On 19 September the official portal published order No. 2563-r, signed the day before: 157,020,768 thousand roubles — 157.0 bn — from the government's reserve fund to Minfin, to be passed to DOM.RF as compensation to banks for income they forgo on subsidised mortgages. The largest of its three lines, 85,278,889 thousand roubles or 54.3%, services loans issued at up to 8 per cent a year — which, in the government's own words, is the programme called “Lgotnaya ipoteka”, closed to new loans on 1 July 2024. More than half of this money buys nothing new. It pays the running cost of a scheme that ended two years ago.

What the order says

The order is two pages, a scan without a text layer; we read it. Point 1 allocates to Minfin in 2026, from the government's reserve fund, three budget lines — each a subsidy to the public joint-stock company DOM.RF “in the form of a contribution to property that does not increase its charter capital”. The first:

“…in the amount of up to 85278889 thousand roubles for the provision to the public joint-stock company DOM.RF of a subsidy in the form of a contribution to property not increasing its charter capital, for the purposes of compensating credit and other organisations for income not received on housing (mortgage) credits (loans) issued to citizens of the Russian Federation at a rate of up to 8 per cent per annum…”

with a target of “improvement of housing conditions of not less than 1130 thousand families” for the period up to and including 2026. The second line gives up to 65,961,700 thousand roubles for loans to citizens with children, target not less than 720 thousand families; the third, up to 5,780,179 thousand roubles, for loans to buy or build housing in the Far Eastern federal district and the land territories of the Arctic zone, target not less than 162 thousand families. The three sum to exactly 157,020,768 thousand. Point 2 obliges Minfin to monitor the use of the money and report to the government by 1 February 2027.

Every figure is a ceiling — the order says “up to” three times — and the order names no programmes. The names come from the government's release: the up-to-8-per-cent line is “Lgotnaya ipoteka”, the children's line is “Semeynaya ipoteka”, extended to 2030, and the third is the Far Eastern and Arctic mortgage.

More than half services a scheme that ended in 2024

The government's release says it plainly:

“A further approximately 6 bn roubles is provided to ensure the implementation of the ‘Far Eastern and Arctic mortgage’, and around 85 bn roubles — for subsidising the interest rate on previously issued loans under the ‘Lgotnaya ipoteka’ programme, which ended on 1 July 2024.”

A closed programme cannot issue a loan, so the 85.3 bn is not stimulus; it is debt service on a policy. What the order compensates is, in its own words, “income not received” by banks on loans capped at 8 per cent, and how much income a bank fails to receive on an 8 per cent loan depends on where market rates stand. They stand high: the CBR held its key rate at 14.00% on 11 September. The rate the central bank keeps high against the inflation of war spending comes back to the budget as a mortgage bill — the second face of the expensive money we measured on the borrowing side, where the budget books bonds at face value and receives less cash. A high key rate costs this budget twice: through OFZ coupons and through subsidised loan books.

The stock behind the bill is large, on the ministry's own figures. Minfin's announcement says that under “Lgotnaya ipoteka”, between 2020 and 2024, about 1.6 mn loans were issued for 6.2 trn roubles; that “Semeynaya ipoteka” has issued almost 11 trn since 2018; and that the 2026 budget law provides more than 1.2 trn roubles for the three programmes. Those are the ministry's numbers, not ours — we did not verify them against loan-level data, and we cite them as its own description of the stock it is servicing.

Two days from announcement to published act

Minfin announced the 157 bn on 17 September at 18:00, with no act published behind it. The act followed: signed on 18 September, published on 19 September — two days from the announced sum to the document that carries it. Both releases call the money additional — “will allocate a further 157 bn” — on top of whatever the budget law already provides; the reserve fund is by definition the pocket for spending settled during the year, outside the approved distribution. Whether the 157 bn will be drawn in full is a different question: the sums are ceilings, and the answer is due in Minfin's report by 1 February 2027.

The same fund's other order that day

The mortgage order was not the reserve fund's only appearance on the portal that day, and the other one is worth a paragraph precisely because its net sum is zero. Order No. 2572-r of 19 September amends February's order No. 178-r, which gave the Kursk region 195,052.5 thousand roubles from the same reserve fund to compensate rent for people who, in the order’s words, were forced to leave homes in settlements “subjected to shelling by armed formations of Ukraine” — 4,515 families, June to December 2025, with the federal budget covering 99 per cent. The new order changes exactly three numbers: the families become 4,737 (+222, or +4.9%), the August–October tranche grows from 89,913 to 94,328.6 thousand, and the November–December tranche shrinks from 64,517.2 to 60,101.6 thousand. The total does not move by a rouble: 4,415.6 thousand is shifted between tranches. Per family over the seven covered months, the same envelope now works out at 41.2 thousand roubles instead of 43.2.

That is the reserve fund's other mode, in miniature. When 222 more eligible families were found, no money was added — the envelope was closed, and reality was fitted inside it by redistribution. The period being compensated ended in December 2025; the allocation came in February 2026; the list of families was still being corrected in September. And it passed silently: the government site's news feed for those days carries no item on it — we read the feed; the mortgage order got a release, the Kursk one did not.

What this changes in our model

The 157.0 bn is a 2026 expenditure outside the initial plan, paid from the reserve fund, and its direction for the budget deficit is worse. The indicator scores 65 out of 100, with the rolling twelve-month deficit at 3.3 per cent of GDP — 7,501 bn roubles through August. Against that, the order's ceiling is 2.1%: visible money, not decisive money. The Kursk amendment moves nothing in regional budgets — its sum is unchanged and was booked in February. The strength index stands at 47.3 out of 100, in the stress zone, and no indicator moved in today's data update. The live state of all eight is on the monitor.

What we do not know

How much 2026 has already spent on mortgage-rate subsidies. The order does not say, the releases say only “a further”, and we found no running total in any document we read. Figures circulating in the press for cumulative programme cost rest on statements we could not verify against a primary source, so we print none of them.

Whether the ceilings will be reached. All three sums are “up to”. The fact is due in Minfin's report by 1 February 2027.

What the contribution-to-property form means for DOM.RF's other shareholders. The order's wording — a contribution that does not increase charter capital, to a public joint-stock company — is all we have; the company's current shareholder structure and what a budget contribution does for holders of its shares are not established by these documents.

Why 222 more families. The Kursk amendment gives no reason — later identification, verification of the list, a changed settlement register are all consistent with it.

Whether the rent compensation continues into 2026. Order 178-r covers June to December 2025. We found no analogous act for 2026 among the documents citing 178-r, and we did not run an exhaustive search.