Want a cheaper mortgage in Russia? Have more kids
The price list
Outside Russia’s two biggest metro areas, a family with one child will pay 10% on a loan of up to 6 million rubles, or roughly $71,000. Families with five or more children drop all the way to 2% and can borrow up to 10 million rubles, about $119,000. The families in between land somewhere on the scale.
Life is pricier in the capital regions. In Moscow, St. Petersburg and the regions around them, one-child families will pay 12% on loans of up to 12 million rubles, about $143,000. That is double the rate those same families could get before. Households with five or more children get 4% and a borrowing cap of 18 million rubles, around $214,000.
To qualify, a family needs at least one child younger than seven when the loan is signed. There is one exception to the sliding scale: loans to build a house, or to buy land and build on it, stay at a flat 6% whatever the family’s size or location.
The Finance Ministry says the overhaul makes the program better targeted and “geared toward demographic goals.” In plainer terms, the government wants more babies, and it is using the mortgage market to encourage them.
Why Moscow is doing this
Russia’s birth rate has been falling for years. The country’s total fertility rate was 1.361 in 2025, according to government statistics agency Rosstat, as reported by Novaya Gazeta Europe. That is well short of the 2.1 needed to keep a population stable. The Moscow Times has reported that births have fallen to levels not seen in about two centuries, despite official campaigns promoting large families.
