Prohibited and Restricted Items When Sending to Russia

offers all the support you need to ship to Russia, but there are still some goods that just won’t be allowed into the country.

Before you plan a delivery to Russia it should be noted that before you even consider what you’re sending, Russian authorities have imposed legislations around who you can send to.

You can read more about this in our guide to sending to Russia, but the main point to note is that, as of 2016 there was a ‘temporary’ ban in place on private individuals sending non-document shipments to other private individuals in Russia. In other words, you are not allowed to send a parcel containing anything other than paperwork from your home in the UK to someone else’s home in Russia. As such, no end date for this ban has been announced.

For other services, it depends on which courier you use as to who you can send to, so we strongly advise that you contact our expert UK-based customer services team before you book your shipment.

Once you’re sure that you can send, it’s time to check that the contents of your parcel pass muster. First stop should be ’s list of prohibited items, which none of our couriers will carry to any destination.

Russia also has a list of items which it will not allow to be shipped into the country. You can see the official list here.

Many of the items prohibited by Russia, such as radioactive materials, drugs and human organs, are not the sort of thing that would make their way into the average parcel. However, there are some prohibitions that are not so easy to avoid.

For a country with a history of celebrated literature, and possibly less-celebrated propaganda, it’s where these two fields meet that you could find yourself in trouble when importing. Any printed, or audiovisual material, which Russian Customs deem to contain “information that could be prejudicial to the political and economic interests of Russia, to public safety, or to the health and morality of its citizens” is strictly prohibited. This is a broad definition, so try to avoid anything that is in anyway critical of Russia or its government.

Russia may have played a key role in the Second World War, but it seems there are some parts it would rather forget; anything which contains ideas or symbols relating to Nazism, or which could even be confused with Nazi ideology, is strictly banned from import into Russia.

If you are still unsure as to whether your shipment is allowed into Russia, then you can contact the Russian Customs Authority: