They hire with nonsense: outstaffing has become the main shadow scheme for legalizing migrants

Shadow outstaffing has become the main scheme for the illegal legalization of migrants in the Russian labor market, experts told Izvestia. Employment agencies that do not have the appropriate Rostrud license hire migrant workers by the tens of thousands, ostensibly to work for themselves, and then "transfer" them to other companies under special contracts. Their annual income can be 100 billion rubles. Outstaffing services are actively used by large developers, delivery services, and online retail. At the same time, some of the contracts, for example, of the PIK group of companies and Yandex, could have been concluded with unlicensed agencies, Izvestia found out. The correspondent of the publication was also able to easily negotiate the "employment" of five Tajik citizens, bypassing legal procedures. According to experts, the activities of "gray" personnel rental agencies also cause damage to the state in the form of non-payment of taxes.

Hiring staff legally and bypassing

Illegal employment agencies are active in the Russian labor market, providing personnel to businesses, including large ones, under service contracts. The volume of this shadow segment may exceed 100 billion rubles per year, Izvestia has established. Recently, it has been the "gray" outstaffing services that have become the main scheme that allows migrants to stay in Russia, bypassing many of the legal requirements for their employment.

The term "outstaffing" refers to the process when one company provides another with its staff to perform a certain task. This activity is not illegal, but it is strictly regulated by the Labor Code and the norms of Rostrud, which licenses private employment agencies. To obtain a license, a company must have an authorized capital of at least 1 million rubles, have no tax arrears, etc.

At the same time, illegal outstaffers are also widely represented on the market — those who do not have a license, i.e. who conduct illegal activities. Most of the time they work with migrants. The fact is that, due to the requirements of Russian law, a migrant worker must first obtain a patent, and then finally legalize within two months, that is, officially find a job. Otherwise — deportation. The Izvestia correspondent became convinced that the scheme was working by contacting two illegal CHAZ and easily agreeing on the conditions of "employment" through them for a team of migrant workers from Tajikistan.

People under the guise of services

Having studied several offers of outstaffing services, Izvestia drew attention to two suspicious companies. A typical sign of an illegal outstaffer is an authorized capital of less than 1 million rubles required for a license. In M.'s company it was 160 thousand rubles, in D.'s company it was 20 thousand. As expected, we did not find any mention of these companies in the Rostrud register of private employment agencies.

The Izvestia correspondent contacted each of these firms and said that his construction team was facing deportation due to the fact that they were not legally employed. The companies promptly responded to the request.

As it turned out during correspondence with managers, and from the commercial proposals sent, illegal outstaffers do conclude civil law contracts with migrants and even pay them a nominal salary. And then, as it were, they are "leased" to an interested party, concluding service contracts with it, which do not always reflect the true types of work.

— Guys in uniform come, see a migrant and ask for his documents. If a migrant is in Amin (an electronic system for registering migrants. — Ed.) and his contract with us is in the database of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, then that's it. If you have a question about your relationship with our company, show us the contract. There are no numbers in it and there is also an appendix indicating the address of the work and the types of work. That's all, too, — they revealed some of the subtleties of doing business in the outstaffing company M.

The "rent" of one migrant, according to the standard calculation received from the company M., would have cost us 15 108 rubles per month. Of these, 4,350 rubles were returned as official salaries to employees' cards. The rest is the minimum taxes and payment for outstaffer services – 5,800 rubles per person per month. Company D. agreed to legalize migrants at a rate of 16,627 rubles per month, of which she took 5,000 for herself.

Thus, officially, the migrant would receive 4-5 thousand rubles on the card. The real employer pays him everything else in an envelope, in fact, without transferring any taxes, insurance premiums, etc. to the budget.

— During inspections of government agencies, you simply show a contract for the provision of paid services with us, under which we provide you with services performed by certain people and you simply do not have the right to ask questions, they come to us, and we resolve the issue with them ourselves, since everything is fine with us, — the representative told us companies.

