Dubai/Moscow, 22 August 2026 — The bilateral UAE-Russia Trade in Services and Investment Agreement (TISIA) officially entered into force. The pact complements the already-operating UAE-EAEU CEPA on goods and completes the joint trade and investment framework between the two countries. The announcement was carried by state news agency WAM.
What was signed and what entered into force
TISIA was signed on 8 August 2025 in Moscow, on the sidelines of the visit of UAE President HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. For the UAE the agreement was signed by Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Foreign Trade; for the Russian Federation, by Maxim Reshetnikov, Minister of Economic Development. According to WAM, the agreement officially entered into force on 22 August 2026, after both sides completed their internal procedures.
Unlike the UAE-EAEU CEPA — which operates at the regional level and regulates trade in goods between the UAE and the five Eurasian Economic Union member states (Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan) — TISIA is a stand-alone bilateral track covering only the UAE and Russia and focused on services and investment. The two documents run in parallel.
Priority sectors
The official WAM release names five priority services sectors for which TISIA delivers expanded market access and stronger investor protection: fintech, healthcare, transport, logistics and professional services — including legal, consulting, audit, accounting and IT. The UAE Ministry of Foreign Trade frames the agreement as a simpler platform for cross-border delivery of services and a predictable framework for two-way private-sector investment.
Trade in numbers
The same official statement sets out the trade context. UAE-Russia non-oil bilateral trade reached US$20.4 billion in 2025 — a 77.7% jump versus 2024 and almost double the 2022 level of US$10.8 billion. That growth rate means the Russia track is moving from a niche to one of the UAE’s fastest-growing external trade corridors.
TISIA’s place in the UAE trade programme
The Russia agreement is embedded in the wider UAE Foreign Trade Agreements Programme, launched in September 2021. By the time TISIA entered into force, the UAE had concluded 38 trade agreements with 38 economies, 18 of which were already operational. A full breakdown of the programme lives in a dedicated piece — UAE CEPA: the trade corridor being built out.
“The entry into force of the UAE-Russia TISIA, alongside the economic partnership agreement with the EAEU, represents the full activation of a comprehensive trade and investment framework that will unlock significant opportunities for businesses and investors in both nations,” — Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, UAE Minister of Foreign Trade, as quoted by The National.
What it means for UAE-based business
For companies registered in the UAE and working with Russian clients or partners, TISIA matters on three fronts. First, expanded services market access: some of the barriers to cross-border supply of financial, consulting, transport-logistics and healthcare services are removed. Second, stronger investment protection: investors now have a bilateral legal framework (national treatment, guarantees, dispute-resolution mechanisms) that neither domestic law nor the goods-only CEPA delivered on their own. Third, predictability: the same economic relationship is now governed by two mutually reinforcing instruments.
A wider corridor also raises the compliance bar. Companies moving inside the TISIA perimeter should rework their corporate structure and contract templates to the new framework in advance, and keep KYC, banking files and sanctions screening in order. The broader picture on non-oil resilience and the role of external trade is set out in our UAE Economy 2026 outlook.
Practical steps right now
A practical checklist for a UAE-based company that already runs — or is planning to run — a Russia track: (1) check whether your services fall within the five priority sectors TISIA opens up first; (2) audit your corporate setup — where the operating company sits, where the holding is, how intra-group royalties and services are structured; (3) update contract templates with Russian counterparties to the new framework; (4) refresh your compliance stack — KYC/AML, sanctions screening, bank onboarding, tax residency of both sides; (5) for complex structures, bring in a specialised advisor who will read the agreement text against guidance from the UAE Ministry of Foreign Trade.
