For the second year in a row, Russians are returning more money from foreign banks than they are transferring abroad.
Based on the results of January-September 2026, the volume of funds received into the accounts of Russian citizens from foreign banks exceeded outgoing transfers by 17.5 billion rubles.
In 2025, the same figure was 345.5 billion rubles. This was the first year since the statistics began in 2018, when inflows of funds by citizens from abroad exceeded inflows.
The largest volume of transfers to foreign accounts was recorded in 2022 - more than 2 trillion rubles. In 2023, the figure dropped by 57%, to 869.5 billion, and in 2024 - by another 44.8%, to 479.9 billion rubles.
At the same time, a positive transfer balance does not necessarily indicate a massive closing of foreign accounts. Central bank data characterizes the movement of funds, not the change in total accounts or total balances in them.
Experts interviewed in the publication consider the change in flows as a result of the adaptation of citizens to the limits of international payments. Additional dynamics will depend on the availability of cross-border transfers and the conditions for providing services to funds abroad.