Shipping to Russia over the New Year break: send the documents before the calendar stops
If a container, a truck or an air consignment of yours is due in Russia at the turn of the year, the paperwork has to be finished before the calendar stops. From 31 December to 8 January the Russian side works at reduced capacity: several of those days are non-working, and only three of them are partial working days. Cargo can still arrive, but every question that needs a person on the Russian end — a missing certificate, a mismatch between the invoice and the packing list, a query on the HS code — will simply wait for the next working day. For you as the shipper this is not a customs rule to comply with, it is a scheduling problem: documents that would normally be fixed in a couple of hours can cost you a week of standing time.
Why the Russian New Year break concerns the sender, not only the buyer
Exporters usually treat the receiving country's holidays as their customer's problem. With Russia that assumption is expensive, because the break is long and it falls exactly on the period when goods shipped in November and December start arriving.
The mechanics are simple. Transport keeps moving — vessels berth, trucks reach the crossing, aircraft land. What pauses is the office work around the cargo: confirming a classification, obtaining a missing document, answering a question about the description in the invoice. If your consignment arrives with a complete and consistent set of documents, the pause costs you little. If anything is missing or contradictory, the correction cannot be made until the working days resume, and the goods sit where they stopped.
The practical consequence is that the deadline for you is not the arrival date. It is the last working day before the break, because that is the last moment when a problem in your documents can still be solved quickly.
Working days between 31 December and 9 January
Below is our office schedule for the period, with what each block of days means for a consignment that is already on its way.
| Dates | Our office | What it means for your shipment |
|---|---|---|
| 31 December | Non-working day | Last chance to react is the working day before; anything sent on 31 December is read afterwards |
| 1–3 January | Non-working days | Cargo may arrive, but document questions are not resolved until 4 January |
| 4–6 January | Working days, limited hours | Urgent matters are handled; expect longer response times and no same-day miracles |
| 7–8 January | Non-working days | Second pause — a problem left open on 6 January waits until 9 January |
| From 9 January | Normal working hours | Full processing resumes; the backlog of the break is cleared first |
Read the table as a shipping calendar rather than an office notice: the three partial days in the middle are the only window inside the break where something can still be corrected.
Cargo arriving in Russia during the New Year break waits for paperwork, not for transport
What your Russian buyer will ask for earlier than usual
Nothing new appears on the document list because of the holidays — but the moment when your buyer needs it moves forward. Expect requests for the full commercial set well before the goods leave: the contract and specification, the commercial invoice and packing list, the transport document, the origin document, and the technical information needed to confirm the classification and any permits.
The last item is the one that most often surprises suppliers. Product descriptions written for a catalogue rarely contain what is needed to defend an HS code or to establish whether the goods fall under mandatory conformity assessment. Composition, material, capacity, voltage, intended use, model numbers — send them proactively. If your goods need conformity documents for the Russian and EAEU market, that work belongs to certification and cannot be improvised while the offices are closed.
The border does not care that it is a holiday, but the people who fix documents are not at their desks. A single mismatch between your invoice and your packing list, discovered on 2 January, keeps the cargo standing until the working days resume.
The same logic applies to the delivery leg itself. Whether the consignment moves by road, by sea, by rail or by air, the transport documents have to match the commercial ones exactly — the same quantities, the same weights, the same goods description. Our customs clearance team checks that consistency before arrival, which is the cheapest moment to find an error. For consolidated road shipments the check matters even more, since one incorrect line in a groupage truck delivery holds up more than your own boxes.
What to do as the shipper
- Look at your shipping schedule and mark every consignment whose estimated arrival falls between 31 December and 9 January.
- For each of them, send the complete document set to your buyer before the last working day of December, not on the day of departure.
- Check the three documents against each other line by line: invoice, packing list, transport document. Quantities, net and gross weights, packages and goods descriptions must match.
- Add the technical description of the goods — composition, materials, parameters, model numbers — so the classification and any permit requirements can be confirmed in advance.
- Confirm which conformity documents your goods require for the Russian market and make sure they are issued before the break, not during it.
- Agree with your buyer who is reachable on 4, 5 and 6 January, and keep a person on your own side available on those dates too.
- If a shipment is not yet loaded and its arrival would land in the middle of the break, consider whether departing a few days earlier or later is cheaper than storage.
Frequently asked questions
Can I send documents during the non-working days?
Yes, by e-mail as usual. They will be read on the next working day — 4 January for the first block, 9 January for the second. Sending them early does not speed up the answer, but it does mean nothing is queued behind you.
Are 4, 5 and 6 January useful days or not?
They are working days with limited hours. Urgent matters are dealt with, but plan for slower replies and do not schedule anything on those dates that has no tolerance for a day's delay.
My goods arrive on 2 January. Is that a problem?
Only if something in the documents needs correcting. A consignment with a complete, consistent set simply waits for processing; a consignment with a gap waits for a person to close it.
When does everything return to normal?
From 9 January the office works to its usual hours. Bear in mind that the shipments held over the break are processed first, so the earlier your paperwork was complete, the earlier your cargo moves.
Summary
From 31 December to 8 January the Russian side works at reduced capacity, with only 4, 5 and 6 January as partial working days, and full hours resume on 9 January. Transport keeps moving through the break, but document problems do not get solved during it. Send your buyer the complete, mutually consistent document set before the last working day of December, and confirm classification and conformity requirements in advance. Request a consultation and we will go through your specific shipment.
Send us your shipping documents before the break and we will pre-check the HS code and permits so your cargo clears as soon as it lands.
Read also:
- Shipping to Russia over the 2026 New Year break: clearance windows and the documents your buyer will ask for early
- Choosing a Customs Broker in Russia: What It Means for Your Shipment
- No phytosanitary certificate for marked wood packaging, no PepMV requirement for tomatoes: what changes for shipments to the EAEU
- iCustoms launches a blog on vc.ru: the customs questions your Russian buyer will ask you next
