Roughly 18% of respondents report receiving such requests regularly. Of those offered cash payments, one-third were promised discounts or other incentives.
Cash requests are most common at small neighborhood stores (46%), markets and fairs (45%), and in the private services sector—from tutors to plumbers (21%). Beauty salons and auto services see cash requests in roughly 15–17% of cases, while housing rentals and children’s clubs report the fewest at 8%.
Residents of the North Caucasus Federal District (67%), Moscow, and St. Petersburg (59%) are most frequently asked to pay in cash.
Analysts link this “renaissance” of cash to businesses moving into the shadow economy amid rising VAT, adjustments to insurance premiums, and a lowered VAT threshold for enterprises using the simplified tax system.
The survey found that 27% of Russians have been asked to pay in cash more often over the past six months, even though only 14% of urban residents typically use cash. Among low-income groups, cash use rises to 27%, and among affluent respondents, 24%.
The IPS suggests worsening economic conditions and gradual tax increases are pushing both poorer and wealthier Russians toward informal, cash-based transactions.
Data from the Bank of Russia show growing demand for cash: in January 2026, clients withdrew more than 1.6 trillion rubles ($19.2 billion) from accounts, a record since March 2022, while only 468 billion rubles ($5.6 billion) returned to term deposits. This left a net cash outflow from the banking system of approximately 1.1 trillion rubles (aout $13.2 billion).