Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed Decree No. 1088, which establishes the possibility of presenting electronic information from a driver's license and vehicle registration certificate (STS) to a traffic police inspector. The data will be presented as a QR code through the national messenger MAX.

This will work as follows: the driver creates a digital ID in MAX, after which, in the "Auto" section, they can open their electronic driver's license or STS and show the corresponding QR code to the inspector. The traffic police officer scans the code with their device and receives the necessary information from state systems.

However, paper documents are not going away. The use of digital driver's licenses and STS will be voluntary, and the electronic version will be valid on par with the original. Therefore, drivers can still present their plastic driver's license and paper STS if it is more convenient for them.

The ability to present documents from a smartphone is not entirely new. Electronic STS and driver's licenses are already available in the "Gosuslugi Auto" application. STS appeared there earlier, and since 2022, the service allows the use of QR codes for driver's licenses as well. However, previously, such a system was not enshrined in traffic rules as a full-fledged method of presenting documents.

The main difference of the new scheme is that this method is now directly recognized by traffic rules. The decree was published on August 31, and the changes are expected to come into force on September 8, 2026. However, the technical capability to display QR codes directly in MAX will be added later – the Ministry of Digital Development promises to implement it in the coming months.

The new method also has an obvious limitation – dependence on digital infrastructure. If the driver or inspector does not have access to the necessary services and communication, checking electronic documents may be difficult. Therefore, in practice, it is too early to consider paper driver's licenses and STS unnecessary.

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