The invoices are ninety days overdue. The Ukrainian buyer still answers emails, proposes a payment schedule, then misses the first instalment. Your credit insurer wants to know what you have done about it, and your finance director wants to know whether the money is gone.
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Usually it is not. But whether it comes back depends less on the strength of the claim than on the order of a handful of decisions: when to freeze, where to sue, and how the money will leave Ukraine once it has been recovered.
In short: a commercial debt owed by a Ukrainian company is recovered through a Ukrainian commercial court — or through arbitration, if the contract provides for it — and then through enforcement against the debtor’s accounts and property. Filing costs 1.5 per cent of the claim, between UAH 3,328 and UAH 1,164,800 in 2026, and 20 per cent less if the claim is filed electronically. A contested first-instance judgment typically takes three to nine months. The last step, moving recovered money out of Ukraine, runs through wartime currency rules — and that is the step to plan first, not last.
Is there a faster way than going to court?
No one can compel a Ukrainian company to pay without a decision. A collection agency can negotiate for you or buy your claim; it cannot freeze a bank account. Compulsion starts with a court judgment or an arbitral award and is carried out by an enforcement officer.
A demand letter is still worth sending, even though the law rarely requires one. Under Article 19 of the Commercial Procedure Code, pre-action settlement is mandatory only where the parties agreed on it or a statute prescribes it. So read your contract first: if it sets a claims procedure, follow it to the letter. If it does not, the letter fixes the amount, opens the paper trail — and now and then produces payment.
What the claim is worth, and how long you have
The claim grows while you wait. Unless the contract sets another rate, a debtor who is late with a monetary obligation owes the debt adjusted for inflation over the whole period of delay, plus 3 per cent a year (Article 625(2) of the Civil Code). Contractual penalties come on top.
Two rules cut it back. Penalties carry a one-year limitation period (Article 258(2)(1)), while the debt itself has the general three years (Article 257). And a court may reduce a penalty that significantly exceeds the creditor’s losses — see how Ukrainian courts reduce contractual penalties.
Watch the clock in general. During martial law Ukrainian limitation periods were first extended and then suspended. That rule was repealed with effect from 4 September 2025 (Law No. 4434-IX of 14 May 2025), and the periods are running again. A claim that looked safe in 2024 may be close to its deadline now.
Court or arbitration: the contract decides
If the contract contains an arbitration clause, the debt goes to arbitration — the ICAC in Kyiv, the ICC, the LCIA or whichever forum the clause names. A Ukrainian commercial court asked to hear the claim will leave it without consideration if the debtor objects in time (Article 226(1)(7) of the Commercial Procedure Code).
If there is no clause, the claim goes to the commercial court at the debtor’s location as recorded in the Unified State Register (Article 27). A foreign company sues on the same procedural footing as a Ukrainian one. The formal conditions are strict but predictable: every document in Ukrainian or with a translation whose translator’s signature is notarised — the Supreme Court treats anything less as not an official translation (ruling of 30 January 2020 in case No. 910/14949/18) — a power of attorney with an apostille, and filing through the Electronic Court. Nobody has to travel. Ukrainian commercial courts have worked throughout the war, with remote hearings.
The choice between the two, where you still have one, is set out in arbitration or court for a contract with a Ukrainian party. The questions a foreign creditor asks before filing — forum, service, security, enforcement — are collected in suing a Ukrainian company: 20 questions.
Freeze first
The best moment to ask for an asset freeze is before the debtor knows a claim is coming. The Commercial Procedure Code allows interim measures before the claim is filed, together with it, or at any later stage, if without them enforcement of the future judgment could become significantly harder or impossible (Article 136). The usual measure is an arrest of the debtor’s property and money, including money that third parties owe it (Article 137(1)).
Two conditions come with it. A freeze obtained before filing requires the claim to follow within ten days (Article 138(3)). And the measure must be proportionate to the claim (Article 137(4)).
Some debtors are out of reach. Once bankruptcy proceedings have been opened, the debtor’s property cannot be arrested outside the bankruptcy rules (Article 137(7)(3-1)). And during martial law and for two years after it, no interim measures at all may be taken against a company that is at once a critical-infrastructure operator, had its shares forcibly alienated during martial law, and is more than 50 per cent state-owned (Article 137(16)). The category is narrow. Check it anyway before you plan around a freeze.
What it costs and how long it takes
Court fee. For a money claim by a company: 1.5 per cent of the amount claimed, no less than one and no more than 350 subsistence minimums for able-bodied persons (Article 4 of the Law “On Court Fee”, No. 3674-VI of 8 July 2011). The 2026 subsistence minimum is UAH 3,328 (Article 7 of the State Budget Law for 2026, No. 4695-IX of 3 December 2025), so the fee runs from UAH 3,328 to UAH 1,164,800. Filed electronically, the rate is multiplied by 0.8 (Article 4(3)).
Small claims. A claim of up to 100 subsistence minimums — UAH 332,800 in 2026 — is a small claim (Article 12(5) of the Commercial Procedure Code), heard in simplified proceedings within 60 days of opening (Article 248).
Everything else. The Code gives the preparatory stage 60 days, extendable in exceptional cases by up to 30 more (Article 177(3)), and the hearing on the merits 30 days (Article 195). Listing practice runs slower than the Code: plan on three to nine months at first instance. An appeal must be lodged within 20 days of the judgment (Article 256(1)) and typically adds two to six months.
One cost foreign claimants do not expect: the defendant may ask the court to order a deposit as security for its legal costs. Nationality is not the test — having neither a registered presence nor property in Ukraine sufficient to cover those costs is one of three grounds (Article 125). The rule is unpacked in security for costs in Ukraine.
