The number of Central Asians going to Russia for employment has fallen considerably, largely due to tighter migration regulations and higher prices that are reshaping labour flows across the region.
New data reveals a sharp reduction in work-related arrivals from the region, which is slowly eroding Russia’s status as the top destination for Central Asian migrant workers.
Roughly 1.9 million citizens of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan came to Russia for work in the first half of 2026, a decrease of about 15% from the more than 2.3 million who arrived a year earlier, according to data from the Russian border agency reviewed by the business daily Vedomosti.
All three nations, which are Russia’s main sources of foreign labour, recorded declines of more than 10 per cent.
Uzbek citizens produced little more than 1.1 million work-related entries, down 13.2% on the year. Arrivals from Tajikistan plunged 17.9% to 494,500, and arrivals from Kyrgyzstan dropped 16.7% to 289,100, the newspaper added.
Recently, Russia has become less attractive to migrant workers, experts who spoke to Vedomosti said, due to harsher enforcement, higher work permit fees and higher living expenses.
«The economics of labour migration are changing as well,» Alexander Safonov, a professor at Russia’s Financial University, told the newspaper.
Russian and Chinese enterprises are investing and creating opportunities in the local labour market in Central Asia, Safonov said, adding that migrant workers are increasingly looking outside Russia to countries such as South Korea, China, the Gulf states and members of the European Union.
Russia remained top remittance sender
Even as migration declines, Russia remains the hub of the Central Asian remittance economy. In the first quarter of 2026, remittance inflows reached $3.8 billion, up 13% year-on-year, according to the Central Bank of Uzbekistan.
The greatest source of remittances continued to be Russia with 72.4% of such transactions, although its share has come down from 77.6% last year.
The change is due to both rising costs of working in Russia and a gradual diversification of migration destinations, the Central Bank says. The influx of workers from Kazakhstan, South Korea and European countries continued to grow, indicating that Uzbek workers are gradually relocating to a wider range of labour markets.
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