Foreign SIM in Russia: how to remove the 24-hour internet and SMS lock

Travel to Russia
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@kozmikpetukh Am I in EBS already if they were taken at the border? I’ve already done that.

Probably not. The data you submitted at the border might have been submitted to the EBS system, but I don’t think it is sufficient for Gosuslugi registration. For one thing, the biometric data is different. At the airport they take your photo and fingerprints, while the EBS takes photos and collects a voice recording. This can be done through any bank.

@kozmikpetukh Does the passport need to be translated/notarized within Russia?

It needs to be done by a notary who is officially accredited in Russia, which usually means physically within Russia. I think the only acceptable alternative might be to use the notary service at a Russian Consulate. The standard and probably cheapest way to do this is through a translation agency in Russia that has an attached notary.

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@Jabod I got as far as receiving the verification email from Gosuslugi but then there was no way to open the link that they had sent because no Gosuslugi site will open in my country (the UK). This is true in general for Russian government websites. I have never quite understood who is blocking these sites.

I looked into this. Apparenty, it is the Russian government itself that is blocking access to most of its websites from outside Russia (or maybe from “unfriendly states”?). This is intended to prevent cyberattacks.

Until recently, one could get round this restriction by using a VPN with a server in Russia, but this doesn’t work anymore. That is probably because the Russian internet regulator has recently launched an aggressive crackdown on VPNs.

@Jabod What’s more, you have to pay a monthly subscription for a Yandex account while a mail.ru one is absolutely free.

Apparently, it is still possible to get a free Yandex account, though by no means easy to find the right webpage (Google “Yandex email” etc and you are taken to subscription options.) Either way, I have found it impossible to progress: the SMS messages required for verification didn’t arrive, and when I tried to verify through email instead, I repeatedly got an error message. In contrast, a mail.ru email was easy to set up.

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@Jabod This seems hard to get done during the first 24 hours, if I have to wait til I get there to even make the translated/notarized passport. Guess I’ll have to prepare to be offline for a while.

I’ll see where I can get with the T-bank app though.

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@kozmikpetukh You can email a scan of the passport pages to the translation bureau before you travel and then pick up the notarized translation on the day of your arrival. This is what I am planning to do in a few days’ time.

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@Jabod You can email a scan of the passport pages to the translation bureau before you travel and then pick up the notarized translation on the day of your arrival. This is what I am planning to do in a few days’ time.

So, I have submitted the translation request today and the transalation will be ready for me to pick up on my first day in Moscow next week.

I think most of these translation agencies promise a one-day turnaround so you should be fine as long as you get in touch a few days before you arrive. My translation plus notarization cost 1500 roubles, which seems like a good deal.

One WORD OF WARNING. I submitted my initial request by email (Outlook), but got no reply. So I then resubmitted the request through a form on their website, and this time included my Telegram address as well as my email. The translation bureau then wrote to my Telegram address, saying they had been unable to contact me by email.

So I am discovering that my Outlook email is pretty much useless for correspondence with Russia. It is vital to set up an email address that will work in Russia.

And it is also very useful to have a Telegram address. This was the method the agency eventually used to get in touch with me and confirm the order. In general, it is a default communication method for many Russian businesses. So a good job that I recently set up a Telegram account..

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@Jabod My translation plus notarization cost 1500 roubles

About 20 bucks, reasonable. Payable on pickup?

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@kozmikpetukh I paid for mine in advance, which I think is typical. So the challenge for someone not yet in Russia is either to find ways of funding a Russian bank card prior to travel, or else to find a translation agency that accepts international payments (i.e. they have created a foreign bank account for this purpose, like those agencies that provide visa invitations).

As far as option 1 is concerned, personally I used a virtual YooMoney card which I had funded from an old Russian bank account, but Irena’s guide to setting up a YooMoney card includes a description of how she was able to fund hers from outside Russia. https://russiable.com/get-russian-bank-card/

Option 2 is simpler: find a Russian translation agency that accepts international payment methods. There are certainly some, e.g. this one (note that although it is called SPB translations it says it has an office in Moscow - though it doesn’t say where). https://spbtranslations.com/documents/passport

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@Jabod it says it has an office in Moscow - though it doesn’t say where

that’s what I’m a bit concerned about - I watch Russian news regularly and they usually have a story about con artists.

