The equalisation grant is the plainest transfer in Russia’s budget system: money the federal centre gives a region with no project attached, to bring its revenue per head closer to the national average. Poor regions live on it. Two provisions of the Budget Code protect what it is worth — one says the total must be indexed to forecast inflation, the other says a region’s grant may not be cut below the figure already approved for that year.

Bill No. 619-9, tabled with the 2027–2029 budget package and registered by the State Duma at 23:12 on 30 September, suspends both until 1 January 2028 and puts a different number in their place. We read the tabled text in this session; the official portal sozd.duma.gov.ru has been unreachable from our environment for six days, so the file comes from the legal database that publishes the tabled PDFs.

The two guarantees, suspended by name

Part 3 of article 34 is explicit about which words stop working. It suspends, until 1 January 2028, points 1¹ and 3 of article 58 of the Budget Code, and:

“paragraph one of point 2 (in the part concerning indexation of the total volume of grants for the equalisation of the budgetary provision of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, subject to approval for the next financial year, to the forecast level of inflation in the corresponding financial year) and paragraph three of point 3 of article 131 (in the part concerning the prohibition of a reduction in the size of the grant for the equalisation of the budgetary provision of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, approved for the next financial year, compared with the size of the grant … approved for the first year of the planning period in the federal budget for the current financial year and planning period)”

The same part suspends paragraph three of point 4 and point 7 of article 137, paragraph three of point 5 and point 7 of article 138, and point 3 of article 199 — the equivalents one tier down, which protect the non-reducible tax-sharing rates and equalisation grants that regions owe their municipalities.

So the suspension is symmetrical. The guarantee the centre owes the regions and the guarantee the regions owe their towns go together, in one sentence, for one year.

What replaces them

Part 21 of article 38 sets the new floor:

“21. To establish that, in forming the draft federal law on the federal budget for 2027 and the planning period 2028 and 2029, the size of the grant for the equalisation of the budgetary provision of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation to the budget of each constituent entity of the Russian Federation for 2027 may not be less than 90 per cent of the size of the grant for the equalisation of the budgetary provision of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation approved for 2027 by Federal Law No. 426-FZ of 28 November 2025 ‘On the federal budget for 2026 and the planning period 2027 and 2028’.”

Read against what it replaces, that is a gap of about thirteen and a half per cent. The suspended rule required the total to rise with forecast inflation; the budget package forecasts inflation of no more than 4.0% for 2027, which we read in article 1 of the budget bill itself. The new rule permits each region’s grant to fall to 0.90 of the approved figure. Against the indexed level the old guarantee implied, 0.90 ÷ 1.04 is 0.865 — a region can lawfully receive about 13.5% less in real terms than the suspended provisions would have required, and still be inside the law.

The floor is also per region, not in total, which is the sharper half of the change. The old non-reduction rule protected each region’s own figure. The new one does too, at 90% — so the permitted cut is not a pooled adjustment that leaves the weakest alone. Every recipient can be taken to the floor.

And one tier down

Part 20 of the same article requires regional authorities to set, for 2027, rates of personal income tax sharing to local budgets such that municipalities receive no less than 10% of the consolidated regional take from that tax. Part 22 goes the other way: when regions draw up their own 2028–2030 budgets, they are permitted to cut the equalisation grants they pay to city districts, municipal districts and municipal okrugs below what they had already approved for 2028 and 2029, allowing for the replacement of the grant, or part of it, by additional income tax sharing — and to cut the unified sharing rates themselves.

The pattern is the same at both tiers: a guaranteed sum becomes a floor or a swap, and the obligation to find the difference moves down a level. The federal budget keeps its claim on the money and passes the arithmetic to the region; the region passes it to the town.

Alongside this, the explanatory note (point 2.2) lists the conditions attached. The government gains the right to require a “programme for the recovery of state (municipal) finances” as a condition of a grant or a budget credit. And a region may not reduce, in its own budget schedule, its spending on public-sector wages, social support, or the compulsory medical insurance contributions it pays for its non-working population.

That last restriction is what makes the first one bite. If the transfer may fall by a tenth while wages, social payments and insurance contributions are fixed by law, the adjustment has to come out of whatever is left — capital spending, maintenance, roads — or out of borrowing.

What this means for the series we track

We measure the consolidated regional balance as a rolling twelve-month total. It stands at a deficit of 1.509 trillion roubles, scoring 31 of 100 against a pre-war anchor of a 0.661 trillion surplus in 2021 and a registered trouble line at a 2.5 trillion deficit. Our guide to regional budgets explains how the series is built and why regional gaps tend to end up on the federal budget anyway.

Nothing in this bill moves that reading, and this morning’s run moved none of the eight. The strength index is 46.4 of 100, in the stress zone.

What the bill changes is the floor under next year’s number. The regions are running a 1.5 trillion rouble deficit with the indexation guarantee in force; the guarantee is now proposed to lapse for the year in which that deficit has to be closed. The direction is not in doubt even though the size is unknown — the suspended provisions could only have raised the transfer, and the provision replacing them can only lower it.

What we do not know

The sums. The bill sets the floor as a percentage of the sum approved for 2027 by the 2026 budget law and names no rouble figure anywhere. The distribution of 2027 grants is in annex 27 to the budget bill, which is not published with the text we have.

Whether the total will actually fall, and by how much. A floor is a permission, not an instruction. How many recipients end up near 90%, and whether the total falls at all, are questions the distribution annex answers and we cannot.

What happens after 2028. The suspension runs to 1 January 2028 and the floor is written for 2027 alone. Nothing in the bill says what governs 2029 — except part 22, which already permits regions to cut municipal grants in 2028 and 2029.

Whether this becomes law. The package was registered on 30 September and has not had a first reading. Every figure here can be amended.