Russia's 8% rough duty slips to March and costs Alrosa $37.9 million

§1A six-month deferral, and why the new date.

Russia has postponed its 8% export duty on rough diamonds from 1 September 2026 to 1 March 2027, in a government resolution published on 11 August. The duty applies to rough and partially processed diamonds leaving the customs territory of the Eurasian Economic Union. The new date is not arbitrary: it is the date the country's cluster decree takes effect, so the two measures now begin together as one programme rather than six months apart. Alrosa accounts for roughly 90% of Russia's domestic production and is the company the measure is built around.

The coverage of the duty is reported two different ways and this desk cannot resolve it, so both are printed. Rapaport and IDEX both describe it as applying to rough above 0.45 carats, including special-size goods weighing more than 10.8 carats. TASS, reporting the resolution itself, describes it as applying to rough weighing between 0.45 and 10.8 carats as well as special sizes. The first reading is a floor with no ceiling. The second is a band. The difference decides whether the largest Russian rough is taxed or exempt, which is not a detail, and it is disclosed here rather than smoothed into whichever version reads more cleanly.

§2What the duty covers, on two readings.

The duty is the smaller change and the cluster decree is the larger. Russia is replacing its open rough sales model with a regulated cluster in which miners, meaning Alrosa, must first offer rough and partially processed goods to cutters inside the cluster before selling them anywhere else. That is a right of first refusal written into law over the entire book of the world's largest rough producer. The open market it replaces is the system of direct negotiation and sight-like arrangements through which international traders have bought Russian goods for decades. A tax changes a price. A first-refusal obligation changes who sees the goods at all.

§3The bigger change is not the tax.

The cost figure attached to the duty is 3.12 billion roubles, about $37.9 million, against Alrosa's profit, reported by Rapaport on 11 August. That estimate needs its date carried with it: it was published while the duty was still due to start on 1 September 2026, so it describes an annualised profit impact rather than a bill falling in this financial year, and the deferral pushes the first payment out by six months. This paper reported Alrosa's first-half loss on 6 August and does not restate it here. The duty and the cluster are the new facts; the loss is not.