The Russian economy is slowing down, and Russians have less and less money, so many have cut back on consumption and have begun falling behind on loan payments more often. Novaya Gazeta Europe has compiled fresh data confirming this trend.
As of the end of March, the share of overdue car loans in bank portfolios exceeded 6% for the first time since the summer of 2021, RBC writes. Over two years, this figure increased 1.7 times. In monetary terms, the volume of problematic car loans grew 2.5 times over the same period. More than a third of that increase, 43 billion rubles, came in the last six months alone.
The share of overdue retail loans as of March 1 rose over the year from 3.98% to 4.59%, reaching its highest level since mid-2019. The increase was recorded in 83 of 85 regions (the statistics include annexed Crimea). The highest share of overdue household debt is in Ingushetia (25.6%). Significant annual growth in overdue debt was recorded in Dagestan (+5.5 percentage points), Chechnya (+5.2 percentage points), Ingushetia (+4.6 percentage points), and Tyva (+3.9 percentage points).
The pace of company liquidations in Russia’s food service sector has accelerated. In the first quarter of 2026, 11,200 legal entities closed in the country, and year-on-year growth was 31% (a year earlier it was 10%). Since the beginning of the year, restaurants and bars have lost 3% of visitors; in Moscow the decline was 12%, and in St. Petersburg 8%.
The number of tax debtors among large businesses with revenue from 2 billion rubles increased by one and a half times over the past year, to 156,000 companies. The larger the business, the more noticeable the increase: among medium-sized companies, the number rose by 36%, and among large companies by 47%.
Investment in land for development in Russia fell by 31% in the first quarter of 2026. In Moscow and the Moscow region, it collapsed by 49%. Sales of new-build housing decreased by 29%, to 24,000 transactions, while developers’ revenue fell by 19%, to 498 billion rubles.
All of this data indicates that Russians have less and less money left: they have significantly reduced consumer activity, and servicing loans has become more difficult for them, said Novaya-Europe economic columnist Denis Morokhin. This trend is also confirmed by SberIndex data: in April, weekly consumer spending growth rates fell by half compared with the first three months of the year.
All of this is the result of inflation, higher taxes, and a spike in housing and utilities tariffs. In addition, Russia’s “wage race” has come to an end. The situation will become more difficult from here: according to economists’ forecasts, in 2026 real wage growth rates will decrease by about one and a half times. The Central Bank writes that 80% of companies are not planning to raise wages at all. They do not have the resources for it: as economist Dmitry Polevoy notes, by the end of the first quarter of 2026, capacity utilization had collapsed to levels seen at the beginning of 2021.