Opening a bank account in Russia
Channel: RosCo | Consulting & audit
Date: 2020-03-18

What is the procedure for foreign non-resident legal entities to open bank accounts and bank deposits in foreign currency and the currency of the Russian Federation? 

Following the law, non-residents in Russia are entitled to open bank accounts in foreign currency and rubles only with authorized banks. Authorized banks are those banks that have the appropriate license. For example, Sberbank, VTB24, UniCredit Bank, etc.

NB!
Non-resident foreigners have the right to transfer foreign currency and rubles from bank accounts outside of Russia to their accounts with the authorized banks and vice versa without restrictions. Nevertheless, at the same time, you should always provide the bank with documents confirming the basis of the transfer. Otherwise, your transfer will not pass the currency control, and the account may be blocked.

What does a foreign legal entity need to do to open a current account with a Russian bank?
Most often, foreign companies need to make payments in Russia. However, the opening of business companies, branches, and representative offices is undesirable for them since this implies non-variable expenditure. 

May such a company open a bank account without establishing a company or branch?
Yes, it is possible. The first step for a foreign company should be to register with the tax authority, which will assign a TIN and issue a certificate of registration.

How to register a foreign company with a tax authority? 
In the process of registration, including in connection with the opening of bank accounts in Russia, a foreign organization is assigned a TIN and a certificate of registration is issued.

Registration of a foreign organization with a tax authority in connection with opening bank accounts in Russia is carried out on the basis of the following documents:
- application of a foreign organization for registration with a tax authority;
- document confirming the legal status of a foreign organization (for example, an extract from the trade register);
- a document of tax authority of the country of origin of a foreign organization confirming its taxpayer status in that country with an indication of a tax payer code 
- The constituent documents of a foreign company (Articles of Association) – notarized copies apostilled or those that pass consular legalization.

The date of registration with a tax authority of a foreign organization is the date that the data on its registering with the tax authority is entered into the Tax Roll.
Keep in mind!
In the event that a foreign organization opens a new account or deposit with the same or any other bank (bank branch) in Russia, re-registration with the tax authorities is not required.
However, in practice, some Banks put forward a requirement for a foreign organization, according to which it needs to be registered namely with that tax office with which the Bank itself or its territorial division is registered. When re-registering with another tax office, the TIN will remain the same, only a new code of registration reason will be added.

Following the laws of Russia, the registration of a foreign organization only in connection with the opening of a bank account does not imply that such an organization carries out entrepreneurial activities in Russia.
A foreign company should address the tax office at the location of the bank but we will talk about this in detail in our next video.

For registration, a foreign company should address the tax office at the location of the Bank. Upon receiving a certificate of registration, a foreign company should address the Bank at its sole discretion.

We will tell you in detail how to interact with the bank to open an account in our next video!
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