Let’s be very clear: while I myself went to Ukraine a few months ago, I absolutely do not recommend people move there to take advantage of the tax benefits.
That being said, I noticed a surprising amount of foreigners living in Ukraine despite the situation:
- Foreigners already living in Ukraine prior to the war who consider it home, and don’t plan on leaving
- Foreign mercenaries
- Deep state spooks
- Idealists who who come to “help Ukraine” by raising funds, working with the neighborhood associations to make camouflage nets, prepare food, etc.
- Sex tourists feeding off the misery, typically Israelis and other Middle Easterners
- Frontier investors looking for a bargain
- People who get a kick out of being in a country at war and for whom this is an opportunity to “feel alive” and feel that they are witnessing history.
- People who want super easy permanent residency through the IT worker route, as a call option on whatever Ukraine will be after the war. Permanent residency in Ukraine is truly permanent. As things stand there are no physical presence requirements to maintain it.
Objectively, not many normal people apart from the last group are choosing to move to Ukraine.
But the sad part is that life goes on. People adapt to the war. Don’t think it won’t happen to you. History teaches us that wars can and do expand in spite of so many rational reasons for them not to.
We discuss who is moving to Ukraine with my Ukrainian lawyer Taras.
Taras can help you obtain residency in Ukraine. It’s obviously not something we recommend at The Wandering Investor though this easy permanent residency route can be obtained in just a few days, in border towns far from the hot war.
And if you are of Ukrainian origin, getting citizenship by ancestry in Ukraine has never been easier. You can do so without getting drafted and held back in Ukraine.
To Peace,
The Wandering Investor
Available services in Ukraine:
- How to obtain Citizenship by Descent in Ukraine
- How to obtain Residency in Ukraine
- A Real Estate Lawyer in Kyiv, Ukraine
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Transcript of “Who is Moving to Ukraine During Wartime?”
LADISLAS MAURICE: Hello everyone from beautiful Kyiv. Today we’ll be discussing who is crazy enough to move to Ukraine during times of war together with our immigration and real estate attorney Taras. Taras, how are you?
TARAS: I’m fine. Thank you, Ladislas. How are you?
LADISLAS MAURICE: Good. So, I mean, you deal with a lot of immigration applications. Who’s crazy enough to get residency here?
Who is moving to Ukraine during war?
TARAS: First of all, I wouldn’t say you need to be as crazy enough because really we have five years going on. So everybody knows what they can expect. Of course, it’s not the best place in the world, I think, to be currently. However, you are in Kyiv, more than 1 million people here by the daily basis, so you are getting used to it. Is the first point. Second, most of my clients, I was supposed before like during first year, 2022, is was a bad year for business. Mostly nobody came, only few that extended. From starting, let’s say, end of 2023 and starting 2024, we really had a new wave of clients. First, it was clients that was expecting for rebuild of Ukraine, some program, some business to do, and just happened to be that they loved this place. I think it’s really easy to do, since we have still same good service, nice prices, basically European lifestyle in in Kyiv you can get for as cheap as any country I think, maybe Moldova can only compete.
LADISLAS MAURICE: I was surprised. I mean, I hadn’t come back to Ukraine since the beginning of the war. I was expecting things to have become a lot more expensive. I was expecting, you know, wartime inflation. I’m not seeing it.
TARAS: Correct. Because we have Ukrainian currency that’s still backed by support from EU and that’s managed to keep, of course, not for every Ukrainian, some prices are high, but if you are a Westerner, if you have at least 1,000 plus dollars, you really can get more or less good life here. Third type of clients is those that really have connections with some kind of programs in Ukraine. We really had a wave of new type of either diplomatic or not only diplomatic. For example, we have Buffett Foundation that really made a lot of stuff in Kyiv area and they moved, of course, a lot of guys with them.
LADISLAS MAURICE: What are they doing here?
