The reform of Russian civil legislation, which began in 2008, has not yet affected the special part of the Civil Code on certain types of contracts, and remains incomplete. At the same time, one of the most problematic contracts is the contract for the provision of paid services, the regulation of which in the code is too broad and fragmentary.In the context of the growing role of the service sector in modern economic turnover, such a state of legal regulation of the contract for the provision of services for a fee in domestic civil law is inadmissible.The choice of directions for improving the legislative regulation of a service agreement should be based on an analysis of the legal nature of this agreement and the features of its theoretical design.

The purpose of the article is to identify the main shortcomings of the legal regulation of the contract for the provision of paid services and to determine areas for its improvement.

The methods of research are general methods of study (analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction,  system analysis) and methods of legal science (methods of literal, systematic, teleological and historical interpretation of legal norms).

The issues of the theoretical design of a contract for the provision of services for a fee are considered taking into account the dogmatic development of this issue in domestic civil law and the current state of the legal regulation of this contract in modern legislation.It is concluded that a service agreement is always aimed at achieving a certain result in the form of providing services of proper quality.The need to improve the general provisions on the contract for the provision of services is argued and specific directions for its modernization are proposed.Services are identified that require additional regulation in special paragraphs of the Civil Code on certain types of service agreements.