Freelancer payment service Solar Staff warned users from Russia about blocking payments for services falling under EU sanctions. Now companies from the European Union will not be able to provide some remote services to Russian companies.

Solar Staff is restricting transfers from Russian legal entities for services such as:

  • IT consulting services,
  • Engineering,
  • Architectural,
  • Accounting,
  • Auditing,
  • Tax,
  • Business management consulting services,
  • PR,
  • Legal advice.

A full list of sanctioned services can be viewed here.

According to the company, freelancers from European Union countries working with Russian companies through Solar Staff contract with the service's Cypriot legal entity. The same person has to comply with European sanctions - in order to avoid blocking accounts, including those of the customer and the contractor.

At the same time, Solar Staff will continue to work with Russian clients and performers. In addition, the restrictions do not apply to programmers and Russian specialists who work with foreign customers.

However, restrictions for the latter were introduced by other platforms for freelancers. Thus, since May 2022, major freelance exchanges Upwork and Fiverr in connection with the sanctions have stopped working with users who are in Russia. Freelancers who were used to working with these platforms had a hard time: some began to look for work on other services still operating in Russia, while others began to move to other countries, including Armenia.