Payment Methods for International Companies Ordering Flowers in Russia

Foreign procurement managers and executive assistants contact us every week with the same opening line: we need flowers delivered in Saint Petersburg or Moscow for a client event, but our finance team has no idea how to pay a Russian flower shop. The question is practical, not complicated, and the answer depends on three things — your company's legal structure, how quickly the order needs to go out, and whether your accounts payable team can process a foreign invoice before the bouquets wilt. We handle corporate orders daily and have worked through each of these scenarios, so here is exactly what is available, what each method requires, and where foreign companies typically lose time.

Why Payment Method Matters More Than Usual for Flower Orders

Flowers are perishable in a way that office supplies are not. A bouquet of garden roses — varieties like Juliet or Keira — holds its form for five to seven days under proper refrigeration at four to six degrees Celsius, but once it leaves the cold chain and starts moving toward the recipient, the clock runs faster. That means the payment confirmation and the delivery dispatch are tightly linked. If payment clears on Tuesday afternoon, the order goes out Tuesday. If it clears Wednesday morning, the flowers go out Wednesday, and the arrangement your client receives may be a day older than you planned. For international companies this timing pressure is real because cross-border payments, even fast ones, carry processing windows that domestic card payments do not. Understanding which method your finance department can actually execute — not just approve in principle — before you place the order saves the order itself. Corporate procurement teams that assume a standard SWIFT transfer will land in our account within hours are frequently surprised to find it arrives the following business day. We are not raising this to discourage wire transfers; they work well and we use them regularly with foreign entities. We raise it because choosing the wrong method for a time-sensitive event delivery is the single most common mistake international clients make. Match the payment method to the delivery deadline first, then sort out the paperwork.

Bouquets we can deliver

Bouquet of 3 white lilies

$47

★ 4.9 · 94 reviews

Mixed bouquet of 7 red roses and 8 alstroemerias

$83

★ 4.9 · 68 reviews

Bouquet of 11 red roses, Ecuador, 50 cm

$65

★ 4.9 · 60 reviews

Bouquet of 7 alstroemerias mix

$41

★ 4.8 · 52 reviews

Paying by International Bank Card

The fastest path for most international companies is a corporate card payment processed through our online checkout or sent as a payment link to the person placing the order. Visa and Mastercard issued outside Russia have faced restrictions since 2022, and this is the first thing foreign clients need to understand plainly: cards on the international Visa and Mastercard networks do not process through standard Russian acquiring terminals. This is not a shop policy; it is a network-level restriction that applies across Russia. What does work is UnionPay, which a growing number of non-Russian banks now issue, particularly in Asia, the Middle East and parts of Europe. If your company's bank offers a UnionPay corporate card, this is currently the smoothest card option for paying Russian suppliers directly. Some international companies solve this by having a local Russian-speaking employee or representative use a Russian-issued card and submit an expense claim internally — a workaround that is common and entirely legitimate, though it adds an internal step. When a card payment goes through, confirmation is immediate, which means the order can be dispatched within the same delivery window, typically one to two hours for Saint Petersburg and most major Russian cities we cover. For event orders involving large arrangements of peonies, hydrangeas or lisianthus where same-day timing is critical, card payment — when it is available — removes the most unpredictable variable from the process.

Wire Transfer and SWIFT Payments from Foreign Accounts

Wire transfer remains the standard for international B2B payments and it works for flower orders, with one adjustment to expectations: build in at least one full business day between payment initiation and confirmed receipt. Transfers from European, American or Asian banks to Russian accounts move through correspondent banking chains that have lengthened since 2022. Some transfers arrive same day; others take two to three business days depending on the originating bank, the intermediary banks involved, and whether the payment triggers any routine compliance review. We provide a full set of invoicing documents — invoice, contract if required, and bank details — in a format that satisfies standard accounts payable requirements. The invoice can be issued in English and in Russian, which matters if your finance team needs it in English for internal approval but the Russian tax documentation needs to accompany the transfer. For recurring corporate clients — companies that send flowers to Russian offices or clients on a regular schedule, say monthly or quarterly — wire transfer is often the cleanest long-term arrangement because it integrates naturally into existing AP workflows. The practical recommendation is this: if you are ordering for a specific event date, initiate the transfer at least three business days before delivery is needed. If you are ordering for a standing arrangement of, for example, weekly freesia and tulip deliveries to a Moscow office, set up the transfer schedule with that buffer built in from the start. Keep the payment reference clear and include the order number so we can match receipt to dispatch without delay.

