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From January to May this year 3,100 legal entities with foreign ownership were registered in Russia, according to Rosstat figures cited by Izvestia.

By the newspaper's calculations, that is the highest total for the period in eight years. It was also the first time since 2023 that registrations of foreign companies exceeded liquidations — by 7 %.

In all, 63,000 organisations were registered in the first five months of the year and 108,000 were struck off. 

The companies coming to Russia are predominantly Chinese, according to experts surveyed by the newspaper. Andrei Glushkin, a managing partner at Main Division and a member of the general council of Delovaya Rossiya, the business lobby, put China's share of new registrations at about 58 %. Sergei Katyrin, head of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said companies with Chinese participation accounted for more than half. By February 2026 the number of active companies with Chinese owners had approached 15,000, said Vladimir Chernov, an analyst at Freedom Global, citing research based on Federal Tax Service registers.

Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia follow China by number of registrations, Katyrin said, with businesses from Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, India and South Korea also making a notable contribution.

Despite the rise in registrations, the foreign presence in Russia remains well below pre-pandemic levels, Glushkin noted. By April this year the number of companies with foreign participation had fallen by roughly a third compared with April 2022. What is happening now is more a redistribution of flows: the outflow of businesses from "unfriendly" jurisdictions has slowed, while partners from Asia and the Commonwealth of Independent States are entering the market more actively, he explained.

Chinese brands, according to Glushkin, are moving aggressively into ecommerce, retail and construction.

New foreign players are drawn to areas linked to import substitution and localisation, experts observe, among them industrial electronics, basic software, critical materials, packaging, polymers, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and dietary supplements. Investors are also looking at infrastructure, logistics, digital platforms for freight flows and agricultural processing. Other popular sectors include wholesale and online trade and the supply of cars, equipment, electronics, clothing, household goods and industrial components.

Izvestia cites examples of several firms registered in 2026: the South Korean noodle maker Nongshim has set up Nongshim Rus LLC in Moscow; China's Guangdong Enpack Packaging has created a metal-packaging entity; Yueguang Intelligent Technology has established a company for online trade, storage and delivery; and Huanqiu Soil Science and Technology one for fuel sales and peat extraction and processing. India's Shital Universal has opened a fruit-and-vegetable trading business in the Krasnodar region, and Turkey's Byuli Trade has set up two firms in fuel and maritime shipping. 

The rise in registrations means foreign business is completing its initial adaptation to the new operating conditions in Russia, Katyrin believes. Companies from "friendly" countries, he said, are moving from one-off deliveries through intermediaries to a full-fledged market presence. Another significant factor is the niches vacated by departing western players, with businesses increasingly going beyond imports to create joint ventures, assembly operations and distribution centres.

At the same time, Russian companies struggle to compete with suppliers from China and elsewhere without protective duties of 50–100 %, said Alexei Kurasov, head of corporate finance at Finam. Against a backdrop of a rising tax burden and a strengthening rouble, returns of 20–30 % attract foreign entrepreneurs, while for domestic business this becomes an incentive to register abroad and operate in the country through representative offices, he said.