Russia Introduced New Requirements For Hosting Providers

Beginning on 1 February 2024, hosting providers operating in Russia must obtain state registration. The recent amendments aim to strengthen state supervision over the hosting services. These rules may affect international IT businesses engaging Russian hosting providers.

Which hosting services are regulated?

According to art.2(18) of the Russian Federal Law On Information, Information Technologies, and Information Protection dated 27 July 2006 No. 149-ФЗ, as amended (the IT Law), the hosting provider is an entity that provides processing power for hosting data in an information system that is constantly connected to the Internet. Russian law does not define the term processing power. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as "the ability of a computer to process information (= perform a particular series of operations on the information, such as a set of calculations), or the speed at which it can do this".