The bill against fictitious marriages of foreigners with Russians passed the first reading

The State Duma adopted in the first reading bill, which establishes for foreign citizens a minimum two-year period of being married to a Russian citizen in order to obtain a temporary residence permit (TRP) in a simplified manner. The explanatory note states that the amendments will eliminate the possibility of using fictitious marriages to illegally obtain migration status for foreign citizens in Russia.

According to current Russian legislation, a foreign citizen can obtain a temporary residence permit if he is married to a Russian citizen who has a place of residence in Russia. This rule, as stated in the explanatory note, is one of the most popular grounds for obtaining legal migration status. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in 2022, based on this norm, 59 thousand decisions were made to issue temporary residence permits, which is 33% of the total number of decisions.

The bill proposes to establish that foreign citizens married to Russians will be able to receive a temporary residence permit in Russia outside the established quotas only if the spouses have lived together for at least two years. In addition, it is proposed to cancel the temporary residence permit and residence permit in cases where the marriage of the citizenship applicant was declared invalid by the court or if the act of establishing the paternity of a child who is a citizen of the Russian Federation was canceled by the court. Residence permits for parents (adoptive parents or guardians) of Russian children, according to the authors of the project, can only be issued if the child was born in a valid marriage with a Russian.

Read more about the bill in the Kommersant publication. “Fictitious marriages needed clarification”.