The business of fictitious employment of migrants demonstrates enviable stability, it is impossible to call one-day companies. For example, M. has been operating in the outstaffing market since 2022 and is showing steady revenue growth. If in the first year of operation it amounted to 8.5 million rubles, then in 2024 it has already exceeded 54 million rubles. They did not answer the question of how many migrants the company legalizes annually in this way. However, its website reports that its capacity is sufficient to "withdraw" up to 300 people per day. that is, about 9 thousand per month. And this is a fairly small player.

"There are no problems here now, everything can be done for money," Ilkhom N., a Tajik citizen who works as a general specialist in one of the farming co—ops near Moscow, tells Izvestia. — I paid 50,000 rubles to such a company, and I signed a three-month contract with it. Everything went fine — I received an INN, SNILS and sent a notification to the Ministry of Internal Affairs through the State Services.

According to him, the services of illegal recruitment agencies are not openly advertised, the principle of word of mouth within the diaspora works.

— The scheme that you described is one of the forms of tax evasion, because migrants' salaries are minimal according to their documents, completely different from those they receive in an envelope, — Dmitry Krasnov, chairman of the board of the Moscow Bar Association No. 1, told Izvestia. — There are already several criminal cases against the largest companies in Moscow. Five or six thousand people were registered, and then they were handed over to construction companies, cleaning companies, and so on.

According to him, the Federal Tax Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs are actively fighting such schemes. The goal is to remove such illegal employment agencies from the market in principle.

— Gray outstaffing is now almost the main form of legalization of labor migrants. But the fight against it is already underway at the state level: initiatives are passing through the State Duma that will require employers to bring migrants through special state delivery operators and immediately into fixed-term employment contracts, using the shift method and the "worked—gone" principle. If such initiatives are adopted, the activities of illegal CHAS will simply lose their meaning for their organizers," the expert concluded.

A very big player

In September 2025, a high-profile case of one of the leading players in the outstaffing market, Leader Consult LLC, took place in St. Petersburg. The company's addresses were searched. Top managers are suspected of organizing illegal migration. According to investigators, foreigners were employed by front companies controlled by the defendants in the criminal case. It is reported that the case involves eight episodes of illegal employment, however, the number of migrants employed through Leader Consult may number in the tens or even hundreds of thousands, experts believe.

This agency provided staff services, including to Yandex. The delivery services purchased transportation services from her, and the deliverymen, accordingly, were employed not at Yandex at all, but at an outstaffing agency. So on the website of the Yandex.Food service, Leader Consult is still listed among the partners. The company's partners also include the Samokat service, the largest retail chains and construction companies.

At the same time, as Izvestia found out, since 2020, the only company of the Leader Consult group that had state accreditation from a private employment agency (CHAZ), that is, it worked legally, was Leader Consult Personnel LLC. And this is not the organization that is listed as a partner of Yandex. Food.

It is also noteworthy that Leader Consulting Personnel LLC had its license revoked in February 2024, and the company was liquidated in the summer of 2025. Despite the revocation of the license, the company's revenue in 2024 amounted to 7 billion rubles.

In response to a request from Izvestia, Yandex did not directly explain whether they use the services of outstaffing firms, noting only that "Yandex delivery services do have a practice of connecting companies that specialize in providing delivery or order assembly services to the service."

"Couriers and other line performers have the status of self-employed or employed in the courier service or with a partner providing order assembly services. Partner organizations receive remuneration for each service rendered," Yandex said.

This practice is caused by the desire to maintain the availability of delivery services for users and maintain the number of performers ready to fulfill orders against the background of a shortage of couriers, Yandex added.

"Leader Consult LLC has not been a partner of Yandex services since 2023," the response to the request also said.

—The practice of substituting outstaffing with contracts and service agreements is widespread," a recruiting market expert who wished to remain anonymous tells Izvestia. — For example, in retail, these may be product labeling services. At the same time, an employee who is officially employed by an outstaffer is actually subordinate to the management of the retail chain and can perform a completely different job. Therefore, if you see that an outstaffer bakes pancakes, delivers pizza, sews overalls and knits fittings at the same time, this is not surprising.

