Individual investment account (IIS)

An IIS is an account held with a Russian intermediary to which the law assigns a special tax status. The trades, the securities and the trading rules inside it are the same as on an ordinary brokerage account: tickers, lot sizes and the settlement cycle do not change. The only difference is how tax on the result is calculated: in exchange for the tax breaks, the state requires the holder to keep the account for a long time and not to withdraw money from it. The IIS itself is neither an instrument nor a product, but a legal wrapper around ordinary trading.

How the regime works

The tax break is tied not to a security but to the account and to how long it has existed. There are several restrictions. The number of accounts that may be held at the same time is three accounts. The minimum holding period for an account opened in 2026 is 5 years; the period is counted from the date the agreement is signed, not from the date of the first purchase. If money is withdrawn earlier, the account is closed ahead of term, the tax breaks are cancelled, and the deductions already received are returned to the budget.

The tax breaks themselves fall into two mechanisms. The first is the deduction on contributions: the state refunds part of the personal income tax already withheld, calculated on the amount paid into the account over the year, within the annual limit of RUB 400,000. The second is the exemption of the financial result when the account is closed after the holding period has expired; the cap on exempt income is RUB 30m. Historically these mechanisms corresponded to different account types; in the current form, the third-type IIS, they are combined.

Example

Inside an IIS, the same security is bought at the same price as on an ordinary account; the only difference is how the result is taxed when the account is closed:

Where the IIS is misunderstood

The main misconception is to treat the IIS as the equivalent of a bank deposit. There is no deposit insurance here: a market loss remains a loss, while a separate compensation scheme applies if the intermediary goes bankrupt, capped at RUB 1.4m.

The second misconception is to read the deduction on contributions as income from the account. It is a refund of tax already paid on a salary or other income: without withheld personal income tax there is nothing to refund, and this amount has nothing to do with the result of the trades.

The third is to confuse the account's tax break with the long-term holding exemption: that exemption is tied to how long a specific security has been held on an ordinary account and works under its own rules, not as an extension of the IIS regime.