Freelancers and Businesses May Separate Through Platforms If Client Engagement Exceeds 160 Hours Monthly

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The Russian Ministry of Economic Development has drafted a government decree that introduces technical restrictions on the collaboration between freelancers and corporate clients through digital platforms, reports Forbes, citing the draft document. The new regulation envisions an automatic blocking mechanism when the collaboration starts to resemble full-time employment.

Under the proposed criteria, restrictions will be applied if a freelancer works with the same client for more than six consecutive months and completes orders for more than 160 hours per month, effectively reaching the level of full-time employment. In such cases, the platform will be required to stop showing the client to the freelancer and vice versa, making further collaboration technically impossible.

However, the block will be temporary – lasting for two calendar months, after which the client and freelancer can resume working together. During the block period, the freelancer will still be able to collaborate with other companies, including through the same platform.

The restrictions are intended to apply in sectors where the risk of misclassifying employment relationships is particularly high. These include retail and wholesale trade, construction, logistics and warehousing, transportation and courier services, catering, IT, education and healthcare, agriculture, as well as cleaning and building maintenance.

The draft decree is linked to the law on platform economy, adopted in 2025 and set to come into force on October 1, 2026. The law allows flexible forms of employment but provides protection against situations where companies effectively convert employees to freelancers while maintaining full control over their work.

In the Ministry of Economic Development, they stress that the goal of the proposed measures is not to restrict side jobs but to prevent abuse of the tax regime. Freelancers pay 6% on income from legal entities, whereas in the case of formal employment, the company is obliged to pay income tax and insurance contributions. According to experts, the use of freelancers instead of regular employees is one of the main problems of the platform market.

Representatives of industry associations generally support the proposed criteria, seeing them as a compromise solution. At the same time, experts warn of the risk of erroneous blocks: in some cases, freelancers may work with one client for a long time for objective reasons – due to narrow specialization, long-term projects, or high qualifications.