Wise, Remitly, MoneyGram, Western Union and Russia: 2026 Status

Four brands come up in every conversation about money and Russia: Wise, Remitly, MoneyGram, Western Union. This page records what each company publishes about Russia on its own pages, with dates, as checked in September 2026. It is a status board, not a price list and not a how-to. For working routes and the mechanics of a transfer see our guide on moving money between Russia and the USA. For a fee-by-fee and limit-by-limit comparison of these same services see Wise vs Remitly vs MoneyGram: real fees, limits and sanctions routes. Here we quote only the companies themselves, so that a sentence written by a forum in 2023 does not get mistaken for a policy in force today.

What does each of the four services officially say about Russia?

Service	Russia in 2026	Its own source and date
Wise	"We're not able to serve customers in Russia at the moment", accounts with a Russian address closed	Help centre notice, closure date 9 May 2022
Remitly	"We don't currently support transfers from the United States to Russia", 175+ countries and territories served	Its own Russia page, refusal shown instead of a calculator
Western Union	Operations suspended across all channels	Press release of 10 March 2022, company notice, effective 24 March 2022
MoneyGram	No send corridor from the US, only a residual country page	Russia country page: location search, receive options and tracking, no send flow

Three of the four say it in words. The fourth says it by what its site no longer does. The address moneygram.com/us/en/corridor/russia answers "Not Found. Could not find requested resource", while the equivalent Armenia corridor loads normally and even names the banks that pay the money out. You can check both addresses yourself in a browser in under a minute, which is the point of this page: every line here is something the company says about itself.

Why did Wise close Russian accounts, and on which dates?

Wise is the only one of the four that published a calendar rather than a statement. The sequence matters, because people still argue about which of these dates "closed their account", and usually name the wrong one.

The calendar Wise published in 2022

Date	What changed	What it meant in practice
10 March 2022	EUR account details for customers in Russia stopped working	Incoming EUR payments, including direct debits, went back to the sender's bank
11 March 2022	Accounts became withdraw only	No top-ups. Outgoing transfers only, and any incoming payment was rejected and returned
18 March 2022	Russian government ID no longer accepted from new customers	"The only acceptable document is the Russian International passport"
9 May 2022	Every account registered to a Russian address closed	Roughly 60 days from the announcement to move the money out and download the records

One detail from the same notice gets forgotten: during the withdraw only window Wise wrote that a customer still holding RUB could transfer it to Russian bank accounts that were not themselves subject to global sanctions, and could convert RUB into other currencies on weekdays for transfers to accounts outside Russia. The door did not slam. It closed on a published schedule.

Was the trigger the address or the passport?

The address. The notice is written around accounts "with addresses registered in Russia", not around citizenship. A Russian national living in New Jersey with a valid US address is not the subject of that closure at all. The passport line is a separate rule and applies to new customers: since 18 March 2022 the only Russian state document Wise accepts for verification is the international passport. Two different rules, and mixing them up is what produces the story about "an account closed for being Russian".

What exactly happened at Western Union and MoneyGram?

These two are usually filed under one word, "left". The paperwork is more specific than that, and the difference shows up when someone is trying to trace an old transfer.

Western Union: three dates, not one

The decision was announced on 10 March 2022 in an investor press release titled "Western Union Suspends Operations in Russia and Belarus". The suspension itself took effect on 24 March 2022 across all channels. Transfers that had been sent earlier and never collected were refunded to senders from 25 March 2022. The same company describes its network as spanning more than 200 countries and territories and over 130 currencies. Russia is not among them, and the notice has not been reversed since.

MoneyGram: a 404 and a page that survived it

MoneyGram never published a Western Union style statement. It removed the product instead. The US send corridor for Russia returns a plain "Not Found", while the residual country page at moneygram.com/r/ru/en still loads: it offers a location search, describes ways to receive money in Russia and lets you track a transfer, but there is no path on it to send from the United States. For scale, the company describes 200+ countries and territories and more than 470,000 agent locations worldwide. A corridor that quietly stops existing is a business decision, not a legal statement, which is exactly why it should not be read as one.

Is sending money to Russia illegal for a US person, or only unavailable?

Two different sentences, and the gap between them is expensive. OFAC FAQ 1202, released 21 November 2024, says it directly: "As a general matter, personal, non-commercial remittances are not the target of sanctions imposed by the United States on Russia." Non sanctioned Russian banks and money service businesses may still process legitimate transactions. What is prohibited is dealing with a blocked person, and that list has grown on specific dates.

Date	Who was designated	Scale in the release	Source
24 February 2022	VTB Bank	Full blocking of Russia's second largest bank	Treasury, jy0608
6 April 2022	Sberbank and Alfa-Bank	Sberbank together with 42 subsidiaries	Treasury, jy0705
23 August 2024	Centre of Financial Technologies group, Diasoft, Atol	The software layer behind bank apps and payment terminals	Treasury, jy2546
21 November 2024	Gazprombank	Six foreign subsidiaries, plus more than 50 banks, more than 40 securities registrars and 15 finance officials	Treasury, jy2725

One rule turns this table from history into a checklist: anything owned 50 percent or more, directly or indirectly, by a blocked person is blocked as well, whether or not OFAC has named it. That is why "the bank is not on the list" is a weaker answer than it sounds, and why the recipient bank matters more than the country on the envelope.

