Ukrainian companies accumulated a record number of salary debts last year

36,629 active proceedings for unpaid wages were recorded in Ukraine as of the beginning of 2026. Over the year, the number of enforcement cases related to unpaid salaries increased by 6%.

Overall, Ukrainian companies set an anti-record last year: 9,174 proceedings over wage arrears against 488 companies. This is 30% more than in 2024 and the highest figure in the past five years.

56% of the wage recovery cases opened last year remain unpaid to this day.

Cases where employees are unable to receive their earned wages for a long time are not uncommon. Some of them are clear “long-haulers.” The oldest proceeding found in the Unified Register of Debtors at the time of writing dates back to 2017 — the debt is owed by the state-owned enterprise Poliskheodezkartohrafiia. Notably, this company is currently in the process of liquidation. In total, nearly two thousand active cases were opened back in 2017 and are still unresolved.

Last year, companies engaged in chemical manufacturing most often failed to pay their employees on time: over 2.6 thousand proceedings, or 29% of all cases. Almost the same number of wage arrears was recorded among companies in the electricity and gas supply sector (27%).

More than a third of all enforcement proceedings opened last year fall on Dnipropetrovsk region — 3.2 thousand cases. Far behind follow businesses in Ivano-Frankivsk region (1.1 thousand), Sumy region (897), and Lviv region (770).

At the same time, only one case was recorded in Luhansk region, four in Chernivtsi region, and 12 proceedings related to wage arrears in Volyn region.

In most cases, wages are delayed by private companies: they account for 62% of all wage arrears recorded in 2025. Another quarter of cases involve municipal enterprises, and more than 13% concern state-owned companies. Limited liability companies, municipal enterprises, and joint-stock companies appear most frequently.

The absolute leader in the number of wage arrears was the municipal enterprise Teplokomunenergo of the Oleksandriia City Council, against which 1,446 cases were opened in 2025. It is followed by Karpatnaftokhim (1,059), Dniproazot (630), Svitlovodskpobut (491), and the Odesa Port Plant (469). Some companies managed to close most of the cases by the end of the year, but for others hundreds of proceedings remained active.

Several companies included in the Opendatabot Index 2025 also had wage arrears. Claims for unpaid wages were identified against Ukrzaliznytsia, Ukrnafta, Ukrtransgaz, the Eskulab laboratory network, the Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine, and DTEK Pavlohradvuhillia. In most cases, the companies settled their debts by the end of the year.