On 26.12.2024, Federal Law No. 479-FZ was signed, which provides for the obligation for advertising distributors and advertising system operators who distribute advertising in the Internet, aimed at attracting the attention of advertising consumers located in the territory of the Russian Federation, mandatory contributions to the federal budget in the amount of 3% of the amount of income received during the quarter from the sale of services for the distribution of advertising on the ‘Internet’. Quarters are counted from the beginning of the calendar year.
It is important to note that in order to implement the innovation, the Government of the Russian Federation defines criteria for classifying information distributed on certain information resources in the network ‘Internet’ as advertising, which will make it possible to define the approach and criteria for distinguishing between advertising and information on the ‘Internet’ at the level of the Government.
Roskomnadzor will control the calculation of compulsory deductions and monitor the completeness and timeliness of payment of deductions on the basis of information provided in the Unified Register of Internet Advertising.
A number of entities are exempted from mandatory contributions. Thus, no deductions are levied for the distribution of advertising:
On sites in the information and telecommunications network ‘Internet’, the owners of which are:
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broadcasters of TV channels and (or) radio channels;
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news agencies;
On sites of mass media in the information and telecommunications network ‘Internet’ registered in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation as network publications, whose editorial offices and (or) founders meet one of the following criteria:
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are founded by state or municipal bodies and organisations or have a share of the Russian Federation, a constituent entity of the Russian Federation or a municipality in their charter capital;
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have received budgetary allocations from the federal budget, the budget of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation or a local budget for their functioning (including in the form of subsidies) during the year;
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operate as an editorial office, and (or) publisher, and (or) founder of a periodical printed publication if the aggregate circulation of products published during the year was between 300,000 and 15 million copies of periodical printed publications with the corresponding periodicity of publication.
On all-Russian compulsory publicly accessible television channels and television channels which have obtained the right to carry out terrestrial digital terrestrial broadcasting throughout the territory of the Russian Federation, when they are distributed using the relevant information resources.
The relevant provision comes into force on 1 April 2025.