Which third countries do these same services actually reach?

This is where the status board earns its keep, because the answers differ inside one company from one neighbouring country to the next. Western Union is not in the table below: its own published material on this subject covers the Russia and Belarus suspension, and we are not going to infer the rest for it.

Route from the US	Wise	Remitly	MoneyGram
Armenia	Live, recipient gets AMD from Wise's local account	In the served list	Corridor live, cash pickup named at Ameriabank, ACBA, Ardshinbank, Evocabank, ID Bank, Araratbank and others
Georgia	Live, recipient gets GEL, IBAN payout	In the served list	Corridor live, receive options shown at transfer setup
Kazakhstan	No KZT payout yet, USD only by Swift	In the served list	Corridor live, cash pickup named at Halyk and Altyn, receive currency shown at setup
Russia	Not served	Route not supported	Corridor page returns Not Found

Kazakhstan is a currency problem, not a country problem

The Wise page for Kazakhstan says it in the first line: "We're working hard to allow customers to send KZT to Kazakhstan from the US, but we're not quite there yet." What it does support is sending US dollars by international wire. Meanwhile Armenia and Georgia already pay out in local currency. MoneyGram's Kazakhstan corridor page names cash pickup at Halyk and Altyn and shows the receive currency only once you set up the transfer, so check it before you send. Advice that says "just use Kazakhstan instead" checked the country and never checked the currency, and the recipient discovers the difference at the bank counter. Two mechanics follow from a dollar wire rather than a local payout. The recipient's bank account country still has to be selected even though the account is in dollars, and the account number and Swift code are required. And the fee Wise shows is explicitly an estimate: it says Swift transfers rely on the Swift network and other banks that do not disclose their fees up front, so the final figure appears only once the transfer details are known.

Who actually hands over the money in Armenia

The MoneyGram corridor page for Armenia lists the paying institutions by name, and that list is more useful than any general statement about the region: Ameriabank, ACBA Bank, Ardshinbank, Evocabank, ID Bank, Araratbank, Armeconombank, Armbusinessbank, Artsakhbank and the Stak wallet. Wise takes the other path and pays AMD from its own local account, so the recipient does not need a Wise account at all. Same country, two different mechanics, and the choice usually comes down to whether the recipient wants cash at a counter or money in an account.

What does the working corridor cost, and why does the price keep moving?

Prices here are a moving target by design, so treat the table below as a dated snapshot rather than a tariff. On the check of 11 September 2026, sending the same 1,000 USD with Wise looked like this.

Paying for 1,000 USD	To Armenia, payout in AMD	To Georgia, payout in GEL
Direct debit	48.61 USD	16.69 USD
Bank transfer	52.91 USD	21.08 USD
Debit card	91.78 USD	27.04 USD
Credit card	103.91 USD	78.10 USD

Two conclusions survive the day the numbers change. First, the payment method moves the price more than the destination does: on the Armenian route the credit card cost more than twice what direct debit cost. Second, the two corridors are not priced alike. On the Georgian route Wise showed a locked rate, guaranteed for a stated number of hours (8 hours on the day checked). On the Armenian one it showed the opposite: the rate was not guaranteed, and the page explains that dynamic charges apply "for less widely used currencies and temporarily when markets are volatile", with the cost rechecked every 60 seconds. Wise also states that 74 percent of its transfers arrive in under 20 seconds and 95 percent in less than a day, and that fees are discounted above 25,000 USD per transfer. For the same numbers across services, our comparison of fees and limits is the page to open next.

Why do the popular workarounds fail more often than forums admit?

The workaround	Why it fails, or why it never had to	Source
"The app still works, so the company is outside sanctions"	The designated entity is often the processor underneath the brand: Treasury designated the Centre of Financial Technologies group with Diasoft and Atol on 23 August 2024 under E.O. 14024	Treasury press release JY2546
"I will just send tenge to Kazakhstan instead"	Wise states it cannot yet send KZT from the US and supports only USD by international wire, where the fee shown is an estimate because Swift banks do not disclose theirs up front	Wise page for sending money to Kazakhstan
"Sanctions forbid me from helping my mother"	Personal, non-commercial remittances are generally not the target of the Russia sanctions	OFAC FAQ 1202
"The foreign bank is required by sanctions to stop me"	E.O. 14114 reaches significant transactions for designated persons and the military-industrial base; an ordinary family transfer meets compliance friction, not a prohibition	FAQ 1147 and FAQ 1151
"My bank will file a currency report on the wire that arrives"	A wire is not a transaction in currency, so it produces no Currency Transaction Report anywhere	31 CFR 1010.311
"I will split the amount to stay under the limit"	That is structuring, which is a crime rather than a filing	31 U.S.C. 5324

Because a brand is not a legal entity. Treasury designated the Centre of Financial Technologies group together with Diasoft and Atol on 23 August 2024 under E.O. 14024. Those are not consumer brands, they are the software and processing underneath consumer brands. The lesson generalises: check the licensed entity behind the app, and check the 50 percent rule around it, rather than the logo on the screen.

