As of 1 September 2025, a patent issued in Moscow or Moscow Oblast grants a foreign national the right to work in both regions. The rule also applies to patents issued before that date. For the employer, this means that moving an employee between Moscow and Moscow Oblast no longer in itself requires a second patent or the reissuance of the existing document.
What changes in hiring patent-holding workers
An employer may hire a foreign national holding a Moscow patent to work in Moscow Oblast. The same approach applies in the reverse situation: a patent issued in Moscow Oblast permits work in Moscow. There is no need to obtain a second patent or reissue an already issued document solely because of work in the other of these two regions.
The change is important for companies whose sites, offices, or facilities are located on both sides of the border between Moscow and Moscow Oblast. When recruiting staff, the HR department should not regard a patent as “unsuitable” merely because it was issued by the neighboring region. This helps eliminate an unnecessary requirement for the candidate and establish a uniform approach to checking such patents.
How to account for an employee’s move between regions
The unified arrangement covers Moscow and Moscow Oblast specifically. If an employee with a Moscow patent performs work in Moscow Oblast and then works in Moscow, no new document is required for this reason. Likewise, a Moscow Oblast patent may be taken into account when an employee works in the capital.
At the same time, the basis for the simplification is not any relocation or any change of workplace, but the patent’s connection with one of the two named regions. The original clarification does not provide rules for other constituent entities of Russia, nor does it set out the specifics of individual work arrangements. If the situation goes beyond Moscow and Moscow Oblast, no conclusion can be drawn based on this clarification.
Tax: why the actual place of work matters for the HR process
Despite the patent’s unified validity, tax is paid using the payment details of the region where the foreign national actually performs work. Therefore, it is important for the employer to understand and record in its work processes where the employee’s actual place of work is located: in Moscow or Moscow Oblast.
This rule requires coordination between the HR function and those who have information about the employee’s actual work. The mere existence of a unified patent does not replace the determination of the region in which the work is performed. Other details of the tax procedure, including deadlines and the set of documents, are not specified in the original material.
Hiring notification remains a mandatory action
When hiring a foreign worker, the employer must submit a notification to the migration unit (подразделение по вопросам миграции), the authority responsible for migration matters. The deadline stated in the clarification is three working days. The unified validity of the patent in Moscow and Moscow Oblast does not eliminate this obligation.
The original material does not describe the consequences of failing to submit the notification, requirements for the method of submission, or the list of information it must contain. Therefore, a company should not infer from the new arrangement that migration formalities no longer apply. A practically safe approach is to designate the notification as a separate hiring step and verify the current procedure against official regulatory sources.
What to check
- Check whether the employee’s patent was issued in Moscow or Moscow Oblast.
- Match the actual place of work to the two regions: the rule applies only to Moscow and Moscow Oblast.
- Do not request a second patent or require reissuance solely because of a transfer or work in the other of these regions.
- Determine the payment details of the region where the employee actually performs work for tax payment.
- Submit the notification of hiring a foreign worker to the migration unit (подразделение по вопросам миграции) within three working days.
- Verify the applicable procedure against Federal Law of 23 May 2025 No. 121-FZ (Федеральным законом от 23 мая 2025 года № 121-ФЗ) and current information from authorized agencies.