The analyst noted the need to differentiate insurance premiums for SMEs

The State Duma is discussing an initiative to introduce a flexible insurance premium system for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). The idea is to use a differentiated approach instead of a single tariff, taking into account the industry specifics and the scale of the company's activities. Andrey Glushkin, a member of the Council of the MRO Delovaya Rossiya, told about this on August 25.

"This measure looks logical: small enterprises in labor-intensive and low-margin areas really bear a disproportionately high burden on the wage fund, which reduces their sustainability and competitiveness. The financial stability of SMEs largely depends on how much of the revenue is spent on mandatory payments. Today, the current reduced tariff of 15% applies only to salaries exceeding 1.5 minimum wage, and a 7.6% discount has been introduced for a number of manufacturing enterprises since 2025," the expert said.

As Glushkin noted, frequent calculations show that reducing the rate by even a few percent results in tangible savings: in an enterprise with ten employees, the difference can reach hundreds of thousands of rubles per year. The business is able to use these funds for development, salary increases or repayment of current cash gaps. In this sense, a differentiated contribution scale strengthens the resilience of those companies that are most vulnerable.

"But the financial effect for business is only one side of the issue. The second is related to the extent to which such a system is able to stimulate priority sectors of the economy. A lot depends on the logic of the distribution of benefits...> If a flexible system in Russia is based on clear rules — for example, according to salary level, region or share of labor costs — it will really become an instrument of industrial policy," Glushkin said.

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At the same time, the expert stressed that the benefits provided to individual industries can distort the competitive environment. Companies will seek to change the OKVED codes for the sake of tax advantages, which is already observed in a number of cases. The administration of such a system will also inevitably become more difficult: the more gradations of bids, the higher the likelihood of errors and disputes. In addition, a reduction in social fund revenues will require compensators from the budget, otherwise there is a threat of underfunding the pension and medical systems.

Glushkin noted that the introduction of differentiated insurance premiums can become an important tool for supporting SMEs and stimulating the development of priority industries, but only if there are transparent rules and predictable logic. If benefits are provided in a "manual way" and to a narrow range of industries, they will only increase the imbalance and create new distortions. But if the system is based on objective factors such as salary levels, labor intensity, and regional specifics, it can improve the competitive environment, strengthen the financial stability of small businesses, and really stimulate economic growth.

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Igor Rastorguev, a leading analyst at AMarkets, said that the introduction of a differentiated insurance premium system for SMEs can become a significant tool for supporting entrepreneurship if the approach to its implementation is carefully thought out. The key question is by what criteria the differentiation will take place. Different schemes are possible here: according to the income level of companies, according to the number of employees, according to belonging to priority sectors of the economy. It is the choice of these parameters that will determine how effective and fair the reform will be.

"From the point of view of financial stability of small and medium-sized businesses, such a measure can significantly reduce the burden on enterprises, especially at the stage of formation and growth. For companies with low margins or high seasonality, tariff reductions will free up working capital that can be used for development, staff expansion, or salary increases. In the long term, this will create additional incentives for businesses to go white, as mandatory payments will become more feasible," Rastorguev said.

The analyst stressed that the stimulating effect of the differentiated system will be manifested primarily in relation to priority industries. If the government focuses on reducing insurance premiums for high-tech companies, manufacturers with import-substituting products or enterprises engaged in the social sphere, this will accelerate their development and increase their competitiveness. Such a mechanism can be considered as an indirect form of government support embedded in the overall fiscal policy.

In January – May 2025, small and medium-sized businesses borrowed almost 6 trillion rubles, a quarter less than a year earlier. At the same time, the total debt increased by 9%, to 16 trillion, and overdue payments increased by 14%, to 766 billion. This was a record for at least four years (there are no statistics for an earlier period), calculated by Izvestia on August 7 according to the Central Bank.

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