The State Duma has passed a law that should collapse the railway ticket speculation market. Now, those who buy out seats from RZD to resell them at a markup face a fine of up to 500 thousand rubles. According to RIA "Novosti", the chairman of the chamber, Vyacheslav Volodin, stated that the measure is aimed at those who "want to profit at the expense of people".
The resellers' scheme was simple and brought guaranteed income. They massively bought tickets for popular routes, creating an artificial shortage of seats, and then resold them on online platforms, earning from 1.5 to 3 thousand rubles per ticket for their services. Now, administrative liability will be imposed for the remunerated provision of services for processing electronic travel documents.
Legislators limited this channel in stages. Back in 2025, a restriction was imposed on processing electronic tickets through third-party resources and intermediaries, which partially blocked mass buyouts through bots and gray services. The new fines hit the pockets of the scheme organizers themselves, making the business model economically meaningless: the cost of the violation covers the entire margin.
According to RZD, in 2024 alone, 2 thousand cases of ticket purchases by those who did not plan to travel anywhere were identified. Over 7 thousand tickets totaling almost 23 million rubles were returned to free sale after analyzing the activities of unscrupulous users.
Thus, the state is completing the transfer of railway tickets to a strict control regime. The "buyer - passenger" chain is becoming shorter, and the market is being cleared of speculators. This repeats the path of theater tickets, where similar measures have already practically destroyed professional resellers. The holiday season is ahead, and the new law should protect citizens from overpayments.