How to obtain Residency in Ukraine
Ukraine is not for everyone, but for contrarian investors, entrepreneurs, and digital professionals, it represents one of the most accessible and undervalued residency options in Europe for tax purposes.
Whether treated as an active base or a long-term post-war call option there are a number of pathways available granting permanent residency.
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Pathways to residency in Ukraine
- Permanent Residency through investment
- Residency through LLC creation and work permit
- Permanent Residency for IT workers
- Residency through volunteering
- Residency through Marriage
- Residency through family reunification
Residency by Investment (Permanent Residency)
The residency by investment option, though widely promoted online, is not straightforward.
- It takes at least a year to process as it is quite bureaucratic.
- It is promoted online as “buy $100,000 of real estate in Ukraine and get residency”. It’s not that simple, because you must hold the real estate in a Ukrainian company, which comes with some negative tax consequences.
However, it is one of the best ways to obtain permanent residency. And while you wait for your permanent residency, Taras can help you obtain temporary residency through the company you created.
Permanent residency in Ukraine is truly permanent. As things stand it does not expire nor does it require you to spend time in the country once you have it.
LLC Creation & Work Permit (2 Year Visa)
Create a company and apply on the basis on being the director of that company. In this case you can obtain a 2 year temporary residency, renewable.
Required documents to obtain residency in Ukraine through LLC creation
- Passport
- Marriage and birth certificates for your family members
- For residency through a local company – the company documents and proof you are registered as the director
- Medical insurance
All documents needs to be translated into Ukrainian. The lawyer will take care of this. Documents from back home must be apostilled.
After 5 years of actually living in Ukraine you can apply for permanent residency.
IT Workers (Permanent Residency)
If you are an IT worker, you can apply for permanent residency immediately through a special government programme to encourage innovation as opposed to temporary residency.
It’s a truly unique and attractive programme, especially combined with a 6% tax rate when one creates a local FOP (Private Entrepreneur status).
Volunteering (Temp Residency)
The simplest way to obtain residency, if you don’t care about the permanent aspect or don’t want to invest $100,000, is to either become a volunteer (valid for 1 year).
I personally obtained residency in Ukraine prior to the war
My lawyer in Ukraine, Taras, can help you jump through all the bureaucratic hoops. He speaks English, Ukrainian and Russian fluently. He’ll help you in person at the immigration department, as opposed to just handing you over the files and leaving you on your own to go deal with the bureaucracy. He personally helped me get residency in Ukraine. I was very happy with his service. He helped me from A to Z to obtain residency in Ukraine
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Meet Taras
Taras has been helping foreigners conduct business in Ukraine for many years now. He can help in all matters related to immigration, business law, and real estate transactions.
He went to law school Lviv, has been working as a lawyer for a number of years in Kyiv, and processes more than a hundred residence permits and over a dozen real estate transactions per year.
Transcript of “How to obtain Residency in Ukraine”
LADISLAS MAURICE: Hello everyone, from beautiful Kyiv. Today we’ll be discussing how to obtain residency in Ukraine together with my immigration and real estate attorney, Taras. Taras, how are you?
TARAS: Hi Ladislas. I’m fine. Thank you. Let’s discuss. It’s really interesting topic.
LADISLAS MAURICE: So we’ll be discussing temporary residency, permanent residency and then path to citizenship as well.
The ways to obtain Residency in Ukraine
LADISLAS MAURICE: So, Taras, what are the different ways one can obtain residency here?
TARAS: The first step every time it will be temporary, most time, temporary residence permit and we have mostly two most common ways which we recommend and go with our clients. First is by job. Basically, it’s either you are hired or you create your own company. We have no limitation of minimum salary, so you just don’t need to pay 10 times salary as it was previously, you pay regular one is like 8,500 hryvnias per month.
LADISLAS MAURICE: In dollars that’s like…
TARAS: 200 in total, it will be with taxes, because you pay 40% tax. And sometimes, if you do business in Ukraine especially, it’s the most proper way to do it. You have for two years, straightforward, so you don’t need to each year renew it. And basically, the most used way before war, when it was without even paying salary, you could do it. So just pay for a work permit. Now you need to pay, but still it’s fine. And second option if you are not sure for a long term or you’re not doing business, we have a lot of partners with NGO, non-governmental organization that help as a front or they just do lectures, studies, etc. You enroll there, pay fee as a part of our legal fee, basically organization fee. They do for their job and it’s also legal way to get residence permit for one year. Each year can be extended and you have no maintenance fee. So mostly now this two options for temporary residence permits.
