What is the use of a passport inside the country

Is the international passport an identity card?

In the law that regulates entry and exit from Russia, a passport refers to documents "proving the identity of a citizen of the Russian Federation outside the territory of the Russian Federation." That is, this document does not have such a function within the country.

Moreover, in the aforementioned law, the phrase "foreign passport" is not found, so doubts may remain. The Ministry of Internal Affairs is ready to dispel them. The explanation of the department says: “A passport cannot be an identity document on the territory of the Russian Federation. In such a role, he acts only outside the Russian Federation and when crossing the border."

This means that a passport will be useless if you, for example:

get a job;
participate in transactions, including the sale or purchase of real estate and register it;
receive subsidies and other payments from the budget;
go to the bank to get a loan or open an account.

In the latter case, things are not easy. The Central Bank has included the passport in the list of documents that confirm the identity of the client. However, in practice, this only applies to situations when a Russian lives abroad and contacts the local branch of a Russian bank. In Russia, banks want to see an internal passport.

However, despite the fact that a foreign passport cannot become a full-fledged replacement for an internal Russian one, it is suitable not only for leaving the country. Several more options are available.

What can be done in Russia with a passport

Buy a train ticket

The international passport is one of the documents used to sell tickets for Russian Railways trains. This can be useful in case you have lost your internal Russian passport while traveling, and you still have to make transfers within the country.

Buy a plane ticket

Many airlines, like Russian Railways, allow you to issue travel documents for an international passport, including for domestic Russian flights.

Screenshot: Pobeda Airlines website

Screenshot: S7 Airlines website

Register IE online

If you register as an individual entrepreneur on your own, without intermediaries, you will not need a passport. However, if you decide to delegate the process to someone, the document will come in handy. Only biometric without fail and not instead of the civil one, but together with it.

A passport may be needed when registering an individual entrepreneur

Buy cigarettes and alcohol

Although a foreign passport is not an identity document within the country, it makes it possible to unequivocally establish the age of the holder. So the passport appears in both lists of documents for which it is possible; sell tobacco and alcohol.