Delhi time: how is the labor migration of Indian citizens to Russia organized?
In the first half of 2025, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 23.6 thousand Indian citizens received work permits in Russia. In total, since the beginning of 2021, Indians have received more than 87 thousand such permits. Izvestia investigated why they actively travel to Russia and what attracts Russian employers to Indian employees.
How many Indians work in Russia
If, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 23.6 thousand work permits were issued to Indian citizens in the first half of 2025, then just four years ago there were significantly fewer of them. Then, in the first half of 2021, the number of workers from India was rather a statistical error: only 1.8 thousand permits. The increase in the number of work permits issued can indeed be called exponential: even in the first half of 2024, there were only 12.7 thousand of them. For the whole of 2024, it has already been 36 thousand.
In part, these data correlate with the number of work permits issued to foreign citizens in general: in the first half of 2025, there were more than 113,000, while in the first half of 2021, there were only 35,000. However, while the total number of permits issued has tripled, the number of Indians receiving such documents has increased 13-fold.
Since then, only the first position in the ranking for obtaining work permits has remained unchanged.: Chinese citizens consistently find themselves there. In the first half of 2025, they received more than 48,000 permits. But India claimed the second place only in the first half of 2024. Before that, citizens of Vietnam and Turkey were in second place.
According to Olga Kulikova, Business Ambassador of Delovaya Rossiya in India, the trend of increasing labor migration from India will increase in the coming years. According to her, the flow of Indian migrants may double compared to last year, and in 2026 the growth will continue, partially offsetting the restriction of labor migration from other countries.
Foreigners in Russia receive a work permit for up to one year according to the standard procedure and for up to three years if we are talking about highly qualified specialists.
Izvestia has requested information about the number of Indian citizens currently in Russia from the Russian Interior Ministry and the Indian Embassy.
In turn, Ivan Berdinsky, director of the Adviros Legal Support and Control Department, notes that the number of Indian citizens in Russia is estimated at 70 thousand people. This is already a lot, but so far the figure cannot compare with the millions of migrants from Central Asian countries, he says.
Will there be even more Indian citizens in Russia
Dmitry Strunkin, the founder and head of the RosMigrant project, believes that in Russia, in principle, there is a tendency for migration flows to change.
— If earlier labor migrants from neighboring visa-free countries like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan prevailed, now the focus is shifting towards migrants from visa-free countries, in particular from India. And this flow will grow steadily," the Izvestia interlocutor is confident.
According to Dmitry Strunkin, there are a number of obvious advantages when working with "visa-free" migrant workers: these employees arrive directly to a specific employer working within the established quota.
— They don't run between employers, they don't bring their families or children with them. From this point of view, we, as a state, are much more interested in such labor migrants," he believes.
Sergei Nuzhdin, Chairman of the Opora Russia Committee for the development of the national labor market and monitoring of migration processes, is also confident that the trend is "sustainable" and will intensify in the medium term.
"It is caused by objective macroeconomic factors: a shortage of Russia's own workforce in certain professional niches and an excess of highly qualified youth in India," Sergei Nuzhdin told Izvestia. — This is a direct consequence of the reorientation of Russia's foreign economic relations and the globalization of the labor market.
Vladimir Volokh, Professor of the Department of Public Administration and Political Technologies at the State University of Management, notes that given the shortage of labor resources, Russia will simply have to invite migrant workers in the coming decades.
How Indians get to Russia
Obviously, the need to obtain a visa is also the main obstacle to inviting workers from India, notes Ivan Berdinsky.
— There are two alternative procedures for obtaining a work visa. The first option is relatively simple to design and is intended for highly qualified specialists with a salary of at least 250 thousand rubles per month. There are such specialists from India in the Russian Federation, but rather, these are isolated cases of expat managers in the representative offices of Indian companies in the Russian Federation or individual IT specialists," the source tells Izvestia.
The second option is to involve citizens through a standard procedure. It consists of three stages.
First, the employing company coordinates its application at the regional employment center. At the same time, the employment center must confirm that it is impossible to find local Russian employees for the proposed job.
Then a permit is issued to attract foreign labor — a specific employer must be allowed to attract a certain number of foreigners in specific specialties.
The third stage is the registration of individual personal work permits and work visas for foreign citizens. These permits also indicate the position of the person and the region of work in Russia.
In addition, the Government sets a limit on the number of such "visa" migrants every year. The Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation informed Izvestia that in 2025 the quota for Indian citizens is about 72 thousand work permits. The total quota for foreign workers is 234.9 thousand people. If the region is experiencing an additional shortage of skilled labor, it may request to increase its quota for foreign citizens. Such requests are considered in a separate order.
According to Ivan Berdinsky, the mechanism for obtaining a work visa is bureaucratic and in practice takes several months, so employers attract specialized agencies to hire foreigners.
Olga Kulikova notes that specialized recruitment agencies operate in both Russia and India.
"These agencies take over the full cycle of work with candidates: from the selection and professional training to the completion of all necessary documents for employment," she told Izvestia. — They can accompany applicants at all stages, including language training, integration with employers, as well as visa processing, work permits and registration in Russian companies. In addition, there are operating companies in large regions and cities that specialize in forming mobile teams or promptly closing personnel requests from enterprises.
Sergey Nuzhdin points out that such agencies work closely with large Russian companies experiencing a shortage of personnel. The regions in this situation play a more conciliatory role, approving quotas. However, they are also interested in solving the problem of personnel shortages, so they are already developing special support programs and simplifying bureaucratic procedures when inviting visa migrants, said Nadezhda Kapustina, professor at the Department of Economic Security and Risk Management at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.
According to her, the multi-channel system for attracting specialists from India includes both specialized recruitment agencies and direct corporate initiatives. A special role is played by IT companies and engineering firms that actively use international platforms to find talent and create their own adaptation programs for foreign employees.
Where Indians work
According to Dmitry Strunkin, usually visa foreigners from India are attracted for specific large-scale projects through agencies. The arrival of single employees remains an extremely rare event: the trend to go to Russia to work in India has not really taken shape yet, so the initiative always comes from the employer.
According to the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation, this year employers most often indicated the need to attract seamstresses, installers and operators of automated warehouses from India. And the greatest need for workers from this country was stated by the Moscow, Amur and Leningrad regions.
According to Olga Kulikova, Indian citizens in Russia are mainly employed in construction (they work as welders, electricians, concrete workers and other workers on construction sites), industry (metallurgy and mechanical engineering), agriculture. Also, many people come to the fields of logistics and warehousing: These are movers, drivers, employees of distribution centers and retail companies. For example, X5 Group and Ozon are recruiting employees from India.
However, there are also highly qualified specialists: doctors, IT specialists, and educational staff. Experts point to the high level of training of Indian personnel, especially in the IT segment, knowledge of English, the ability to adapt quickly and high motivation for professional development.
And Olga Kulikova notes the high working capacity and modest wage expectations of Indian migrants.
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