You arrive at the airport, check in your luggage and head for security and customs, wondering if this time you’ll have to take your shoes off, when a border guard says: “You are forbidden from leaving the country.”

Mikhail Zelensky

Something like that happened to Mikhail Ugarov, artistic director of the theatre company Teatr.doc, who missed his flight to Berlin as a result.

Only after a few hours did Ugarov receive an explanation as to why the FSB Border Service had detained him: unpaid rent. The matter is far from being resolved because, in the director’s own words, he “has never lived and does not live” at the address in question. Now he has to figure out how he ended up on the bailiffs’ hit list. How does one avoid such a situation?

Outstanding debt is the most common tool used to prevent travel abroad, and is even prescribed in Russia’s border control law. The measure applies to any debt: from alimony and fines to housing and utility bills. Right now, millions of Russians have no right to leave the country because the bailiffs have claims against them. Consider also that only one in three Russian citizens have an international passport.

Since 2013, the border is not closed to all debtors, only those owing in excess of 10,000 roubles. The Federal Bailiff Service (FBS) has worked hard to ensure that travellers are not caught unawares: information can be found on the FBS website or at gosuslugi.ru (a public service portal, including a mobile app with a special widget).

For those who travel on a regular basis, checking these services has become as commonplace as getting health insurance. And as the unfortunate Ugarov can testify, you should do it anyway even if you’re clean: rely on the system being error-free and you might miss your flight.

In October 2015, the list of usual debtors was supplemented with bankrupts, i.e. Russian citizens who have shown in court that they cannot settle their debts. They too can be prohibited from leaving the country until they square with their creditors. The new law has so far affected some 40,000 individuals.

Unsecured debt may be the most common “restraining order,” but not the only one. Care also needs to be taken when applying for a new or replacement international passport, because a simple typo in the form is said to be “knowingly false information” in the language of the law.

The penalty for such a violation is a one-month travel ban. But in practice it means simply having to reapply. Moreover, if the old passport is still valid, it can still be used to slip across the border.

The law allows the courts to revoke the passport of any person involved in a criminal case at almost any stage of the proceedings: as soon as you’re deemed a suspect, travel abroad could be off-limits. And your passport won’t be returned, even if the punishment did not entail a custodial sentence. A striking example is the Federal Migration Service’s refusal to allow opposition leader Alexei Navalny to attend a court hearing in Germany because his suspended sentence in Russia had not expired.

Lastly, travel abroad is a no-no for conscripts and FSB employees. The restriction holds throughout their entire period of service, but can be prolonged – if they handled secret information.

Access to state secrets results in the longest travel curbs. The standard moratorium is up to five years from the most recent task involving state secrets. But in special cases the restriction can be extended to ten years.

Alongside these official prohibitions are informal or “internal” ones. For instance, an unofficial ban came into force for the Russian security services after the Crimea events and the outbreak of hostilities in the Donbas region. A year later President Vladimir Putin described the measure as “redundant,” and the ban was slowly lifted.

This article first appeared in Slon