According to Forbes, last week the head of the Ministry of Digital Development, Maksut Shadaev, held closed meetings with the largest telecom operators and digital platforms. The main topic was the introduction of fees for using VPN through the tariffication of international traffic beyond a set limit. Sources confirm: the directive was to release new tariffs within the next few weeks, and VPN charges could take effect as early as May 1, 2026. We already reported that operators would charge you for international traffic when the initiative first appeared. Now it’s time to calculate the specific amounts.
Get your wallets ready if you actively use VPN
Fees for Using VPN in Russia
The initiative is straightforward: telecom operators set a limit on internet traffic from a spoofed IP of another country and charge an additional fee for exceeding it. The logic here is that VPN traffic is inherently international in nature: data goes to foreign servers and then returns to the user. Operators can easily see this: technically, VPN consumes traffic with a distinctive signature that modern network equipment readily recognizes.
R-Vision CEO Alexander Bondarenko explains: identifying such traffic through operator routing tools is not difficult, as all the capabilities are already in place. Theoretically, VPN developers could try to disguise traffic as regular traffic, but this is significantly more complex and requires special methods.
Operators will easily identify VPN traffic
In addition to private users, companies will also be affected. Russian businesses with foreign offices use corporate VPN to protect data when exchanging information between offices. Such traffic is substantial, and the introduction of fees will create significant additional costs for enterprises. The effective date of the new rules is May 1, 2026. Fines for advertising VPN already exist, and now a financial burden on the users themselves is being added.
Free VPN Traffic in Russia
The proposed limit is 15 GB of international traffic per month. That’s how much can be used for free without incurring the VPN tax. At first glance, it seems like a lot: the standard data package from most operators includes only 5 GB total. But in reality, 15 GB is used up faster than it seems.
Regular text-based messaging, browsing news, and web surfing fit within the limit without any issues. But as soon as streaming video is turned on, the picture changes. One hour of watching YouTube in 1080p quality consumes about 3 GB. Five hours a week — that’s already 60 GB per month. Free VPN in the usual sense ceases to exist under this scenario. After all, traffic beyond 15 GB will be tariffed separately.
Cost of Using VPN
For each gigabyte of international traffic beyond the limit, the planned charge is about 150 rubles. This is the price of VPN in terms of per unit of consumed traffic, and it’s quite substantial. For comparison: the average cost of a VPN service with unlimited traffic from commercial providers is 300-500 rubles per month. Now, on top of that amount, there’s the payment for the traffic itself exceeding the operator’s allowance.
Now you’ll have to pay the operator for VPN too
The monthly VPN price thus consists of two components: the subscription fee to the telecom operator plus the tariff for exceeding the limit. Internet effectively ceases to be a service with a fixed price — the final bill now depends on the user’s activity. A free VPN for Android doesn’t help here: the charge is not for the VPN app itself, but for the volume of traffic passing through it. Below we calculate specific amounts for two scenarios.
How Much VPN Will Cost in Russia
Minimum scenario — a moderate user: messengers, occasional YouTube viewing in medium quality. International traffic consumption — about 18 GB per month, exceeding the limit by 3 GB. Extra charge for traffic: 450 rubles. Total expenses above the regular tariff:
- extra charge for exceeding the limit: 450 rubles;
- paid VPN service: 300-500 rubles;
- monthly total: about 800-950 rubles above the regular tariff.
The annual VPN price in this scenario is roughly 10-12 thousand rubles. It seems tolerable — but only with moderate usage.
Maximum scenario — an active user: working with foreign cloud services, high-resolution video, downloading large files. Traffic consumption reaches 100-150 GB per month, exceeding the limit by 135 GB. Expenses above the regular tariff:
- extra charge for exceeding the limit: 20,250 rubles;
- paid VPN service: 300-500 rubles;
- monthly total: up to 21,250 rubles above the regular tariff.
VPN consumes traffic in this scenario at a rate incomparable to what users are accustomed to considering normal. And paying for it will be substantial. The monthly VPN cost including all components can reach an amount comparable to utility bills. The total budget impact including traffic and the service itself looks like this:
- minimum burden per user — from 1,250 rubles per month, about 15 thousand per year;
- maximum burden per user — up to 22,250 rubles per month, about 267 thousand per year;
- for a family of two, minimum annual losses — about 30 thousand rubles;
- for a family of two, maximum annual losses — over half a million rubles.
These figures are not fantasy but a direct consequence of the 150 rubles per GB VPN tariff. Internet with a fixed price ceases to exist under these conditions. But it’s important to understand that for now this only applies to mobile connections. Wi-Fi is not yet subject to the new “tax.”
