How to Send Money from Italy to Russia in 2026

Nikita Levin

Oct 5, 2026Oct 21, 20268 min read14 views

Italy has a sizeable Russian-citizen community and a wider Russian-speaking population with family and financial ties to Russia. ISTAT-based figures show 43,119 Russian citizens resident in Italy at the start of 2025, including more than 10,000 in Lombardy. That does not count naturalised Italians or Russian speakers with other citizenships, so the group of people who may need to support parents, partners or relatives in Russia is wider than the passport data suggests.

For professionals in Milan, Rome, Turin or Bologna, IT workers, entrepreneurs and long-term residents, the problem is usually practical: how to send money from Italy to Russia without turning a family payment into a chain of banks, exchanges and intermediaries. There is also a legal question: is it legal to send money to Russia from an EU country? In general, there is no blanket ban on private transfers, but the people, banks and payment services involved must comply with EU sanctions.

For anyone asking how to send money to Russia now, the market is much narrower than it once was. Wise lists Russia as unsupported, while the European Commission maintains detailed guidance on payment services involving Russia. For an international remittance, the useful question is not simply “what is the fee?”, but whether the route works from Italy, what the recipient receives and how clearly the cost is shown before payment.

Why an Italy to Russia transfer is different

Italy is in the euro area and SEPA, so European bank payments are normally straightforward. Russia sits outside that system. That makes Russia one of the more complicated cross-border payments corridors for consumers in the EU. A bank transfer from Italy to Russia may still be possible in some cases, but it depends on the receiving bank, correspondent banks, the purpose of the payment and sanctions screening. The European Commission’s March 2026 guidance confirms that specific payment and e-money services are restricted for certain Russian nationals and residents; it is not a simple prohibition on every personal remittance.

An Italian bank may accept the foreign payment while a correspondent institution later refuses it. So learning how to wire money to Russia is no longer the same as entering an IBAN and waiting a couple of working days.

Mainstream international transfer providers have also pulled back. Wise says customers cannot send or receive money to or from Russia through its service. For Italy-based users with family or financial commitments in Russia, the issue is therefore not demand but access: the number of practical consumer routes has shrunk sharply.

What are the realistic options?

If you are comparing how to transfer money to Russia, the main money transfer options are a bank, a third-country route, crypto/P2P and a regulated online service.

Method	Availability from Italy	Complexity	Recipient experience	Main thing to check
Italian bank / SWIFT	Effectively unavailable for most retail transfers	High	Bank account required	Most Russian banks are restricted or unreachable through normal EU correspondent routes
Third-country bank route	Possible for some users	Very high	Usually bank-account based	Very slow and expensive: often requires multiple transfers, several banks, additional fees, currency conversion and repeated compliance checks
Crypto and P2P	Technically available	High	Often requires conversion or a counterparty	High risk of loss, fraud and bank-account restrictions if the payment is linked to suspicious crypto/P2P activity
SendNOW	Online from Italy	Low	Direct to a Russian bank card, including MIR	Exchange rate, fee and payout before payment

A third-country bank route can work in some cases, but it is usually the slowest and most expensive option: the money may pass through several banks, incur multiple fees and currency conversions, and face compliance checks at more than one stage.

Crypto and P2P routes also carry a banking risk that is easy to overlook. Russian banks apply strict fraud and compliance controls to unusual card-to-card payments, and transactions linked to suspicious or illegal crypto/P2P schemes can lead to transfers being stopped, cards or online banking being restricted, and accounts being reviewed. The Bank of Russia has specifically warned that dealings with illegal crypto platforms can result in account blocking and other problems with access to banking services.

They also add extra steps: buying an asset, transferring it, selling it for roubles and choosing a counterparty. Regulated online transfer services can remove several of those intermediate steps by handling payment and delivery within one platform.

The comparison that matters is how many steps are involved, who handles the money and how much the recipient ultimately receives.

A practical route: how to send money from Italy to Russia through SendNOW

For someone who wants a regulated, fully online route, SendNOW removes much of the complexity of a traditional correspondent-bank transfer. SendNOW is the only full-service consumer money transfer service currently offering direct transfers from Italy to Russian bank cards, including MIR cards and cards issued by sanctioned banks.

A common question is: can you send money to Russia from Italy in 2026? With SendNOW, the answer is yes. The sender pays in euros; the recipient receives roubles directly on the card and does not need a foreign account, IBAN, SWIFT code or SendNOW account. For an overseas money transfer to a parent, partner or other family member in Russia, this keeps the process simple for the recipient: they do not need to register or take any action to receive the money.

New customers get a promotional exchange rate and 0% SendNOW service fee on the first transfer up to €85. Transfers of €180 or more also carry a 0% SendNOW service fee, including repeat transfers. From €2,300, an improved exchange rate applies automatically. You can send up to around €43,800 in a single transfer, making SendNOW suitable for larger payments as well as regular family transfers.

For people asking how to send money to someone in Russia, direct card delivery removes most of the work from the recipient.