Finance
Remittances to Azerbaijan Jump 40% as Russian Transfers Surge 67%
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Personal remittances into Azerbaijan rose 40.2% year on year to $748.5 million in the first half of 2026, with transfers from Russia climbing 67.3% to $356.6 million — the first increase on that corridor since Western sanctions on Moscow began.
The figures come from Central Bank of Azerbaijan balance-of-payments data presented at a 15 September briefing by Samir Nasirov, Director of the bank's Statistics Department.
Inflows up, outflows down
"The volume of incoming remittances rose by 40 percent, reaching $748 million," Nasirov said, in remarks reported by Trend. "Meanwhile, outgoing remittances fell by 13% to $207.8 million."
That leaves a net inflow of roughly $540 million on the secondary income balance — a meaningful swing for an economy whose external accounts are normally read through hydrocarbons alone.
Russia accounted for 48.3% of all inbound transfers and supplied more than half of the total half-year increase, according to APA. Turkiye followed at $108.3 million, or 14.7% of the total, and the United States at $46.5 million, or 6.2%.
The Russia corridor defies the sanctions logic
The growth is notable because it runs against the plumbing. Zolotaya Korona, long the dominant money transfer system on the route, has closed in Azerbaijan. Flows have evidently migrated to alternative rails rather than contracting.
Russia remains the single largest employer of Azerbaijani labour migrants despite the war and a tightening Russian migration regime. The data suggest that labour relationship has proved more durable than the payment infrastructure that used to serve it.
The Georgia corridor has inverted
One of the clearer structural shifts in the release concerns Azerbaijan's neighbour. Transfers from Georgia into Azerbaijan reached $25.4 million, up 41%, while flows in the opposite direction fell 15.3% to $11.7 million.
Five years earlier the relationship ran the other way: in the first half of 2021, Azerbaijan sent $37.2 million to Georgia and received $9.6 million. Azerbaijan's land borders have remained closed since the pandemic, and the reversal coincides with that closure.
Reserves keep building
Nasirov also updated the reserve position. "Our strategic foreign currency reserves stood at $85.8 billion at the end of six months, and by the end of eight months, this figure had risen further to reach $90.8 billion," he said.
Elsewhere in the balance of payments, the services deficit stood at $1 billion, offset by a $941 million surplus on transport services and a $138 million tourism surplus. The primary income deficit narrowed 16% to roughly $907 million. The capital and financial account showed a $3 billion deficit as foreign financial assets rose $3.3 billion against a roughly $300 million increase in liabilities. Reserve assets grew $1.4 billion.
What to watch
The corridor's resilience may be tested quickly. A sweeping Russia sanctions bill was signed in Washington on 19 September, and any further constriction of cross-border payment channels would fall hardest on precisely the alternative rails that appear to have absorbed the Zolotaya Korona closure.
For now the remittance line is doing unusual work in Azerbaijan's external accounts: a non-oil inflow growing at 40% alongside a 2027 budget planned around $65 crude.
