In the wealthiest region of the Ural Federal District, migrants were banned from working in courier delivery.

      In the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug—Yugra (KhMAO-Yugra), from January 1, 2026, the list of types of economic activity in which employers will be prohibited from hiring migrants will be expanded to 27, the head of the region, Ruslan Kukharuk, said during a press conference, Kommersant Ural reports.

      From January 1, 2026, foreigners in KhMAO-Yugra will be banned from working in courier services, as well as in sectors traditionally occupied by the indigenous population (wild plant gathering, fishing, reindeer herding). The authorities also increased the amount of the advance payment for issuing work patents to foreigners by 30%.

      Kukharuk explained that the measures are intended to protect the local labor market and are linked to the growth in the number of migrants in the region, Kommersant Ural reports.

      “For many years foreigners came to the region by the thousands in order to find a place of employment, but if you look at the analytics, many were not pursuing that goal. They were not workers, or they worked briefly, then disappeared from the view of the authorities, and later ended up in completely different reports, often criminal ones, rather than in reports of labor achievements,” the governor said.

      Earlier, in December 2024, Ruslan Kukharuk expanded the list of activities prohibited for hiring foreigners from 8 to 22. The restrictions affected healthcare, energy, water purification and distribution, personal services and care, and the provision of financial services.

      In February of this year, Yekaterinburg media reported that foreigners had begun to flock to Sverdlovsk Oblast from regions where restrictions on their employment had been introduced.