Thanks for the tip on getting a MIR card

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@kozmikpetukh that’s what I’m a bit concerned about - I watch Russian news regularly and they usually have a story about con artists.

i made a thread last year after I registered on Gosuslugi, documenting the notarized translation process first. You deal with a translation service. The person I communicated with, answered my information request telling among other things that a scanned copy would be emailed
I arranged for the document to be send to a pick-up location of a main courier service (SDEK) at the first city from the border I was crossing through (it was at the time Kaliningrad from Gdansk).
When i picked it, sender’s address was a person name company, “individual entrepreneur”. ie self-employed registered entity ie. freelancer,
The website of the service has indeed no physical address and is probably one of several website anchors in different languages, for several freelancers. There may be or not be a brick and mortar office for pick-up, or just meeting in town.
(SNILS + Gosuslugi profile + EBS (biometric registration). For SIM, bank, etc. )

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Posting from Stambul. This trip was far glitchier than any so far.

I got the text on arrival from MTS (through holafly) about the 24 hour block on my esim. But it was never lifted. Holafly customer service confirmed it was connected and active - obviously, or I wouldn’t have got texts from MTS.

I went to an MTS office and was told that they wouldn’t unblock it without id verification ie gosuslugi. No gosuslugi, no service, period. So I spent the whole trip offline, except unencrypted hotel WiFi, which couldn’t access a lot of sites including this one.

I don’t know if this would always happen, but it did to me. Holafly said they would refund my money, but going forward I have to assume I may have little to no Internet access.

I did contact tbank, but they said Id need a phone # to open an account.

Government run WiFi does generally require not only phone # but sometimes removing anonymity features like mac address randomization.

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For what it is worth, my experience when I visited Russia a couple of weeks ago was as follows:

At Vnukovo airport, I got a text message from MTS on my regular UK number telling me what I had to do to lift the 24-hour block. This involved phoning a Russian phone number. The only way for me to phone this number was using my UK SIM card, so it involved roaming charges. Although the call lasted only 6 seconds (it is an automated system), the call cost me £1 (the minimum charge per call while roaming). But it did mean that the 24-hour block was lifted.

This did not help me much at that stage, however. It was a Catch-22 situation where I still did not have any internet access, because I could not buy a roaming package from my phone company without internet access, and I had no mobile internet until I had bought a roaming package. (Yes, if I had anticipated this, I could have bought the roaming package while online at Istanbul airport, just before the flight to Moscow).

Note that the Wifi at both Vnukovo and on the metro does require a Russian phone number. This is extremely common for the Wifi networks in Moscow and one reason why a Russian phone number is highly desirable. Almost all public Wifi networks require you to phone a number to register. Even where they allow you to do this with a foreign phone number (for example, I think this is the case at Vkusno i tochka, the replacement for McDonalds) this will wind up costing you a lot of money if, like me, your home phone company charges you a significant amount for every short call.

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I solved the immediate problem of internet access by going to the Starlite Diner – one of the few places in Moscow that provides Wifi without needing a phone call to register. Once online in the Starlite Diner I bought a one-day roaming package from my home phone company. (Only for one day, because my plan was to acquire a Russian phone number as quickly as possible).

Registration for Gosuslugi was a complicated process that took me a day and a half. One complication was the fact that the initial data submitted to Gosuslugi by my bank contained an error in my name (I think they had entered my second name as a patronymic, which is not correct). So I had to go through the whole process twice (including visiting an MFC office and submitting biometric data at the bank)!

I began the process (after picking up the Russian translation of my passport, which I had ordered in advance) by going to an MFC office. Although I already had a SNILS number, this number had been issued to me many years ago, at a time when I had a different passport. Because the SNILS number was not linked to my present passport details, the Gosuslugi system reported a data mismatch when I entered the number (I discovered this problem when logging into Gosuslugi at the Starlite Diner. I already had a basic Gosuslugi account, because my bank had submitted preliminary data to Gosuslugi at my request.)

So the only way to link my old SNILS number with my present passport in the Gosuslugi system was by going to an MFC office. Most foreign visitors, of course, will not have an existing SNILS, so they will also need the MFC to provide this for them.

After going to the MFC I then went to a bank (a nearby branch of VTB) to provide my biometric data. This is the way it works now (the MFC tell you to go to a bank). The biometric data involves having your photo taken and reading out a list of Russian numbers (0-9) in various orders.