TARAS: They’re doing rebuild. So they funded for agriculture. They fund farmers that do stuff here. They fund real estate development also in some of areas for those that moved from other cities in east and they invested 100,000 millions during uh these two years or three that they done. So it’s basically the biggest private help outside of governments. Also still same people that was even before war starting to come back just you want to be connected still with Ukraine, good, as I said, lifestyle, food, girls, whatever. And the only problem we still have is flights. You really need to be ready to spend one day in traveling to Ukraine and out to Ukraine. And also it’s uh good for us since more people want to stay longer than 90 days. Before, you could go jump on the plane, next day you’re here or even two hours forever. Now you need to plan manage more and this longer stay is now more preferable for those that really uh like to be. For investment, we had uh as I said clients that was uh willing to buy for cheap, for example, real estate because war, it was 2022, maybe possible. Now it’s not, so it’s not the part that you can expect to get good return on investment. Prices are higher. However, you will not be able to uh generate some uh generational wealth, let’s say, since market is more compact.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Except if you want to speculate in the East. I was looking at real estate in Kharkiv.
TARAS: Yeah.
LADISLAS MAURICE: It’s pretty cheap. It’s like you’re looking at a thousand.
Investing in agricultural land in Ukraine
TARAS: And we had clients that really interested in agricultural land, uh it opened uh during the war, by the way, as a open market. There is limitation for foreigners as you can buy as individual. However, through company and structuring, you can really buy agricultural land as cheap as uh few hundred dollars per hectare, which is like 10 times less than in Europe.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Really?
TARAS: Especially in eastern part. In central, it’s 1,000 more or less plus minus per hectare, US dollars or euro, and it’s really good return on investment because you get like 15 to 20% per annum, of course, in Grivna. However, it’s like
LADISLAS MAURICE: Really?
TARAS: Yeah, because all this land is uh still big uh agricultural companies like.
LADISLAS MAURICE: 15, 20%? Like if you were just renting out?
TARAS: 15, 20% in hrivnia. No, you’re renting out. You’re not buying.
LADISLAS MAURICE: 15, 20% land. You’re going to have people from this video contacting you to broker land deals.
TARAS: It’s really good deal and the capital appreciation. So the most important is that you can expect like in again, as soon as we have this finished or as soon as we enter EU, I think double, we really easy to expect double on your investment if you buy any land that is not occupied and is not under Russian control. And also we have front line very stable now for last, I think, year or two. And as I said, yes, it’s not the best experience, but you have cities like Lviv, Uzhhorod, et cetera, that they have minor impact of war. They don’t even have curfew. You can do whatever you do. And we have again clients that bought their real estate in 2023. Now it’s double in Uzhhorod, I mean, because it’s really market that goes up and Lviv in terms of real estate. Kyiv, it’s not so much, but um, anyways, it’s nice, I think, as you said, mostly in your videos that as a plan B, even during war, I think Ukraine is viable for some type of people that are ready to uh take this risk. Risk of being harmed or something in Ukraine, I think, not more than in traffic anywhere in the world. Of course, it’s not.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Less. I like I feel on a lot of these roads, I feel more in danger when driving around.
TARAS: Yeah. If you read news, it’s bombings, it’s really overwhelming, but if you stay here for at least one month, you will see that it’s not such a big and or huge risk. It’s not beautiful, not good, but still it’s manageable.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, hopefully it doesn’t get worse. Okay, so you have people coming here to do business, you have people that just fell in love with the place, there’s probably people that got married, moved here, had kids here.
TARAS: Yeah, sure, those ones that have Ukrainian connection any type with relatives is still always. You will have these people coming and go. It was before war, it will be during war.
Volunteer Program for Temporary Residency Permit in Ukraine
This doesn’t change, but mostly, as I said, from type of new clients, I see people that really are interested to help Ukrainians. This was crazy for me to have such a client. And of course they need to have a way somehow to stay. And here this volunteer program is perfect for them because it’s generally what they do. They don’t do business, they just want to come to see people, to give lectures, to have some other uh connections with communities.
LADISLAS MAURICE: What’s the volunteer program?
TARAS: Volunteer program for temporary residency permit gives you basically flat fee to start. It’s like as minimum as $900 per year. Each year you extend for $700. Perfect type of one year stay in Ukraine. Again, five years if you stay, you apply then for permanent, also legal. And uh yeah, so it’s was really that’s part of new client that we see.
Citizenship for foreigners who served in Ukrainian army
And maybe the last one is those that were serving duty, foreigners in army. It was a mess with legislation. Now they have a good basis based on this fact that they served, but still before this year even they ask us to help with uh their document paperwork. And again, you have as a foreigner possibility to join and to go out any time if you want. If you’re Ukrainian, you can join army, but you cannot go out of it. If foreigners, they can join and if something wrong, six months they can go out. Uh and have all these benefits also citizenship included.
