Less than 1 kopeck per hryvnia of debt is currently being collected in Ukraine

Debts were actually collected in only 1.1 million cases, totaling ₴15.11 billion. At the same time, 1.5 million proceedings were closed, amounting to ₴395.11 billion. This gap means that many debts were closed because it was impossible to collect the money in practice. In other words, only one in five cases was actually enforced.

«It’s important to understand that closing an enforcement proceeding doesn’t necessarily mean it has been fully executed. Simply put, this percentage includes fully recovered debts, partially recovered ones, and also cases returned to the claimant because the debtor had no assets. So the real success rate is much lower», 

— explains Andriy Avtorhov, a private bailiff.

It’s too early to draw conclusions for the first half of the year, but we can look at statistics from previous years. On average, every third proceeding was successfully enforced. The only exception was the first year of the full-scale invasion, when the rate dropped to one in five cases for the entire year.

How are debts collected? ​

Even when enforcement proceedings are successfully opened, this does not guarantee that the claimant will receive the money. Statistics show that the amounts actually recovered have been decreasing year by year.

In the first half of 2025, bailiffs managed to recover less than one kopeck for every hryvnia of debt. In previous years, this figure varied. Before the full-scale war — 2.6 kopecks per hryvnia of debt. In 2022 — dropped to 1.6 kopecks. In 2023 — slightly improved to 3 kopecks per hryvnia of debt.

This year, state bailiffs continue to handle the majority of proceedings — 983,000 cases (88%), while private bailiffs manage 130,000 cases (12%).

However, private bailiffs account for 41% of all recovered funds — ₴6.12 billion — compared to ₴8.99 billion (51%) recovered by state bailiffs.

Last year marked a turning point, as enforcement authorities began processing large-scale debts owed by the Russian Federation for war damages.

«It’s not enough to simply receive a court ruling to recover funds from Russia — you also need a mechanism that can actually make those payments happen. Right now, it’s almost impossible to enforce compensation claims against the Russian Federation for war damages, since there’s very little official Russian-owned property in Ukraine. Until a real, functioning mechanism appears, many of these rulings will remain just words on paper», 

— notes Andriy Avtorhov, private bailiff.

Because of the surge in Russian-related debts, last year the collection rate dropped to a record-low 1.15 kopecks per hryvnia of debt. Previously, enforcement authorities handled about ₴400 billion in debts per year, but after Russian liabilities were added, the total amount skyrocketed to ₴1.68 trillion, continuing to carry over into subsequent periods.

«Today’s debt recovery statistics in Ukraine don’t reflect the real picture. This is because the overall data includes a separate category of court rulings — those issued against Russia for war-related damages. At the moment, it’s impossible to enforce such rulings in Ukraine, as there are simply no legal mechanisms to do so. However, they artificially distort the overall enforcement statistics — in the year this category was added, the collection rate dropped fivefold.

Such cases should be reported separately from general enforcement statistics. This would allow for a more objective assessment of how effectively Ukraine’s debt enforcement system works, without mixing it with rulings that currently have no real prospect of being executed», 

— comments Denys Popov, Head of the Legal Department at Opendatabot, lawyer, and insolvency practitioner.