How to transfer money from Russia: what works as of August 2026
There is no longer a single simple way, but there is a legal route, and in the 2026 chat discussions it is always the same one: a direct SWIFT transfer (the international bank transfer system) in euros from your own account at a Russian bank that is not under European Union sanctions to your own account at a Portuguese bank. We have a separate guide on this, How to transfer money from Russia to Portugal, which covers the same route step by step, with documents, timings and an explanation of why transfers get sent back. Below is a short answer based on the chat archive, with dates and amounts. If you do not have a Portuguese account yet, start there: How to open an account at a Portuguese bank.
Here is what it looks like in practice. The transfer people mention most often in the chats is from Russia's OTP Bank to Caixa Geral de Depósitos, and the money usually arrives the same day. On 12 March 2026 one person sent a transfer between 10:00 and 11:00 Moscow time and the money was credited that evening; on 13 April the same person did it again, with an amount of up to €100,000, credited at around 16:00 Lisbon time. On 28 May a transfer made under a power of attorney took three working days: the limit was €100,000 per transfer, the fee was 3%, and it was sent with the OUR option (the sender pays all fees), so nothing was deducted along the way. On 24 August 2026 €50,000 arrived within three hours. The sending side has its own small print: you need to send before 12:00 Moscow time for the payment to go out the same day, amounts over 5 million roubles a month require a separate application to raise the limit, and keeping euros in the account costs money. The list of banks not under sanctions changes, so check it on the day of the transfer rather than relying on someone else's post from six months ago.
“The amount is small — 50k euros. Arrived in THREE hours. I didn't bring anything to Caixa in advance or warn them. OTP said that for a transfer to my own account in the EU they don't need any proof (but I attached the sale agreement and the extract anyway).”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkbanksdeportugal24.08.2026
What matters most is not the route but the paperwork showing where the money came from, and matching names. The sender and the recipient must be the same person: if someone else pays or the money goes through an intermediary service, the bank's compliance department (the bank's checks) may reject the transfer without looking into it. Almost all recent accounts involve money from selling a flat, and people attach the same documents to the transfer: the sale and purchase agreement with an apostille and an English translation, the handover certificate, and an extract from the EGRN (Russia's Unified State Register of Real Estate) showing the new owner. Some people's banks asked no questions at all, while others were asked for documents later. There is no safe threshold, although on 22 August 2026 someone in a chat offered a rough guide: checks usually kick in at €35,000–40,000, and by that point it is better to have your documents translated. What a Portuguese bank asks for, and in what form, is covered in the compliance step of the guide How to pay tax on cryptocurrency in Portugal: it is about withdrawing money from an exchange, but the bank's questions are the same.
“at OTP in Russia we gave them the original sale agreement and the extract from Rosreestr or whatever it's called, showing the new owner. we took scans of a regular English translation of the same documents, with a Russian translator's stamp, to Caixa ourselves in advance.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkbanksdeportugal24.08.2026
Where it usually goes wrong. It will not work through sanctioned banks — Sberbank, VTB, Alfa-Bank, T-Bank and Rosbank. Their assets are frozen, money that merely passes through one of them in transit counts as money held there, and as a European Union resident you are not allowed to send money through them. Workarounds via third countries were closing one after another in 2026: with Kazakhstan's BCC, the correspondent bank stopped processing SWIFT transfers in euros over the summer if the sender has Russian residency, and Freedom stated plainly that transfers are not available to citizens of Russia and Belarus. Transfers are also sent back on the Portuguese side: on 15 July 2026 one person wrote that a transfer from OTP had been returned by the Portuguese bank itself, precisely because the money came from Russia.
“this year BCC's correspondent bank stopped processing SWIFT in EUR when the sender has RU residency :( literally a month ago. before that it worked, and very well.”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkleft4portugal16.07.2026
A separate word on sanctions ceilings and cash. A Russian citizen without a residence card (residence permit) in a European Union country may not hold deposits of more than €100,000 at any one bank, and may not be provided with payment services or crypto-asset custody services; with an ordinary residence card, these bans do not apply. How this is worded in the 19th sanctions package, and what to do if the bank closes your account anyway, is covered in the guide What to do if your bank closes your account in Portugal. Bringing cash instead of making a transfer is a poor substitute: amounts from €10,000 must be declared at the European Union border, paying a large sum of cash into an account triggers checks in itself (in a chat on 13 August 2026 people said plainly that the account may be closed afterwards), and paying cash for anything costing more than €3,000 is simply prohibited in Portugal.
Finally, the Russian side: a transfer to Portugal does not cancel your obligations at home. If you remain a Russian currency or tax resident, you must notify the authorities that you have opened an account, file a report on the movement of funds and submit a tax return. These are three separate obligations, and there is a step about them in the guide What happens if you do not declare income in Portugal. What is not in the archive, and what we will not advise on, is how to hide the Russian origin of the money: that is exactly why transfers are sent back and accounts closed, and the money can get stuck at a correspondent bank for months. The approach that works is the opposite: ask both banks about the chain of correspondent banks in advance, gather translated documents and warn your account manager in Portugal before sending, not after.
“money from selling property in Russia can be received here by a direct transfer in euros from a Russian bank. But prepare for it in advance. Talk to the receiving bank and the sending one, find out the whole chain of correspondent banks. Provide all the translated documents: how the flat came into your ownership, the sale and purchase agreement, all financial transactions, request the SWIFT confirmation from the sending bank, etc. The worst outcome is the euros going back to your account in Russia”
Translated from Russian; the original is at the linkbanksdeportugal06.12.2025