project provides for amendments to the government decree “On confirmation of the production of industrial products on the territory of the Russian Federation” dated July 17, 2015 No. 719. To assess the level of localization of the production of cards with integrated circuits (smart cards) and radio frequency identification (RFID tags) a point system is introduced, indicated in the explanatory note.

“These measures are aimed at implementing the mechanism for import substitution of foreign products and supporting Russian manufacturers of radio-electronic products used, among other things, in the payment infrastructure, as well as in tools for remote identification of goods,” the document says.

The decree refers to bank cards, SIM cards, cards for travel tickets, personal cards for access systems, a representative of the Ministry of Industry and Trade confirmed to Vedomosti. “The developed scoring system implies a gradual increase in the level of localization of production in the territory of the Russian Federation up to the use of domestically produced chips,” he said.