Putin signs law amending Tax Code to facilitate fuel supply to Russia
MOSCOW. July 6 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law amending the Tax Code in order to facilitate the supply of gasoline to Russia's domestic fuel market.
The document has been published on the official legal information portal.
The amendments comprise two key innovations - an excise tax mechanism for automobile gasoline produced through mixing straight-run gasoline with other components. This mixing process, aimed at producing 92-octane gasoline and above, is to be considered equal to production. Companies certified to process crude oil will be granted a deduction from the excise on sales of straight-run gasoline, or the proportion of it which is used to produce automobile gasoline through mixing. The excise on these transactions is to be paid no later than the 28th of the third month after the tax period ends.
As a source has told Interfax, the extension of the tax payment deadline to three months is designed to facilitate the application of the aforementioned deduction. The mechanism will be available to companies which process crude oil and which are provided with the corresponding degree of state support in the form of the damper.
The amendments also involve adjusting the damper mechanism for organizations authorized to sell automobile gasoline produced by foreign organizations on the domestic market.
For gasoline produced in a Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) member state and imported by an authorized organization, the damper coefficient is at 0.9 as of June 1, 2026. For gasoline produced outside of the EAEU, the damper is to be calculated according to a separate procedure based on the import parity price, which in turn is calculated based on the indicative price of automobile gasoline on the Indian market and the cost of transporting it from India's seaports. This indicator is determined by the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS).
The new provisions enter into force from the date of the law's official publication and cover legal relations arising as of June 1, 2026.
The amendments also provide oil refineries who have signed agreements for modernizing capacities with an additional opportunity to meet the investment condition. In order to retain tax benefits, refineries were required to commission new equipment costing at least 60 billion rubles between July 1, 2014 and January 1, 2026. They now have until December 31, 2026 to commission the equipment, but it should have a minimum cost of 100 billion rubles.
The amendments also relate to the application of the coefficient by which the sum of state support in the excise for refineries is lowered in 2026-2027. The size of the coefficient depends on whether the refinery uses a sufficient share of the crude oil processed for producing high-octane automobile gasoline - if the share is not sufficient, state support is cut. The coefficient has been set at 0.85 in 2026 and 0.33 in 2027. The coefficient values themselves do not change, but checks on whether refineries are meeting the condition will henceforth be carried out for each monthly tax period rather than for each year.
