Tracking distance: Ministry of Labor wants to cancel face-to-face business inspections

The Ministry of Labor wants to replace face-to-face business checks with digital ones. This will only apply to low—risk industries, such as trade or consulting. The Agency has developed a corresponding draft resolution. This should reduce the time and money costs of companies. However, there is a risk that going online will negatively affect workers' rights, as inspections will become less thorough. There is currently a moratorium on scheduled visits, but the president instructed to lift it and develop a risk-based approach. How the new system will work is described in the Izvestia article.

How the Ministry of Labor suggests checking businesses

In Russia, they want to cancel face-to-face inspections for certain categories of businesses. The Ministry of Labor has developed a draft resolution (Izvestia has it), where it proposed to allow them to be conducted online. This will not apply to enterprises whose activities carry a high risk. We are talking only about those that belong to significant, medium and moderate categories. For example, these are companies in the fields of trade, manufacturing, consulting, and so on.

Photo: RIA Novosti/Vladimir Song

The list of such categories is approved by Rostrud every year. The criteria by which the risk category is determined are not always public, but, as a rule, include an analysis of data on occupational injuries, compliance with labor laws, the nature of the activity and other factors.

Video conferencing or the Inspector mobile application will be allowed for online inspections, the Ministry of Labor document says. The new rules will apply to conducting a preventive, inspection visit, on-site inspection or on-site inspection.

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In the document, the Ministry of Labor also proposes to cancel scheduled inspections for companies from these categories. All these measures will help reduce the administrative burden on businesses, the explanatory documents say.

Checks on compliance with special working conditions (for example, working hours) and documentation (conclusion of employment contracts, dismissal orders) may most likely go online, said Alexey Khizhnyak, a member of the Moscow regional branch of Delovaya Rossiya.

Reporting is also being automated: based on the results of the audit, an act will be formed, and employers will be able to apply for a change in the company's risk category through Gosuslugi, Maxim Barashev, managing partner of BBNP law firm, drew attention.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Evgeny Pavlov

There is currently a moratorium on on-site inspections. However, in some cases they are allowed. During the moratorium period, Rostrud has the right to arrange unscheduled visits to high-risk facilities, hazardous production facilities, and hydraulic structures, said Elena Gladysheva, Managing Partner of RI-Consulting. For example, in 2025 Rostrud will check Uralchem, Mostpromstroy, Russneft and other companies.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed to abandon the temporary moratorium on business inspections from 2025 and completely switch to a risk-based approach.

Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Labor about how going online could affect the quality of inspections. The agency advised contacting Rostrud — no response had been received from him at the time of publication.

How on-site inspections affect business

The issue of business inspections is an important element of maintaining economic activity in the country, said Alexey Khizhnyak from Delovaya Rossiya. According to him, the online format will help to remove the administrative burden on the company.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Eduard Kornienko

— There is an expense both for the departure of inspectors and the provision of their jobs, and for the fact that employees are forced to be distracted from their direct duties, which leads to an increase in the costs of enterprises. The remote format partly carries the same risk—based approach, making it possible to ensure that the company operates within the framework of the norms established by law," said Alexey Khizhnyak.

As Izvestia previously reported, despite the current moratorium on inspections, business costs from them, mainly related to downtime, increased by a quarter to 44 billion rubles in 2023. There is no more recent data.

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Despite the tax benefits, companies are in no hurry to channel money into long-term development due to high rates.

On average, up to three people are distracted from the workflow to organize or participate in control events, said Sergey Elin, an expert at the Moscow branch of Opora Russia on financial and legal business security.

On the other hand, there is a risk that going online will negatively affect workers' rights, as inspections may become less thorough, and companies will be able to hide violations.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Anna Selina

In 2024, Russians submitted 220,000 applications to the labor inspectorate. Most often, they were related to payment and labor protection, as well as registration of relations with the employer. Salary arrears in Russia, as of the end of May 2025, amounted to 1.6 billion rubles, according to Rosstat materials. Compared to the previous month, it increased by 12.2%, and by 3.4 times compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.

Fines of up to 50 thousand rubles are provided for violations of labor legislation for companies, as well as administrative penalties and, in some cases, criminal liability, Yaroslav Kabakov, Director of Strategy at Finam investment company, recalled. According to him, the most common mistakes of employers are salary delays, non-compliance with the rules of dismissal, informal registration of employees and non-fulfillment of the terms of the employment contract.