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Russia submits bill to move funded pension savings into long-term savings accounts
The Finance Ministry says the proposed conversion would start on April 1, 2027, while insurance pensions and already-awarded funded pension payments would retain their existing rules.
Russia's government has submitted a bill to convert accumulated funded pension savings into the country's long-term savings program, known by its Russian abbreviation PDS. The Finance Ministry announced the submission on November 6 and identified April 1, 2027 as the proposed start date.
The measure remains a legislative proposal. The ministry's announcement does not mean that pension balances have already moved or that the proposed commencement date is an enacted entitlement. Its significance is the planned change in the structure through which an existing pool of retirement savings would be managed and paid out.
The proposal concerns funded savings
In its official announcement, the ministry says the bill would not change the insurance pension administered by the Social Fund of Russia. The recording of pension points and qualifying employment history would remain as it is. Funded pensions that have already been awarded would continue to be paid on their existing terms.
Those distinctions limit the scope of the headline. Accumulated funded savings are not the same as the insurance-pension rights used to calculate the main public retirement payment. Moving one component into PDS should not be described as transferring every Russian pension into a private investment account.
The site's guide to Russia's pension system explains the broader separation between insurance rights, funded assets and voluntary saving. The new bill concerns the proposed treatment of the funded assets, rather than a replacement of that entire system.
Two routes for managing the accounts
For savings currently held through the Social Fund, the ministry describes an authorized non-state pension fund with mandatory state participation. VEB.RF, the state development corporation, would continue managing those pension savings under the conservative investment principles currently used in the Social Fund arrangement.
For people whose funded savings are already with a non-state pension fund, PDS accounts would be opened at their existing fund and the assets transferred there. The ministry presents this as a change in the organizational arrangement, with state oversight retained.
The distinction between account provider and investment manager matters. Calling the proposed recipient a non-state pension fund does not establish that government involvement ends. Equally, continued state involvement is not evidence that every investment will earn a particular return.
Payment options and guarantees are separate provisions
The ministry says the proposed arrangement would offer payments in specified difficult circumstances, including loss of a breadwinner and illnesses requiring expensive treatment. It also describes inheritance rights, more flexible payment choices and government co-financing of up to 36,000 rubles annually for ten years.
The co-financing figure is a ceiling, not a promise that every person whose savings are converted would automatically receive that amount. Individual access would depend on the applicable conditions. The announcement does not provide a personalized payment calculation.
For personal contributions and accumulated investment income, the ministry describes protection up to 2.8 million rubles. Converted pension savings and government co-financing, including investment income, would be covered in full. These are separate categories in the proposal, so the 2.8 million-ruble limit should not be applied indiscriminately to all transferred assets.
Maternity-capital funds previously directed into a funded pension would also move into PDS under the proposal. During a transition period, people would be able to return those funds to maternity capital or redirect them to other legally permitted uses, the ministry says.
A larger program, with legislation still to follow
The ministry reports roughly 15 million PDS contracts with a combined volume exceeding 1.2 trillion rubles. The program began in January 2024. Contracts are not necessarily distinct individuals, and that reported program total is not the amount the new bill would transfer.
The next material question is the legislation's final wording and commencement provisions. For now, the announcement establishes the government's proposed conversion route and its stated safeguards. It does not establish that conversion has occurred, supply the total assets affected by the bill, or change current pension payments on its own.
