---
title: "IT boom or legal restructuring: why the number of IT companies in Russia has surged"
description: "🚀 A sharp increase in the number of IT companies has been recorded in Russia: +64% in six months. But experts warn: behind the numbers lies not so much a boom as legal restructuring and staff reductions. Let's figure out what is happening in the market. 💻📉"
date: 2026-07-16T15:34:33.000Z
lang: en
url: https://xab.info/en/posts/it-boom-or-legal-restructuring-why-the-number-of-it-companies-in-russia-has-surged
tags: [rusprofile, mintsifry, itech, graftech, russia-it]
publisher: "XAB.info"
---

# IT boom or legal restructuring: why the number of IT companies in Russia has surged

![Programmer working with code on a monitor, illustrating the growth of IT companies in Russia](https://xab.info/media/2026/07/16/it-bum-ili-yuridicheskaya-chistka-v-rossii-rezko-vyroslo-chislo-it-kompaniy/it-bum-ili-yuridicheskaya-chistka-v-rossii-rezko-vyroslo-chislo-it-kompaniy-1.webp)

The Russian IT sector is showing contradictory dynamics: on the one hand, there is an explosive growth in the number of registered companies, while on the other, there is a reduction in staff and reorganization of business structures. According to the analytical agency Rusprofile, about 37,000 new companies and individual entrepreneurs in the information technology sector were created in the country during the first six months of 2026.

The total number of IT organizations reached 273,000 units. This is a significant jump compared to the same period last year, when the increase was only 13,300 organizations. Thus, the growth rate accelerated by 64%. Alongside the registration of new legal entities, there is a steady demand for state accreditation: more than 500 companies received it during the reporting period.

### Legal restructuring and the role of artificial intelligence

Experts link the observed boom to several factors. First, companies are conducting large-scale legal restructuring. Second, the lowering of the entry threshold into the industry due to the implementation of artificial intelligence tools allows projects to be launched with fewer resources. However, registration statistics do not always reflect the real expansion of the market.

Eugenia Kruglova, General Director of web integrator ITECH, notes that part of the growth is due to the need to "clean up" the business structure. Many companies are closing old legal entities that were previously tailored for work with Western vendors or used outdated tax schemes. In their place, new legal entities appear, adapted to current working conditions and the benefits for the IT sector that are being reduced starting in 2026.

### Structural changes instead of creating new jobs

Despite the increase in the number of companies, the operational indicators of many of them suggest the opposite. Yuri Vasilenko, General Director of the IT company "GrafTech", points out that the growth in the number of legal entities does not correlate with employment in the sector. On the contrary, many companies are reducing their staff by up to 30%, affecting both developers and engineering specialists.

"This is not the creation of new jobs, but the redistribution of existing personnel between different forms of employment," Vasilenko is convinced. In his opinion, the surge in registrations is related to a review of business models: large companies are separating internal IT departments into separate legal entities to receive benefits, while some programmers leaving the staff are moving to outsourcing, registering their own companies.

Furthermore, statistics may be distorted by the fact that when registering, companies indicate multiple OKVED codes. This makes it difficult to accurately assess whether IT is the main type of activity for all 37,000 new market participants.

### State support and accreditation

The Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media noted a steady interest from IT companies in obtaining and confirming state accreditation. A representative of the department emphasized that this is facilitated by the preservation of existing state support measures and the expansion of the circle of companies that can apply for accreditation.

This year, the government expanded the criteria for obtaining IT accreditation, including new categories of developers of domestic digital solutions. For already accredited organizations, the term for passing the annual confirmation procedure was extended. During the first six months of 2026, more than 500 new companies received accreditation, and the total number of organizations in the registry exceeded 21,000 units.

At the same time, the Ministry of Digital Development, citing a study by the Higher School of Economics (HSE), noted that the number of IT specialists increased by 102,000 people in the first quarter and approached 1.2 million. This indicates that, despite structural changes and layoffs in individual companies, the overall personnel potential of the industry continues to grow.