Shipping to Russia over the New Year holidays: documents, arrival windows and customs clearance

Our office hours over the New Year holidays

While Russia celebrates the New Year, our service keeps delivering cargo from anywhere in the world and keeps handling customs formalities. You do not need to hold your shipment back because of the calendar — but you do need to know which days are staffed in full and which are covered by a duty shift only.

Office schedule over the holidays:

29, 30 and 31 December — duty shift
1 and 2 January — days off
3 and 4 January — duty shift
6, 7 and 8 January — days off
from 9 January — normal working hours.

A duty shift means that shipments in progress are attended to and urgent questions are answered. It is not the right window for starting a new file from scratch, agreeing on a classification or waiting for a document that still has to be issued somewhere.

What the holidays change for your shipment

Nothing changes in the rules themselves: the same declaration, the same permits, the same duty and VAT calculation apply on 3 January as on any other day. What changes is the time buffer. Every step that involves a third party — a testing laboratory, a certification body, a bank confirming payment, a warehouse issuing a receipt — may fall on a non-working day, and a chain that normally takes two days can stretch across a week.

For an exporter that translates into two practical decisions. First, dispatch documents to the Russian side ahead of the cargo, not together with it: scans of the invoice, packing list, contract, transport documents and any certificates should be with your buyer's broker before the holidays begin, so that the customs declaration can be prepared while the truck or container is still en route. Second, if your goods require conformity assessment in Russia, treat certification as the long pole: it is the step most likely to stall over the holiday period, and cargo cannot be released without it.

Road consignments from Asia and Europe are the most sensitive here, because their arrival date is the hardest to predict — a groupage truck can gain or lose two or three days on the route and land exactly in the middle of the non-working days.

What your Russian buyer will need from you earlier

Your buyer is not being difficult when they ask for the paperwork weeks in advance. They are protecting the release date. Anything the importer cannot produce themselves has to come from you, and over the holidays there is no second attempt within the same week.

• Commercial invoice and packing list with figures that match each other and the contract — quantity, weight, currency, terms of delivery.
• Contract and payment documents in the version the bank has actually seen.
• Transport documents issued to the correct consignee.
• Technical description of the goods: composition, purpose, materials, model designations. This is what the HS code rests on, and a vague description is the most common reason for questions at the border.
• Manufacturer's documents needed for conformity assessment, plus any test reports, safety data sheets or drawings you already hold.

A document that is merely late is a nuisance; a document that has to be re-issued during the holidays is a stopped shipment. Send scans of the full set before 29 December, so that any discrepancy is found while both sides still have working days to correct it.

Arrival windows and what to do in each

Look at the date your cargo is expected at the Russian border and pick the row that matches it.

If you can influence the departure date, the two comfortable options are an arrival before the last week of December or one from 9 January onwards. If you cannot, the answer is not to delay the cargo but to make sure the documents are closed well before it arrives.

What the shipper should do

1. Fix the expected arrival date at the Russian border and check it against the table above.
2. Send the full set of scans to your buyer and their broker before 29 December — invoice, packing list, contract, transport documents, certificates and technical descriptions.
3. Confirm the goods description and the intended HS code with the broker in advance; classification disputes are the slowest thing to resolve on a duty shift.
4. Check whether your goods need conformity assessment in Russia and start it now, not after shipment.
5. Make sure the originals travel with the cargo and match the scans exactly, down to signatures and stamps.
6. Agree with your buyer on one contact person who stays reachable during the holidays on both sides.
7. If the cargo would land on 1–2 or 6–8 January, discuss storage or a rescheduled slot before it leaves your warehouse.

Frequently asked questions

Can our cargo be cleared during the New Year holidays at all?
Yes. Delivery and customs formalities continue over the whole period; the duty shift on 29–31 December and 3–4 January handles shipments that are already prepared. What is unrealistic is starting from zero on those days.

Should we simply hold the shipment until January?
Only if the arrival would fall on a non-working day and storage at the border is expensive or unavailable. A shipment with complete documents is usually better off arriving early than waiting.

Who is responsible if a certificate is missing?
Commercially that is settled by your contract, but practically the manufacturer's documents can only come from you. If they are not in place, the cargo waits at the border regardless of who is at fault.

Whom do we contact if something goes wrong on 2 or 7 January?
Write to the manager handling your buyer's shipment. Messages sent on days off are picked up by the next duty shift, so include everything needed to act — shipment reference, documents and the question itself.

Summary

Over the New Year period the office works on a duty shift on 29–31 December and 3–4 January, is closed on 1–2 and 6–8 January, and returns to normal hours from 9 January. Deliveries and customs formalities do not stop, but the margin for correcting mistakes almost disappears. Plan the arrival date deliberately and get the full document set to the Russian side before the holidays begin. Send us a request and we will go through your specific shipment.

We can clear your buyer's cargo during the holiday period and check the permit documents for your goods in advance.

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