Corporate Account and Invoicing Arrangements

For international companies that order flowers into Russia more than once or twice a year, a corporate account arrangement is worth setting up. This means we establish a formal agreement under which orders are placed, fulfilled and invoiced on a net-payment basis — typically net-15 or net-30 depending on order volume and frequency. The company receives a consolidated invoice covering all deliveries in the period, which simplifies reconciliation for finance teams managing multiple vendor relationships. Setting up a corporate account requires a short onboarding process: we need the company's legal name, registered address, VAT or equivalent tax identification number, and a contact name for accounts payable. This does not require the company to be registered in Russia. Foreign legal entities order on account regularly, and the documentation we produce complies with Russian accounting standards while also being legible to foreign finance departments. One practical note about Russian invoicing conventions that surprises foreign clients: Russian tax documents — specifically the forms known as schyot-faktura and akt — are formal legal documents with specific fields and formats required by the Federal Tax Service. We produce these for every corporate order because our Russian clients need them, and we can provide English-language summaries alongside them for your records. If your company's auditors or compliance team need specific language in the agreement — for example, clauses about data handling or delivery confirmation — raise this at account setup rather than mid-order. Modifications to standard agreement terms take a few days to process.

Currency, Exchange Rates and Invoice Currency for Foreign Clients

Our prices are set in Russian rubles because that is the currency of our costs — flowers sourced from Dutch auction houses and local Russian growers, refrigerated transport, and staff. When we invoice a foreign legal entity, the invoice is denominated in rubles unless the client specifically requests a foreign currency equivalent for their internal records. The actual payment, regardless of what currency your bank account holds, converts to rubles at the rate applied by the correspondent banking chain on the day the transfer processes. This means the ruble amount that arrives in our account may differ slightly from the ruble equivalent you calculated when you initiated the transfer, depending on exchange rate movement over the one to three day transfer window. For small orders this difference is negligible. For large event orders — say, a full venue arrangement involving fifty or more stems of garden roses, ranunculus and eucalyptus — it is worth building a small buffer into the transferred amount or confirming the rate with your bank before initiating. We do not charge foreign clients a currency surcharge. The invoice reflects the order total in rubles, and what we receive is what we receive. If a shortfall arrives due to exchange movement, we contact the client before dispatching to resolve it, which is another reason the three-day advance window for wire transfers matters. Same-day orders paid by wire are only possible if the transfer has already cleared, not when it is in transit.

What Russian Tax Documentation Foreign Companies Receive

This section addresses something foreign procurement teams frequently do not anticipate: Russian corporate transactions generate a specific set of tax and accounting documents that look unfamiliar to finance teams outside Russia. Every corporate flower order we fulfill produces at minimum a schyot — a proforma invoice — and after delivery, an akt vypolnennykh rabot, which is a completion certificate confirming the service was delivered. For VAT-registered Russian entities, we also produce a schyot-faktura, which is the VAT invoice required for input tax deduction. Foreign companies that are not registered for VAT in Russia do not need the schyot-faktura for their own tax purposes, but we issue it regardless because it is part of our own tax compliance. What this means practically for a foreign client is that you will receive documents in Russian with Cyrillic text. We provide an English summary of the key fields — order description, quantity, unit price, total, delivery address, delivery date — alongside the Russian originals. If your company's auditors require certified translation of Russian primary documents, that is a separate service you would arrange independently; we do not provide certified translation. For most foreign corporate clients, the English summary is sufficient for internal expense reporting. The documents are sent by email as PDFs within twenty-four hours of delivery confirmation. If your accounts payable team needs documents in a specific format or with particular reference numbers for your internal purchase order system, tell us when placing the order rather than after delivery.

Placing the Order and Confirming Payment Before Dispatch

The sequence that works reliably for international corporate orders is this: contact us with the order details first, receive a proforma invoice, initiate payment, and confirm dispatch once payment is verified. We do not dispatch on the basis of a payment initiation confirmation or a SWIFT copy alone — we dispatch when funds are confirmed in our account. This is standard practice for perishable goods and it protects both sides: you are not paying for flowers that were never sent, and we are not sending flowers that were never paid for. For card payments, confirmation is instant and dispatch follows within the hour. For wire transfers, we monitor incoming payments daily and notify the client as soon as receipt is confirmed. The order details we need to produce an accurate proforma are: delivery address including city and postal code, recipient name and phone number, preferred delivery window if any, flower preferences or specific varieties if you have them — for example, white spray roses and green trick dianthus for a corporate aesthetic — and whether a card message should be included. Delivery is available across Russia; timing varies by city but Saint Petersburg and Moscow orders are fulfilled within one to two hours of dispatch confirmation. For cities outside the two capitals, delivery windows depend on logistics routing and we confirm these per order. Do not leave international payment initiation to the day of the desired delivery date. The one consistent piece of advice we give every new foreign corporate client is the same: start the payment process two to three business days before the flowers need to arrive.

International companies order flowers into Russia regularly and successfully — the payment process is manageable once you know which method fits your timeline and your finance team's capabilities. Card via UnionPay is fastest. Wire transfer is most familiar to corporate accounts payable but needs a buffer of two to three business days. A corporate account arrangement suits companies with recurring needs and simplifies the paperwork on both sides. The flowers themselves — the ranunculus, the garden roses, the peonies in season — are ready; the only variable is making sure payment clears before the delivery window you need. We deliver bouquets across Russia in 1–2 hours.