Ukrainian Permanent Residency opportunity for IT professionals
TARAS: So for permanent one, still very interesting, I think most unique program is for IT skills. You don’t need to be in Ukraine but you need to have income and experience for your IT background, either your software developer or connected area, there is a lot of specialties, like 20 in the list. And there is no limitation. You apply, you confirm, basically we say how to do it, really easy, with one letter from either your employer or your own company. And you have possibility to get straightforward immigration permit for lifelong term, six months for application, not 12 as it was before war, so it’s now faster. But you need to apply here in Ukraine. Obviously again, if we’re saying about foreigners mostly now, those that interested they stay in Ukraine, so it’s more or less not a problem. Also, still…
LADISLAS MAURICE: You need to stay in Ukraine?
TARAS: No, I mean apply in Ukraine.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Okay, so you apply, you can leave and then come back.
TARAS: Again, formally, you can even apply in embassy, we started with one client but never finished because still there is, for example, medical check, there is some provisions how it should be done, it’s only in Ukraine, so if you do it abroad, it might be a problem. That’s why we recommend just for the sake of the procedure and faster process to do it in Ukraine.
Residency by Investment in Ukraine
TARAS: Second one is investment, we still have foreigners that do this stuff, you can put 100,000 under your company through the investment account to Ukraine, then either hold this cash, either buy bonds that give 3% on per annum for dollars or buy real estate and get on this basis as investor permanent residence permit. Which is also never expires, so then you can do whatever you want with your money, you can move it back. During war there is capital control, but generally it’s not a very big problem to use this funds wisely.
Ukrainian Permanent Residency by marriage or having children
TARAS: And the third basically way for your immigration permit is through wife, marriage, kids. All that stuff works. With wife you have to be in marriage as it was before, two years to get the permanent one, so you start with temporary. With kid you start straightforward with immigration permit and it also leads for citizenship if you’re really in the long term relationship. So basically these are main types and all works. Still foreigners come not so much as it was before and not from depressed countries as we have a lot of videos that India or Bangladesh is not true. In fact, mostly it’s Western countries or Turkey or connected close Asia like Turkmenistan, etc.
LADISLAS MAURICE: So a lot of ways to get residency here. The company one is really easy, essentially create a company, pay yourself minimum wage. A lot of countries have this in the world. Um, people often forget that this option exists. The volunteer thing, interesting. The IT one is really interesting. So essentially if you do any kind of work online related somehow to IT.
TARAS: Caveat, you need to have good income. 33,000 per year, but I think it’s more or less doable.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, for any Westerner it should be doable. And then you have permanent residency for life in Ukraine. People might think, oh, but this is crazy, Ukraine. It’s a call option, right? So you just do this, you do the process, you come here on vacation for a week or two, do the paperwork. You don’t have to come to, you know, the front line. You can do this in the West of Ukraine or come to Kyiv, whatever. And then you will have this call option on, you know, whatever Ukraine will be later on if you don’t want to come during the war. So I think this is a very low-cost call option on something that could potentially be very interesting.
TARAS: I agree.
LADISLAS MAURICE: And then the child. So essentially if you impregnated a Ukrainian anywhere in the world, um, as long as you recognize the kid, uh, you do not need to be married, correct?
TARAS: Correct.
LADISLAS MAURICE: You just need the, I guess…
TARAS: certificate of birth and confirmation that you are father of Ukrainian child. Yeah, of course you need to formally to confirm that child doesn’t have other citizenship if you want to go with your citizenship, but if it’s for immigration permit, it doesn’t matter, child can have legally now, can have different multiple citizenship.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Cool. So permanent residency from day one as well if you have a Ukrainian child. So this is also interesting. Effectively getting residency in Ukraine is easy, and I think it’s a it’s a good call option on the future. I’m not saying here come to Ukraine, it’s great, blah blah. Like obviously there are a lot of problems, it’s sad during the wartime. If you’re watching this video and the war’s over, you know, great, but interesting call option.
TARAS: Sure.
Contact Taras to obtain Residency in Ukraine
LADISLAS MAURICE: Great. So next step is there’s a link below with more information on the documents, etc., how to get the process started. And then Taras can help you from A to Z. I mean, Taras, you helped me obtain residency here in in Ukraine in the past. The process went very smoothly, great service. I’m very happy to recommend your services.
TARAS: Yeah, it’s a pleasure and also important to find good lawyer. I’m not recommending myself only, but there is a lot of stuff in Ukraine that you can manage and get very bad advices. Honestly, it’s happening, but in immigration you need to have somebody that advise you because still process easy, you need to know how to navigate and to manage all the stuff to get as smooth as it possibly can be.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, because even though Ukraine is modernizing a lot of things, it’s still pretty bureaucratic, especially when it comes to immigration services. I feel.
TARAS: Especially during war time when they have a lot of more checks, so better to have a good lawyer.
LADISLAS MAURICE: All right, so link below. Thank you, Taras.
TARAS: Thank you.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Make sure to download my free ebook, 12 Mistakes to Avoid When Investing in International Real Estate, which you can find on my website, link below, and feel free to follow me on Instagram @thewanderinginvestor. I look forward to hearing from you.