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The whole process was also complicated by the fact that without any Russian phone number, I had no way of receiving the SMS messages from Gosuslugi. And until you have been able to verify your (Russian) phone number in response to one of these text messages, there is no way to “fully verify” your Gosuslugi account. CATCH-22!!! But there is in fact a little-known solution to this puzzle that I was not aware of before I visited Russia. In fact, I only discovered it by chance.

The solution is this: YOU DO NOT ACTUALLY REQUIRE A FULLY-VERIFIED GOSUSLUGI ACCOUNT TO ACQUIRE A RUSSIAN PHONE NUMBER. In the phone store (Megafon, as it happens), the guy gave me a FREE SIM card, including a Russian phone number. This was a promotional SIM card, which the operators provide even when you do not sign up to a tariff plan.

The key point is this: until you have a fully-verified Gosuslugi account, you cannot use the SIM card for anything except receiving messages from Gosuslugi. Nevertheless, even before the phone company activates your account for other purposes, THE SIM CARD IS GOOD FOR RECEIVING SMS MESSAGES FROM GOSUSLUGI!!!

Once I had completed Gosuslugi verification, I then went back to the phone shop to pay for a proper tariff plan using the same SIM card (I chose a pay-as-you-go tariff, called “Perekhodi na nul” at Megafon, as I do not need a monthly subscription).

It took me until the middle of my second day before my new Russian SIM was working for regular calls and internet access, but I could probably have completed everything in one day if it hadn’t been for the name error in the data originally submitted to Gosuslugi by my bank (requiring me to do everything twice over!)

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@Jabod Vnukovo airport, I got a text message from MTS on my regular UK number telling me what I had to do to lift the 24-hour block.

How?

If I could have got a text on my western # I would have been able to make a tbank account. Then they could have helped.

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@kozmikpetukh

The text message was one of those standard “Welcome to Russia” type messages you get when you enter a new country. In my case, this message included instructions on how to unlock the 24-hour block. Antoniob in the first post of this thread also describes receiving such a message on crossing the border. But in my case, the system for unlocking the 24-hour block was different: it involved phoning a Russian number, so my home phone company charged me for the international call.

These messages land on one’s phone when you arrive in Russia because most western telcos still have international roaming partners in Russia - MTS in the case of my phone company. I was not using an eSIM: my plan until I got a Russian SIM was to use my home phone company’s roaming packages for mobile internet. It sells packages for Russia for £5 (about $7) a day.

Mobile data is not required for receiving text messages, though. So as far as T-Bank is concerned, you should have been able to receive SMS messages from them without any internet access. T-Bank is also happy to send its notifications to a Western phone number (this is something they did for years in my case), so you should be able to set up a bank account with them using your Western phone number. At any rate, that was something they used to do routinely.

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@Jabod T-Bank is also happy to send its notifications to a Western phone number (this is something they did for years in my case), so you should be able to set up a bank account with them using your Western phone number.

According to the latest information on Google, T-Bank will allow you to initiate a bank account application using an international phone number but eventually you need a Russian phone number to activate the account. In practice, you could simply apply to become a client of T-Mobile at the same time.

In fact, T-Bank is not the only bank that will combine the process of setting up an account and providing a SIM card. At VTB, where I registered my biometric data, the guy also tried to get me to sign up to VTB Mobile. I declined because I wanted a pay-as-you-go tariff, not a monthly subscription (I think T-Mobile also involves a monthly subscription, though I suppose one can quickly unsubscribe and get a SIM from a different phone company if desired.)

A word of warning about T-Bank (and in fact any Russian bank): since early this month they have been freezing accounts held by foreigners from “unfriendly states”. See the separate thread about this (“Decree 377”) in this forum. T-Bank has only been freezing savings accounts, not debit card accounts, but personally I would be extrememly cautious about keeping money in a Russian bank. Putin’s decree is extremely vague.

If you do put money in a Russian bank, I would not keep any more there than immediately necessary and in no circumstances transfer any money into any kind of interest-bearing savings account (the T-Bank app will send you notifications recommending you open such an account, which illustrates what a minefield this has become).