A "stranger" at a construction site

Another major player in the staffing market is the Academy of Service company, which states on its website that it provides relevant services to such giants as the PIK Group of companies and several other developers, retail chains, telecom operators and a number of others.

The company, as indicated on its website, is ready to offer customers catering staff (cooks, waiters, bartenders), online trading (managers, cashiers, sellers), couriers, cleaners, gas station attendants, welders, carvers, warehouse staff, call center operators. However, this staff will not be "own" for the company at all: the company is ready to take over the staff of its client.

"Optimizing staff earnings service reduces personnel costs by 5-7 times," the company's website says.

Evgenia Gulina, the founder of the Academy of Service, actively advertised outstaffing services from her company in a column for Forbes in the summer of 2022. She mentioned that in the spring of the same year she helped the PIK group of companies to meet the needs for the formation of construction crews.

At the same time, back in February 2022, at the Academy of Service, that is, before the company, according to Gulina, provided PIK Group with personnel, Rostrud's license allowing such activities was revoked. It follows from the data from the register of accredited CHAS that M-5 LLC (a legal entity of this company) received a license on July 19, 2021 and lost it on February 2, 2022.

PIK did not respond to Izvestia's request for cooperation with the Academy of Service Group of Companies.

At the same time, as the publication found, the Academy of Service has been fined more than once for employing migrants who do not have a work permit or patent.

Since May 29, 2023, 10 such inspections have taken place (including the one mentioned above), and in nine cases the Ministry of Internal Affairs revealed violations related to the recruitment of migrants who do not have the right to work and the imposition of appropriate fines.

Meanwhile, on the website of the Academy of Service Group of Companies, the license number belonging to a completely different legal entity was indicated. This license is listed as valid in the Rostrud registry. Izvestia sought clarification from the Academy of Service Group of Companies, where they initially refused to discuss such details, but then nevertheless confirmed that this legal entity was related to the company. At the moment, the company actually offers two options for executing outstaffing contracts — with a legal entity with the appropriate license (the one that is in the registry), and "otherwise."

— Now most companies are being whitewashed, many are requesting white legal entities and requesting a license. Everyone understands perfectly well that if there are such requirements, then the cost of services will be many times more expensive than usual, without a license from a private employment agency. This needs to be understood, because there is a completely different design process and a different cost of services, different risks. Both PIK and large developers, in addition to working with sole proprietors, work with completely white companies in the "green" zone. Because they know that they will have some checks and inquiries on legal entities, on deductions to the tax service," the Academy of Service noted.

Izvestia sent a request to the Federal Tax Service, but no response had been received at the time of publication.

It's illegal.

In general, outstaffing of foreign personnel is actively promoted as a cost-saving tool for the employer. It is easier for a business to conclude a contract with an outstaffing agency for the performance of work, along with the services and the people who will provide them, than to employ an army of newcomers and be responsible for them. At the same time, there is no need to pay taxes for such personnel, as there is no need to pay salaries (this is officially handled by the agency), take out insurance, hire staff or sign civil law contracts (GPH).

— Today, about 1,500 organizations are actively involved in outstaffing, while the number of illegal companies remains quite large, on average it is 30-50% of all market participants, — a member of the Association of Personnel Development Experts "People" explained to Izvestia. Business. The Future" by Anastasia Grishaeva.

For businesses, the temptation to get cheap labor without registering an employment relationship is great: in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the fine for an employer for one violation per foreigner can reach up to 1 million rubles, and when using outstaffing services, there are simply no risks of being responsible for violations when registering migrants.

