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- Prices are rising: the self-employed have caught up with full-time workers in terms of income growth
Prices are rising: the self-employed have caught up with full-time workers in terms of income growth
The incomes of the self-employed began to grow at the same rate as the salaries of full-time employees, Izvestia found out. During the year, freelancers began to receive more by 14.2%, and employees from hiring — by 13.5%. Payments for repairs and construction increased the fastest among the self—employed - by 20%. Out-of-state employees have long been perceived by businesses as a way to reduce costs, but now this is not entirely true. You have to compete with the same money for a qualified performer. How the upcoming tightening of the rules for working with freelancers will affect this is in the Izvestia article.
How much do the self-employed earn
During the year, the incomes of the self-employed jumped by 14.2% at once. From August 2025 to the same month of 2026, the median figure (half of the performers received less than the specified amount, half — more) reached 31.98 thousand rubles. This is stated in a study of the Qugo self-employed business platform, which Izvestia has. They analyzed the data of almost 81 thousand performers.
This is comparable to the growth of nominal salaries in hiring. By the end of 2025, they added 13.5%, and in the first half of 2026, the pace ranged from 10 to 15%, depending on the month.
At the same time, the absolute amounts of payments to the self-employed cannot be directly compared with the average salary in employment. According to Rosstat, in May 2026, it amounted to about 110 thousand rubles. Most of the out-of-state performers work part-time: some work with several clients, and some do not complete tasks every month. Therefore, it was the revenue growth that equaled, not the total amount.
Payments to freelancers increased the fastest over the year in repairs and construction — by 20.3%, in computer assistance — by 18.3%, in design — by 13.7% and in accounting services — by 10%. Two major categories remained virtually unchanged: transportation repairs (-0.8%) and support and call center services (-2.6%).
Payments in web development have significantly decreased by 10.1%. At the same time, this is one of the highest-paid categories in terms of income: the median payout here is 71.1 thousand rubles per month.
There is a noticeable decline in delivery, where the indicator has been increasing at a faster pace for several years in a row. Median payments to couriers decreased by 9% over the year.
This indicator is really growing faster among the self-employed, the director said. hh.ru according to the research of Maria Ignatova. This service has data on median payments to self-employed employees higher than that of Qugo.
"The average check is now reaching 129 thousand rubles, which is 33.9 thousand more than a year earlier, as well as 4 thousand more than at the beginning of 2026," she cited the figures.
The largest number of offers for freelancers are in retail (about 12 thousand), in the IT sector (more than 4 thousand), in finance (3 thousand), as well as in education (2.3 thousand).
At the same time, transportation and logistics (with a median income of about 145 thousand rubles), construction (99.5 thousand), the financial sector (82.4 thousand), IT (79 thousand) and catering (68 thousand rubles) remain the most profitable for the self-employed. hh.ru .
Izvestia sent a request to the Federal Tax Service about how much the self-employed have earned since the beginning of the year and which areas turned out to be the most profitable.
Why payments to the self-employed are increasing
Out-of-state employees have long been perceived by businesses as a way to reduce costs, but the situation has changed somewhat, experts say.
— The price of work here is growing at exactly the same rate as in hiring. You have to compete with the same money for a qualified performer," said Elena Usacheva, CEO of Qugo.
According to her, the economic meaning of such a model is shifting. Companies are choosing this format not for the sake of betting, but for the sake of flexibility — the ability to connect people to a specific amount of tasks and not fulfill permanent obligations, the expert noted.
The largest number of self—employed people is registered in construction and repair - about 7%, or slightly more than 1 million people, said Lyudmila Ivanova-Shvets, Associate Professor of the Basic Department of Human Resources Management at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation. In the context of the crisis in the industry, many construction companies are reducing the number of full-time employees and switching to freelance contracts where it is more appropriate and efficient.
It is much easier and often cheaper to hire self-employed teams at the facility as needed, explained Maxim Gmyrya, founder of the Sequoia Group Risk Management Agency. Flexibility is important for companies. This format becomes more convenient than recruiting a bunch of people and paying them salaries for downtime.
— In addition, the same money paid to a freelance and a full-time employee costs the company very differently. For example, 100 rubles in the hands of a business employee costs about 149 rubles, and 100 rubles for a self—employed person will cost the company about 105 rubles," he explained.
Salaries and incomes of the population are growing against the background of staff shortages and general inflation in the country, and the self-employed are raising prices in response to higher own costs, said Dmitry Zemlyansky, director of the IPEI Research Center for Spatial Analysis and Regional Diagnostics at the Presidential Academy.
The law on the platform economy will come into force on October 1, 2026, and then the situation may change. Companies will have to consider not only the cost of work, but also the cost of a properly structured process, concluded Elena Usacheva.
The contractor will not be able to work for one customer for more than 60 hours per month for six months in a row. In this way, the authorities deal with situations where the self-employed actually performs full-fledged tasks as a full-time employee, but without official employment and social guarantees. The platforms will be required to track the opening hours for each customer.
— The initiative to limit work with a single customer is a natural reaction to the practice of tax optimization by large companies. In the current budget situation, the measure is justified," Dmitry Zemlyansky believes.
Nevertheless, according to Lyudmila Ivanova-Shvets, as a result, the income of the self-employed is likely to decrease slightly.
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