On October 12, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov announced the first financial results of the SPOT at a meeting of the State Duma Committee on Budget and Taxes.
"Due to the operation of this system, more than 34 billion rubles have been received in just three months of this year," Siluanov said.
SPOT is a system for preliminary confirmation of delivery information. The State receives information about the planned movement of goods prior to their actual import and uses it to verify compliance with tax and customs requirements. The main task is to identify shipments in which VAT is not paid at all or customs duties are not paid in full.
The Ministry of Finance did not disclose the revenue structure. It is not known which share of the 34 billion rubles was received due to the identified violations, which was due to changes in the behavior of the participants in foreign economic activity themselves, and which was due to other effects of the system implementation. The breakdown by type of payments — VAT and duties — has also not been published. The minister did not provide a distribution between the levels of the budget system.
To objectively assess the effectiveness of the mechanism, data on the number of shipments processed, the number of violations detected, and the amounts of additional or voluntarily paid payments will be required. The Ministry of Finance has not yet disclosed these figures.
For importers, the launch of SPOT has already changed the practice of work: the system records discrepancies between the declared and actual delivery parameters before crossing the border. Companies that underestimate the customs value or split up shipments to reduce the tax burden find themselves in the automatic control zone. The figure of 34 billion rubles per quarter is a benchmark of the scale that the regulator considers sufficient to publicly report on the effect already at the start.
The Ministry of Finance announced SPOT as a preventive tool, not just a penalty. If the behavioral effect — a voluntary surcharge by participants in foreign economic activity — turns out to be a significant part of 34 billion rubles, the regulator will receive an argument for expanding the system to new categories of goods or trade areas. The next public report on the work of the SPOT will show whether the dynamics of revenue remains or whether the first months gave a one-time effect from the "whitewashing" of the market.
Related materials:
- Starting from November 1, 2026, SPOT will cover all shipments, including Belarus — starting from November 1, the system will apply to imports from Belarus.
- From October 1, there is only one day to correct the error in the DPP. How much time is there to correct the error before the import is refused
- Tax and customs: why money for imports is not a single tax bill, but a separate story — where and how to pay so that the money does not hang
