Vehicle utilization charge is likely to apply to all vehicle manufactures starting from autumn 2013. Vehicle utilization fee was imposed from 1 September 2012.
The fee is currently payable by vehicle importers and manufacturers as well as vehicle owners who have purchased vehicles (in Russia) for which no such fee was paid by the manufacturer or importer. The fee is not payable on vehicles which are imported to Russia from Kazakhstan or Belarus and have the status of “Customs Union products”, subject to certain conditions.
The imposition of this fee has been widely criticized as being a disguised protectionist measure which favours Russian car manufacturers against foreign producers because the domestic producers which accepted the obligation to utilize their vehicles at the end of their life cycle, were exempt from the immediate payment of the vehicle utilization fee.
A draft law which would impose equal conditions of the utilization fee payment on all car manufacturers, both foreign and domestic, may be adopted in November 2013.