One in five foreign sole proprietors in Ukraine holds Russian citizenship — OpenDataBot
As of mid-May 2026, there were 21,967 individual entrepreneurs with foreign citizenship registered in Ukraine. According to OpenDataBot, one in five of these individual entrepreneurs holds Russian citizenship.
OpenDataBot reported this, citing data from the Unified State Register.
“In total, there are currently 21,967 entrepreneurs with foreign citizenship in Ukraine. On average, 1,896 cases involving citizens of other countries have been opened annually since the start of the full-scale conflict,” the report states.
The most popular field of activity for individual entrepreneurs with foreign citizenship is retail trade, which accounts for nearly a third of foreign entrepreneurs—6,346 individual entrepreneurs. Other popular sectors include warehousing (2,746), wholesale trade (1,732), HoReCa (1,703), and the IT sector (1,624).
The capital remains the main business hub for foreigners; specifically, one in four such entrepreneurs is registered in Kyiv—5,216 sole proprietors. Kharkiv Oblast ranks second with 3,506 businesses, while Odesa Oblast rounds out the top three, with 3,295 foreign sole proprietors operating there.
In total, these three regions account for nearly 55% of all foreigners who have started their own businesses in Ukraine.
By citizenship, the largest group among entrepreneurs consists of citizens of the Russian Federation—4,593, or one in five foreign sole proprietors. Citizens of Vietnam (1,994), Azerbaijan (1,635), Uzbekistan (1,469), and Moldova (1,118) are also actively doing business in Ukraine. In total, nearly half of all foreign sole proprietors come from these countries.
As reported, 63,920 individual entrepreneurs were registered in Ukraine between January and March 2026; 52,623 businesses closed during this period.
There are nearly 22,000 individual entrepreneurswith foreign citizenship operating in Ukraine, the majority of whom are citizens of the Russian Federation.
The Memorandum on Transparency of the Payment Services Market, under which banks in 2025 introduced limits on transfers from individual accounts of 50,000–100,000 UAH per month, is planned to be extended starting in August to include transfers from the accounts of newly established and “dormant” individual entrepreneurs and legal entities.
On April 29, the Cabinet of Ministers approved a resolution that officially extends the rules for calculating average wages for social insurance payments to sole proprietors, self-employed individuals, and members of farming enterprises. Now, periods during which entrepreneurs were exempt from paying the unified social contribution (USC), particularly during martial law, are included in the calculation and do not reduce the amount of sick leave or maternity leave benefits.