Enforcement: state or private enforcer
A judgment that has entered into force is enforced under a court order, issued electronically by the court of first instance (Article 327 of the Commercial Procedure Code). The creditor has three years to present it for enforcement (Article 12(1) of the Law “On Enforcement Proceedings”, No. 1404-VIII of 2 June 2016) — and chooses who enforces it.
| State enforcement service | Private enforcer | |
|---|---|---|
| Can act against | Any debtor | Not the state, state and municipal enterprises, companies in which the state holds more than 25 per cent, or companies whose property may not be sold under the law (Article 5(2) of Law No. 1404-VIII) |
| Who pays, and how much | The debtor: an enforcement fee of 10 per cent of the amount recovered, which goes to the state budget (Article 27(2)) | The debtor: a basic remuneration — a percentage set by the Cabinet of Ministers — recovered together with the debt (Article 31 of Law No. 1403-VIII) |
| Large claims | No threshold | In the first year of practice a private enforcer may not enforce decisions for UAH 20 million or more, or the equivalent in foreign currency (Article 5(2) of Law No. 1404-VIII). Worth checking the register before you choose one |
Before choosing, look the debtor up in the Unified Register of Debtors (Article 9): if other creditors are already enforcing, you will not be alone.
Wartime law has frozen enforcement in three places. It is suspended against Ukrzaliznytsia, the state railway (paragraph 10-3 of the Final and Transitional Provisions of Law No. 1404-VIII), and against the nationalised critical-infrastructure companies described above, until two years after martial law ends (paragraph 10-4). The third concerns the creditor, not the debtor: enforcement is suspended where the claimant is Russia, a Russian citizen or company, or a foreign company with a Russian beneficial owner, member or shareholder (paragraph 10-2). Check your own ownership chain before you file.
Getting the money out of Ukraine
Wartime currency control — paragraph 14 of Resolution No. 18 of the Board of the National Bank of Ukraine of 24 February 2022 — prohibits cross-border transfers from Ukraine except for a long list of permitted operations. Whether recovered money can leave depends on which exception your claim fits.
- The debtor was the state, a state enterprise or a company wholly owned by the state: there is an express exception for sums recovered under the Law on Enforcement Proceedings (subparagraph 47, added by NBU Resolution No. 56 of 3 May 2024).
- You sold goods imported into Ukraine and delivered after 23 February 2021: payments by the importer, including penalties and damages under the contract, fall within subparagraph 2.
- Services, loans and everything else: the exception has to be found elsewhere in the list, and for some claims there is none.
There is a harder point underneath the list, and it is the one worth planning for. Money that reaches you through an enforcement officer rather than from the debtor’s own payment is treated in practice as staying in Ukraine: the working assumption among practitioners is that the enforcement service cannot send foreign currency abroad, and there is no settled bank practice to argue against it. So the realistic question is not how to transfer the money out, but what to do with it here — pay Ukrainian suppliers, fund a local subsidiary, hold it against future purchases. Each of those needs an account in Ukraine, opened before the money arrives rather than after.
Plan this at the start. A creditor who wins, recovers, and only then learns that the money must stay in a Ukrainian account has won a smaller case than it thought.
Frequently asked questions
How long does debt collection in Ukraine take?
Three to nine months for a contested first-instance judgment, two to six more if there is an appeal, then enforcement: weeks if the debtor has money in its accounts, months if property has to be sold. A small claim — up to UAH 332,800 in 2026 — is heard within 60 days.
Can a foreign company sue in Ukraine without a Ukrainian subsidiary?
Yes. It sues in its own name, on the same procedural footing as a Ukrainian company, through a lawyer acting under a power of attorney.
Do we have to travel to Ukraine?
No.
Can we claim interest on the debt?
Yes. Unless the contract says otherwise: 3 per cent a year plus inflation losses for the whole period of delay (Article 625(2) of the Civil Code). Contractual penalties can be claimed as well, within a one-year limitation period, and the court may reduce them if the debtor asks.
Can we sell the debt instead of collecting it?
Yes, by assignment. Where the contract has an arbitration clause, the buyer normally takes the right to arbitrate with the claim — the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court settled that on 1 November 2023 in case No. 910/3208/22. What to write in the assignment so the question never arises is in does the arbitration clause travel with an assigned claim.
Can the recovered money be transferred abroad?
Often it cannot, and that is the honest answer. Paragraph 14 of NBU Resolution No. 18 has a clear exception for money recovered from the state and state enterprises, and one for payments under import contracts for goods. Beyond those, money collected through an enforcement officer is in practice expected to stay in Ukraine — so decide early what it will be used for here.
If a Ukrainian company owes you money, send us the contract, the unpaid invoices and whatever you know about the debtor’s assets and ownership. We will tell you where to sue, what can be frozen, and what realistically happens to the money once it is recovered. We respond within one business day.
Practice: Cross-Border Debt Recovery from Ukrainian Companies · Commercial Litigation in Ukraine
Written by Anna Tsirat, Doctor of Laws, partner at JVS Law. She has given expert evidence on Ukrainian law in PCA proceedings (The Hague) and writes the Ukrainian national monograph for the International Encyclopaedia for Civil Procedure (Wolters Kluwer).
Published 6 October 2026. Court fees are stated per the Law “On Court Fee” and the State Budget Law for 2026; procedural rules are cited to the Commercial Procedure Code and the Law “On Enforcement Proceedings” as in force. Wartime currency rules change frequently — verify the current position with the bank before relying on an exception.