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@Jabod Mobile data is not required for receiving text messages

I would have needed to subscribe to roaming with my carrier, and probably should have as a backup to Holafly. I was overconfident in them even though last time was before November 2025.

Unfortunately, roaming might not help either. T-mobile’s vague disclaimer: “The statement ‘Services will resume as normal’ no longer applies as of November 2025.” SMS yes, access to data “inconsistent.”

And, the SMS block seems roaming-independent - I’m still unable to receive texts from t-bank for example. Even back in my domestic network. So how can I be sure it would work there with roaming subscription?

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@kozmikpetukh I would have needed to subscribe to roaming with my carrier, and probably should have as a backup to Holafly.

In the UK, the phone operators don’t charge you for receiving text messages while abroad and this does not require paying for a special roaming package. I have to pay for making calls and sending texts abroad, but receiving texts is free. According to Google, this is also generally true for phone companies in other countries as well.

From the sounds of it you are from the US (when you referred to T-Mobile I originally thought you were talking about the Russian T-Mobile! But I suppose you meant the US one.) This is what the US T-Mobile say on their wesbite: “If you’re in a destination where international roaming is not included with your plan or international pass, you can still use calling and messaging services but data is turned off by default.”

With my phone operator, I can pay for roaming (to use mobile internet) on a day-by-day basis, which is what I did for a couple of days in Russia. This roaming worked fine for the limited purposes I required during those two days, e.g. logging into Gosuslugi while at the bank. (From the looks of it, the US T-Mobile is similar: its one-day passes cost $10).

I never tried to use an eSIM. But from your experience, they sound problematic. I do not understand at all why MTS kept your eSIM blocked even after 24 hours. Sounds like a big mix-up between Holafly and MTS. Registering with Gosuslugi is necessary to get a Russian SIM but that’s a completely separate issue from lifting the 24-hour block.

@kozmikpetukh And, the SMS block seems roaming-independent - I’m still unable to receive texts from t-bank for example. Even back in my domestic network.

As mentioned, I personally have had no problems receiving SMS messages from T-Bank on my UK phone number. But it is notable over recent months that a lot of different types of messages from Russia do not get through. E.g. I have been unable to receive SMS messages from mail.ru and Yandex, and phone calls from Ozon also have stopped reaching my UK phone number.

This is apparently because Western telcos are increasingly blocking communications from Russia (assuming they are malicious or spam). Not clear why they let messages from some Russian companies get through but block others.

So perhaps you have been unlucky with the T-Bank messages. A couple of suggestions that may help. First of all, when I recently downloaded and activated the T-Bank app, T-Bank stopped sending the codes by SMS and instead sent them as app pop-ups. So have you checked to see whether messages you expected to get from T-Bank by SMS have not instead been sent via the app?

Even if you cannot find any history of app messages from T-Bank, it ought to be possible to adjust the app settings to enable it to display these messages (cutting out the need for SMS codes entirely). I realise that in Russia you only had intermittent access to the internet, but it should still be possible to catch up on messages sent to the T-Bank app when you have access to Wifi (e.g. at your hotel).

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@Jabod This is what the US T-Mobile say on their wesbite: “If you’re in a destination where international roaming is not included with your plan or international pass, you can still use calling and messaging services but data is turned off by default.”

I should have been able to receive messages, but nope

@Jabod Western telcos are increasingly blocking communications from Russia (assuming they are malicious or spam).

It makes little sense for T-mobile to allow texts by default, but then block them on its own initiative. However, I could test a different number.

This is all about getting the app going in the first place, without a # no login can be created.

I had other priorities and limited time, so I only spent a day and a half banging my head on this wall. Maybe next time. Or better yet, ahead of next time.

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@kozmikpetukh It makes little sense for T-mobile to allow texts by default, but then block them on its own initiative. However, I could test a different number.

This is probably not T-Mobile’s own initiative but a consequence of sanctions.

Google AI will provide a detailed explanation. It says that messages from T-Bank are much more likely to be blocked in the US than in the UK. In the US: “Automated banking messages originating from countries flagged with severe financial restrictions are heavily suppressed by default to protect US consumers from offshore banking scams.”

The AI also says that “a strict framework known as 10DLC registration” prevents T-Bank messages from getting through to US phone subscribers. This is because, as a sanctioned entity, T-Bank cannot register a verified corporate brand permitted to send SMS messages to US consumers.