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SAP announced an orderly exit from Russia in April 2022. The company said in October 2022 that its Russian data center had shut down, but that date did not establish that every customer contract or wind-down obligation had ended. What Russian customers could do depended on whether they used SAP’s cloud services or software installed in their own IT environment.
Is SAP leaving Russia?
Yes. SAP announced further steps toward an orderly exit from its Russian operations on April 19, 2022, after suspending sales in Russia and Belarus and beginning to wind down Russian cloud operations. SAP said it had operated in Russia for more than 30 years. In its April announcement, the company said it was shutting down all Russian cloud operations and intended to exit support and maintenance for on-premise products in Russia. SAP’s April 19, 2022 announcement describes those plans.
In an October 10, 2022 response, SAP said, “we have shut down our data center in Russia, and will have stopped our service business by the end of 2022.” This is SAP’s dated account of the data-center closure and its intended service-business timetable; it does not show that every customer arrangement or obligation ended on the same date. The response reproduced by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre contains the October statement.
SAP’s 2024 Form 20-F later said it had closed its remaining offices in Russia and Belarus, apart from a small space for a closure team. That statement concerns offices, not the status of every customer account or service. SAP’s 2024 Form 20-F describes the office closures.
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What happened to SAP cloud customers and their data?
For Russian cloud customers not prohibited from doing business with SAP because of sanctions, the company described three data options: deletion, return to the customer, or migration to a data center outside Russia. SAP emphasized that the data belonged to customers, not SAP. The April announcement said customers barred from doing business with SAP under sanctions did not receive these options.
- Deletion: SAP said eligible customers could have their data deleted.
- Return: Customers could have their data sent to them.
- Migration: Customers could move their data to a data center outside Russia. SAP said it would not renew the subscription of a Russian company choosing migration when its current subscription term expired.
SAP’s announcement does not establish which option any particular customer completed, or when an individual customer’s data transfer, deletion, or subscription expiry occurred. The available statements describe the options and policy, not the completion history of each account.
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Could Russian companies keep using SAP software?
Cloud services and on-premise installations are different. With cloud services, SAP operated the hosting infrastructure; with on-premise software, a customer had bought and installed the software to run in its own IT environment.
| Issue | SAP cloud services | Customer-run on-premise software |
|---|---|---|
| Who ran the environment? | SAP provided the cloud service. | The customer ran the installed software in its own IT environment. |
| What did SAP say about continued use? | SAP said it was shutting down Russian cloud operations; it described data options for eligible customers. | SAP said existing customers could continue using products already installed, regardless of SAP’s decision. |
| Support and maintenance | SAP was winding down cloud operations. | SAP intended to exit support and maintenance. Continued use of installed software was not a promise of continuing SAP support or maintenance. |
| Subscription renewal | For Russian companies choosing migration, SAP said it would not renew the subscription after the current term expired. | The cited announcement does not state a comparable subscription-renewal policy for on-premise products. |
SAP’s April statement said existing Russian customers using on-premise software “will still be able to use their products.” That refers to already-installed software; it should not be read as a commitment to provide ongoing maintenance or customer support. The cloud and on-premise distinction is set out in SAP’s exit announcement and its March 2022 statement, updated April 12.
What is established—and what is not
SAP’s statements establish its announced plans, its October 2022 report that the Russian data center had shut down, and the data options it described for eligible cloud customers. They do not establish how many customers completed a migration or deletion, the outcome for every contract, or whether all customer-specific wind-down steps were complete by a single date.
SAP’s current Trust Center page says its data-center overview is informational, is being gradually integrated, may omit some deployments, and can change. It therefore should not be treated on its own as a complete present-day inventory of SAP’s data-center locations. SAP’s data-center overview explains those limitations.
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