Yes—SAP left the Russian market. The company announced an orderly exit in April 2022 after stopping sales and beginning to wind down cloud operations. SAP said in October 2022 that its Russian data center had shut down and that its service business would stop by the end of that year. A later regulatory filing says SAP closed its remaining offices in Russia and Belarus except for a small space used by a closure team. Those milestones describe SAP’s own operations; they do not prove that every customer migration, data deletion, contract or support obligation ended on the same date.
When did SAP announce its Russia exit?
- March 2, 2022: SAP said it had stopped sales in Russia and subsequently Belarus.
- March 24, 2022: SAP said it was actively winding down cloud operations in Russia in a statement later updated on April 12 (SAP Germany statement).
- April 19, 2022: SAP announced further steps toward an orderly exit after more than 30 years operating in Russia. It said it was shutting down all Russian cloud operations and intended to leave support and maintenance for on-premise products (SAP’s Russia-exit announcement).
- October 10, 2022: In a response reproduced by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, SAP said: “we have shut down our data center in Russia, and will have stopped our service business by the end of 2022” (SAP response reproduced by BHRRC).
- 2024 filing: SAP’s Form 20-F said remaining offices in Russia and Belarus had been closed apart from a small space for a closure team (2024 Form 20-F).
Therefore, “SAP is shutting down” describes the process announced in 2022, not an activity that should be assumed to still be underway in 2026.
What happened to data hosted in Russia?
For Russian cloud customers that were not prohibited from doing business with SAP under sanctions, SAP described three choices:
- Have the data deleted.
- Receive the data back.
- Migrate the data to a data center outside Russia.
SAP emphasized that “The data in data centers belongs to customers, not to SAP.” Customers choosing migration were told that SAP would not renew their subscription when the current subscription term expired. Companies barred from doing business with SAP because of sanctions did not receive these options under SAP’s stated policy.
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Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →The announcements establish the options SAP offered, but not the completion status for any particular company. Publicly available statements reviewed for this article do not provide a verified customer count, data volume, migration total or outage measurement.
Cloud services and on-premise software were treated differently
The practical outcome depended on who operated the software and infrastructure.
| Issue | Cloud-hosted SAP service | Customer-run on-premise installation |
|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure operator | SAP operated the relevant cloud environment, including the Russian data-center operation that SAP said was shut down in October 2022. | The customer had purchased and installed the software in its own IT environment. |
| Data treatment | Eligible customers were offered deletion, data return or migration to a data center outside Russia. | Data remained in the customer’s environment unless the customer separately moved it. |
| Use of existing software | Cloud access was subject to the wind-down and the subscription term. | SAP said existing customers could continue using already-installed products regardless of its decision about support or engagement. |
| Support and maintenance | SAP said its service business would stop by the end of 2022. | SAP intended to exit support and maintenance; continued use did not mean continued SAP support. |
| Renewal | Russian companies selecting migration would not have subscriptions renewed when the current term expired. | Not stated as a renewal issue for perpetual, installed software; the relevant change was SAP’s planned withdrawal of support and maintenance. |
What “continue using” meant for on-premise customers
SAP wrote that “regardless of any SAP decision, existing customers in Russia using on-premise software will still be able to use their products.” This refers to software already installed in the customer’s environment. It does not promise future updates, maintenance, help-desk access or other services after SAP’s planned support exit.
Is SAP completely gone from Russia?
SAP’s own milestones show a completed operational withdrawal in stages: sales stopped in March 2022, cloud operations were wound down, the Russian data center was reported shut down in October 2022, and offices were later closed except for a small closure-team space. The 2024 filing addresses offices, not the legal status of every customer account, contract, license, data handover or employee obligation.
For current geographic details, SAP’s Trust Center data-center overview is informational, is being gradually integrated, may omit some deployments and can change. It should not be treated by itself as a complete inventory of every present or past SAP deployment.
What Russian companies should check
Cloud customers
- Identify whether the account was eligible for SAP’s deletion, return or migration choices.
- Confirm which option was selected and obtain written confirmation of completion.
- Check the original subscription end date and whether renewal was excluded.
- Preserve exported data, audit records, encryption keys and documentation needed to operate a replacement environment.
- Review sanctions and local data-residency requirements with qualified legal and compliance advisers.
On-premise customers
- Inventory installed SAP products, versions, licenses, customizations and integrations.
- Determine which maintenance contracts, patches, security updates and support channels have ended.
- Plan independent support, vulnerability management, backup and disaster-recovery procedures.
- Test that essential workloads continue to run without SAP-hosted services or license servers.
What SAP’s announcements do—and do not—establish
They establish SAP’s announced exit plan and its reported data-center and office milestones. They do not establish that every Russian customer migrated successfully, that all data was deleted or returned, or that every contract ended in October or December 2022. Those outcomes depended on each customer’s service, eligibility, subscription term and contractual circumstances.
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