Izvestia sent a request to Rostrud asking about the number of legal and illegal CHAS in Russia, as well as the legality of the activities of such CHAS if they do not have a license. The agency clarified that at the time of the request, there were 1,208 accredited CHAS in the registry, but it has no data on the number of illegal ones. According to Articles 341.1-1 and 341.3 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, one company may send staff to another if the employer is affiliated with the host party or a party to a shareholder agreement, they informed.

— The activities of organizations providing labor to employees (personnel) who are not accredited by Rostrud or who do not meet the requirements of Articles 341.1-1 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation are illegal. Such organizations are brought to administrative responsibility," the agency told Izvestia.

State control authorities may well have fair questions about the activities of firms whose entire work is based on the accumulation of foreign personnel for the purpose of subsequently "renting out" people, says lawyer Musa Abdurakhmanov, senior partner at Shcheglov and Partners.

— In addition to migration, such a scheme violates the norms of labor and tax legislation. A contract between an employee and an employer must be concluded in order to perform real work. If its purpose is only to create the appearance of employment for the legalization of migrants, this invalidates the contract. If there is a contract, but there is no work, this is fiction. The employer also receives an unjustified tax benefit, namely, illegally reduces his taxes by writing off fictitious payments," the expert notes.

Cases of liquidation of illegal CHAZ in Russia occur regularly. So, in May 2024, the St. Petersburg police stopped the activities of one of the largest illegal CHAZ in the Northern capital, which legalized thousands of migrants in the Russian Federation.

"The criminal business was carried out by six people from among the managers and employees of a private employment agency, which had signed outstaffing agreements with 19 large manufacturing enterprises in the Northern Capital. When new labor was needed for production, the accomplices sought out foreigners in various ways for these purposes and helped them legalize on the territory of our country, but for the most part illegally," the agency said at the time.

In August 2025, an investigation into another large illegal CHAZ was completed in St. Petersburg: the founder of the employment agency and her subordinate were sent to the dock, who concluded outstaffing agreements with large manufacturing enterprises in the Northern capital with the intention of making money on the legalization of migrant workers sent there.

"When a new workforce was needed for production, the attacker or her ward posted recruitment announcements. For foreigners who responded to vacancies, they provided services for fictitious migration registration and obtaining a labor patent for a monetary reward in the amount of 20 thousand to 30 thousand rubles," the Interior Ministry said at the time.

Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Internal Affairs asking about the total number of illegal CHAS, whose activities were suppressed by law enforcement officers in Russia during the year.

"We do not have the information you are interested in," the Interior Ministry replied to the publication's request.

The volume of the illegal austaffing market is 100 billion rubles.

The volume of the outstaffing market in Russia is about 200 billion rubles, Sergey Mateshuk, commercial director of the Job Master company, told Izvestia.

— As for the illegal segment, which includes outstaffing companies without CHAZ accreditation, individual entrepreneurs, LLC companies with a simplified taxation system and companies providing the self-employed, then we can safely claim 50% of the total market volume, that is, more than 100 billion rubles, — he said.

According to Sergey Nuzhdin, a leading labor market expert and chairman of the Opora Russia Committee for the Development of the National Labor Market and Monitoring of Migration Processes, the problem of illegal hiring of migrants can be solved by depriving fictitious employment schemes of meaning.

— The system of administrative prosecution for non-compliance with migration legislation today has a critical flaw: it targets front companies, one—day firms, while the real violator, the primary customer of the work, evades responsibility. Responsibility should come not for the formal employer, but for the customer of works and services, who actually uses migrant labor. This is the only way to ensure the principle of the inevitability of punishment," Sergei Nuzhdin told Izvestia.

However, according to experts, underground outstaffers are far from the only and not the main tool for illegal employment of migrants. Employers themselves can often be behind the organization of schemes. On October 16 and 20, 2025, the activities of two criminal groups that provided labor to Moscow construction companies were suppressed in Moscow, while migrants were registered in one-day firms. As law enforcement sources told Izvestia, the criminal scheme was most likely organized by the construction companies themselves — two suspects work on the staff of one of the organizations where the foreigners were sent.