Russia has not imposed a direct ban on SMS verification services, but it is squeezing the生存 space of SIM card subletting and online number-receiving services from both the supply chain and message delivery ends through criminal legislation and anti-spam SMS regulations, leaving most verification service providers on the market unable to offer Russian number resources.
Article 274.4 of the "Criminal Code of the Russian Federation" officially entered into force on September 1, 2025, criminalizing the act of subletting SIM cards to third parties for profit. Individuals face a maximum fine of 300,000 rubles or up to two years of imprisonment, while entities face a maximum fine of 700,000 rubles and responsible persons face up to three years of imprisonment. Deterred by this provision, original SIM card suppliers have ceased their operations one after another, leaving number-receiving platforms without legitimate number supplies. Coupled with the anti-spam SMS regulation that took effect on August 1, operators have been granted broad authority to block automated A2P messages. Verification codes, two-factor authentication notifications and spam SMS have all been subject to large-scale traffic throttling and interception. Even if SIM cards can be obtained, verification messages can hardly be delivered stably.
Under the combined effect of dual regulation, Russia's online SMS number-receiving industry has basically shut down, and service providers have been forced to remove Russian number-related businesses. The regulator has not directly ordered number-receiving platforms to cease operations; instead, it has cracked down on upstream SIM circulation through criminal liability and intercepted messages on the network side, indirectly achieving market clearance.
From the perspective of A2P business, the overall automated SMS environment in Russia continues to tighten. In addition to users actively rejecting mass messages, operators will also proactively block various types of automatically sent messages. Enterprises that carry out verification code and transaction notification services locally need to fully assess the risk of delivery failure and plan multi-channel backup solutions.