The second reason is that foreign banks price their own risk, and they price it wider than the rule requires. Here the rule itself is worth stating precisely, because the loose version of it scares people out of legitimate payments. E.O. 14114 of 22 December 2023 amended E.O. 14024 to authorise sanctions on foreign financial institutions that conducted or facilitated significant transactions for persons designated under E.O. 14024 for operating in the technology, defense, construction, aerospace or manufacturing sectors, or transactions involving Russia's military-industrial base, including the supply of items in the Russia Critical Items Determination of 22 December 2023. That is FAQ 1147. The term "foreign financial institution" is unpacked in FAQ 1151, which follows subsection 11(f) of E.O. 14024 and reaches well past banks: money services businesses, credit card system operators, insurance companies, securities and futures brokers, dealers in precious metals, and holding companies, affiliates and subsidiaries of any of them.

Read together, those two FAQs say something narrower than the panic version. A family remittance is not what the authority targets, which is also what FAQ 1202 says out loud. What actually happens to ordinary transfers is compliance friction, not prohibition: an intermediary bank in Yerevan, Almaty or Dubai stops the payment and asks where the money came from. That conversation has its own rules, and we walk through them in what to answer when a bank asks for the source of funds.

Which reports are yours, and which belong to the bank?

Half of the reporting anxiety in this subject is misplaced, because two of the best known thresholds are somebody else's duty. The short version fits in a table; the full walkthrough, including what a US bank asks when the money arrives, is in money arrived from Russia: what your bank asks and what you file.

Threshold	What it triggers	Who files it	Rule
Physical cash over $10,000 crossing the US border, carried, mailed or shipped	CMIR, FinCEN Form 105	You, including when you receive such a shipment and no report was filed	31 CFR 1010.340, FinCEN on Form 105
Currency transaction over $10,000 at a financial institution	Currency Transaction Report	The institution, not you	31 CFR 1010.311
Transmittal of funds of $3,000 or more through a non bank operator	Records of the parties and the travel rule	The operator, not you	31 CFR 1010.410
Foreign accounts over $10,000 in aggregate at any point in the year	FBAR, FinCEN Form 114, due 15 April with an extension to 15 October	You	IRS on FBAR
Gifts from a foreign individual above $100,000 in a year	Form 3520, each gift above $5,000 itemised, penalty 5 percent a month to a 25 percent cap	You	IRS on foreign gifts
Splitting a payment to stay under a threshold	Structuring, up to five years	Not a report at all, a crime	31 U.S.C. 5324

Note the shape of the first two rows. A wire arriving in your account is not a transaction in currency, so it produces no Currency Transaction Report anywhere. The report that is genuinely yours is the one almost nobody expects: cash physically crossing the border, in a suitcase or in the post, in either direction. If your foreign accounts are the part that worries you, our FBAR guide covers the aggregate rule and the deadlines in detail.

What should you actually check before you send?

Five checks, in the order that saves the most time. One: read what the service says on its own page for your exact corridor, not what a forum said about the company. Two: check the currency, not only the country, because Kazakhstan pays out in dollars while Armenia and Georgia pay in local money. Three: check the receiving bank against the SDN list and the 50 percent rule, because the recipient institution decides more than the sending app does. Four: choose the payment method deliberately, since it moved the price by more than a factor of two in the snapshot above. Five: separate what you file from what the bank files, so that the paperwork question does not stop a payment that was never prohibited.

Two typical scenarios, assembled from different cases rather than drawn from one. A reader in Edison spends a year convinced that Wise closed his account "for being Russian"; the notice closed accounts registered to Russian addresses, his own was registered in New Jersey, and nothing in that rule ever pointed at him. A reader in Brooklyn receives 140,000 dollars from her father through an account in her own name in Yerevan, files the FBAR and Form 3520 on time, and discovers that the wire itself triggered no currency report at all. Neither story was about sanctions. Both were about reading the actual rule instead of the summary of it. For the wire mechanics and limits, see our guide on wire transfer rules and limits; if the money follows the sale of an apartment in Russia, the power of attorney behind it is booked at the consulate, and our guide to kdmid and q.midpass appointments covers that queue. SafeBridge is an insurance office, not a money transmitter: when the question is the policy on the business or the truck the money goes into, our specialist answers in Russian and English at (315) 871-0833, or through the online quote form. Insurance services are provided by a licensed insurance producer (New Jersey producer license 3004390206, NPN 22313558). This page is general information: on sanctions and taxes consult an attorney or a CPA.