LADISLAS MAURICE: So Ukraine has a program like Russia? Because I think Russia is if you serve for one year and then you get Russian citizenship.
TARAS: I don’t know in Russia, but in Ukraine we finally get for these guys that fight really nice terms. They don’t need to pass exams. They need to sign the applications that they will further down the road somewhere do this. And if you served in army more than six months, you can get citizenship.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Six months. Yeah. So there’s like a competition with Russia. Russia says one year, Ukraine says six months.
TARAS: Yeah.
LADISLAS MAURICE: And do you get such clients that ask for this?
TARAS: Most citizenship I have not, but as I said, we had clients that really will help. For example, you served in army, now you don’t want it, you want to stay. And there was no good legal way. Now there is based on the fact that you even served, so you don’t need to generate any legal grounds, but before we did a lot of stuff. And again, it’s mostly from Western countries just because they fell in love with the country.
Dual Citizenship for Citizenship by Descent in Ukraine applicants
LADISLAS MAURICE: Do you have also a lot of ethnic Ukrainians that are you know whose grandparents or parents were from Ukraine that are now interested?
TARAS: This new wave of these applications, we haven’t had yet anyone, but there is only few months that law is in act that you don’t need to give up on your citizenship. It was only six countries, now it’s added 20 something plus countries, so I expect this will be a new type of client that we will handle this process.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, because now if you’re of Ukrainian descent, it’s possible to get citizenship here very easily, to retain your other citizenship as long as you’re a Westerner. So Canadians, Americans, so many Ukrainians there, you can get Ukrainian citizenship, you just need to come here once, and then you can get your passport when you’re overseas. So it’s not like you apply for citizenship and you get conscripted. So that’s also bringing like you say new wave. Sure, because especially the people before weren’t really thinking of Ukraine, but now that it’s top of mind, a lot of people are of Ukrainian descent are now interested and say, hey, maybe I should reconnect with my roots, etc.
TARAS: Correct. And it’s really, you need to do it as you said, you owe this obligation for your kids.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. Because it goes down the generations then. So your kids, your future grandchildren, everyone will get Ukrainian citizenship. So, great program out there. I mean, there’s a link below with more information on this. Okay, so a lot of crazy people and not so crazy people are moving to moving to Ukraine.
Reality of living in Ukraine during wartime
TARAS: Moving to Ukraine or visiting just Ukraine and wanted to stay longer. If you will visit Ukraine, you will understand that it’s really possible to live during war time. It’s not the best, not the pleasant way, but it’s you don’t need to be crazy, let’s say like this. I’m not advertising that you need to come and visit, but if you was afraid just because of headlines. Try to visit Uzhhorod. Is the Ukraine is border with Slovakia.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Hungary?
TARAS: Yeah, Hungary and Slovakia both bordering, so you can just feel it and then to move to Lviv, then to move to Kyiv and to feel and understand if it’s good or not for you.
LADISLAS MAURICE: I mean, that’s the sad part. People actually get used to war. People just get used to it. It’s, you know…
TARAS: It’s that’s from one side, but from the other side, it’s very unpleasant for our adversary. They really expected that all city of Kyiv will go gun. It was true in March 2022. Nobody was here, but since then, people only come back. And for last three, four years, I don’t see any much difference between city and life. However, even this curfew is now limited. You can book taxi, you can go and do what you want. Nobody cares more or less if you genuinely not doing some stupid things. So, yes, it’s possible and it’s good able to live here.
Contact Taras to obtain Citizenship by Descent or Residency in Ukraine
LADISLAS MAURICE: There are so many ways to get residency here in Ukraine, including permanent residency in some cases. If you work as an IT professional, you just need to come here for essentially a week or two and you’ll get your permanent residency, valid for life, so you can leave the country and still retain the permanent residency. So there really many ways where if you have your Ukrainian child, that’s very interesting. There’s a link below with all the ways you can get residency here. And Taras can help people. I mean, you helped me with my own residency before the war. Very smooth process. So yeah, feel free to get in touch with Taras.
TARAS: With a pleasure. Yeah.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Thank you for your time.
TARAS: Thank you, Ladislas.
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.
