There are nearly 22,000 sole proprietors with foreign citizenship operating in Ukraine, the majority of whom are Russian citizens
As of mid-May 2026, there were approximately 21,967 individual entrepreneurs with foreign citizenship registered in Ukraine. The largest group among them consists of Russian citizens—roughly one in five foreign individual entrepreneurs.
This is reported by OpenDataBot.
Overall, during the full-scale war, an average of approximately 1,896 foreigners register as sole proprietors in Ukraine each year.
The largest number of such entrepreneurs are concentrated in:
▪️ Kyiv — 5,216 sole proprietors;
▪️ Kharkiv Oblast — 3,506;
▪️ Odesa Oblast — 3,295.
These three regions together account for approximately 55% of all foreign entrepreneurs in Ukraine.
The largest groups of foreign sole proprietors:
▪️ citizens of the Russian Federation — 4,593;
▪️ citizens of Vietnam — 1,994;
▪️ citizens of Azerbaijan — 1,635;
▪️ citizens of Uzbekistan — 1,469;
▪️ citizens of Moldova — 1,118.
Together, representatives of these five countries account for nearly half of all foreign entrepreneurs.
The most popular sectors of activity:
▪️ retail trade — 6,346 sole proprietorships;
▪️ warehousing — 2,746;
▪️ wholesale trade — 1,732;
▪️ HoReCa — 1,703;
▪️ IT sector — 1,624.
Experts note that foreign entrepreneurs most often choose sectors with a relatively low barrier to entry and high business mobility.
The Memorandum on the 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 scheduled to be extended starting in August to cover 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, the self-employed, 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.
