# Services, shipping and company taxes

Three smaller flows on the Russia side: services traded with Russia (tourism above all), income from shipping and insuring Russian oil, and taxes that foreign-owned companies pay in Russia. Each is compared with an expected no-war level, like goods.

Details for developers: [sources, shares and research files](https://github.com/intelligent-cream/war-balance/blob/main/docs/reference/method/services-shipping-companies.md).

## Services

Two flows for 199 economies: services bought from Russia (at Russia's net gain on services) and services sold to Russia, including what Russian tourists spend (at the seller's net gain × genuinely extra). Sources: Eurostat, the OECD-WTO services trade database and the Bank of Russia; non-reporters (China, the UAE, India, Kazakhstan, Belarus) use the database's balanced estimates (certainty C).

The expected level is 2021, plus the travel recovery from COVID at the world pace: 2021 was a pandemic year for travel, so the gap to 2019 closes by 2025. Sellers of tourism and business services earn little above a normal return, so lost sales count for little (Cyprus's business services barely move it).

## Shipping

Money earned by companies in each country for carrying, insuring, financing and registering Russia's seaborne oil and LNG, and for selling tankers to the shadow fleet. The earner is the country of the real owner or controller, never the flag: Russian-owned tankers behind UAE, Indian or Seychelles fronts count for Russia itself. Greek owners carry about half of the mainstream fleet.

- Freight counts at the shipping industry's net gain, insurance at the insurance industry's. Greek water transport earns less than a normal return in national accounts (profits are booked offshore), so Greece's freight counts at about 0 ([limitations](https://warbalance.org/how-it-works/)).
- The price premium on second-hand tankers sold to shadow-fleet buyers (40% of the sale price) and registry fees are already rent and count in full. Greek owners sold about USD 4bn of tankers, so Greece's shipping part is still EUR 1.52bn toward Russia, almost all of it from ship sales in 2022–2023.
- Freight already inside services or inside import values is not counted again ([freight](https://warbalance.org/method/trade/#m-trade-freight-cif-to-fob)).
- The expected level grows with Russia's seaborne exports before the war (+3.9% a year). Certainty D.

## Company taxes

Taxes that Russian subsidiaries of foreign companies pay while still foreign-owned, by the owner's home country (KSE Institute and B4Ukraine data, checked against company reports).

- What counts: profit tax in full plus half of other taxes. VAT, excise and payroll taxes are largely paid by Russian customers and staff.
- Pre-war level: the 2018–2021 average, grown at foreign companies' pre-war pace.
- Companies that left stop counting once sold; seized companies (Unipro, Fortum from 2023) stop counting for their old owners.
- Company reports correct the data where they exist: Austria rests on Raiffeisen's own Russian tax figures; Japan Tobacco's Russian business counts for Japan, not Switzerland.
- 2026 is January–August, estimated from 2025 and the first 2026 reports (\*). Compared in money, without a price index.

## Company profits in Russia

Taxes are one part of what foreign companies in Russia give Russia; their profits are what their owners earned from Russia. Since round 39 the change in those profits against the no-war level counts, after Russian tax (so nothing overlaps with taxes), from KSE Institute's company data and the OECD's direct-investment income by partner:

- Dividends that reached home count in full. Profit kept in Russia counts at about a third of its value (0.35): roughly what an owner from a sanctioning country can still get out, after a sale at a deep discount and Russia's exit fee. The other two thirds are a marker beside seizures, not in the totals.
- Firms that sold out count their lost profit only above a normal return on the price they got.
- Stakes in Russian oil and gas (Yamal LNG, Novatek, Sakhalin, Vankor) are a part of their own: TotalEnergies, CNPC, Japanese trading houses and Indian state firms, and the income BP, Shell, Exxon, Wintershall and OMV lost when they left.

Most owners earned much less from Russia than without the war: the UK, Germany, Sweden and Finland move toward Ukraine by 0.2 to 0.5% of GDP. Owners that kept earning there (Raiffeisen for Austria, OTP for Hungary) move toward Russia.

[How it works](https://warbalance.org/how-it-works/) · [Limitations](https://warbalance.org/limitations/) · [Changelog](https://warbalance.org/changelog/) · [Open in the map](https://warbalance.org/#view=how)

Cite as: War Balance, figures to August 2026, https://warbalance.org/method/services-shipping-companies/