St Petersburg is set to bar many foreign nationals from courier and taxi work until 2026

St Petersburg plans to ban foreign workers from driving taxis as well as from courier jobs through the end of 2025, according to a proposal that was published on the city administration's website on Wednesday.

The measure would specifically target foreign nationals working under 'labor patents', a type of work authorization required for citizens of countries outside the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), such as Uzbekistan or Tajikistan. Citizens of EAEU members Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan would be exempt.

The proposed ban would apply to taxi and rental car drivers, as well as couriers and food deliverers. The decree is slated to take effect in July, and businesses will have three months to comply.

The move follows several measures taken by the Russian Interior Ministry in April, including raids in which 2,400 electric bicycles were seized and over 1,200 foreign citizens were detained for working illegally.

The city's Labor and Employment Committee is also expected to recommend extending the restrictions into 2026.

If adopted, the new rules would require delivery firms to keep a register of deliveries and equip all couriers with geolocation devices. Those using vehicles would be limited to a maximum speed of 15 km/h, and 'movement zones' would be established. The deliverers and their equipment would be required to carry a single identification number, with appearance standards set by the city's transport committee.

In February, State Duma Deputy Mikhail Romanov raised concerns about couriers, citing repeated traffic violations on narrow sidewalks. However, the policy's rollout came as a surprise to many among the city's lawmakers and industry.

According to Legislative Assembly deputy Alexey Tsivilev, quoted by Fontanka, a working group of lawmakers and delivery firms had been meeting regularly to draft rules on training, uniforms and traffic conduct, but the proposed ban had not been discussed.

Tsivilev estimates that about 25,000 people are employed in the city's taxi sector, and that up to 70% are foreign-born. He believes as many as 15,000 people work as couriers, around half of whom are migrants.

Other Russian regions have introduced similar restrictions. In the Nizhny Novgorod region, migrants with labor patents are barred from working in courier and food service roles as well as in medicine. The Yamal region prohibits migrant labor in the transport sector. From September 1, the Krasnoyarsk region will expand the ban to include timber processing, catering, education, and jobs in hairdressing and beauty salons.

St Petersburg Vice Governor Igor Potapenko said in March that the number of registered migrants in the city had dropped by 60% in 2024 to about 210,000 people. He attributed the decline to increased oversight by law enforcement.