In Ukraine, in 2024, all owners of large apartments and houses must pay tax for real estate.
The real estate tax system forces those who own an elite estate and those who have an old large house with a large area (more than 60 square meters for an apartment and 120 square meters for a house) to pay the same amount. An exception is if the housing is located in occupation or in a war zone.
OBOZ.UA writes about how the tax is calculated, who must pay and how much.
To whom and how much will you have to pay
Property tax goes to the local budget, which is why local councils were allowed to regulate the rate. The Tax Code describes only limits: you cannot take more than 1.5% of the minimum wage for each “extra” square. “Extra” from the point of view of the tax code is everything that is more than 60 square meters for an apartment and 120 square meters for a house (if you have both a house and an apartment, then the total area should be up to 180 square meters).
The vast majority of cities left the installed PC at a maximum of 1.5% of the minimum wage. The tax is paid in 2024 for 2023, so they take into account the minimum wage that was as of January last year – 6,700 UAH.
For each “extra” square you will have to pay 100.5 UAH. For example, if you have an apartment with an area of 80 square meters, then you only need to pay for 20 square meters (2010 UAH). For “extra” squares, the tax increased as follows:
- in 2022 (paid for 2021) – 90 UAH per square;
- in 2023 (for 2022 ) – 97.5 UAH per square;
- in 2024 (for 2023) – 100.5 UAH per square;
- in 2025 (for 2024) – 106.5 UAH per square.
If you own a house, you only need to pay for the area that is more than 120 square meters. There is an important trick: if real estate is divided between family members (for example, 1/2 of the apartment belongs to the wife, and 1/2 to the husband), then the limit applies to each individual.
For example, as Maria P says ., who owns an apartment of 150 square meters, her family has never paid property taxes.
“The apartment belongs to me, my husband and two children. Both are already adults. Each has 37.5 square meters. In total, this is 150 square meters, but there is no need to pay,” says the woman.
If the whole apartment were was issued only to Maria, she would have to pay the amount of 9045 UAH this year.
When will the tax need to be paid
Notification of the need for payment must be received by July 1. And the tax itself must be paid before the end of August. If you ignore the message from the tax office (it should arrive at the postal address at the place of registration), she may go to court.
The register of court decisions reveals hundreds of decisions on the forced collection of tax debt. For example, the Chernivtsi District Administrative Court decided to oblige a local resident to pay UAH 23.3 thousand to the tax authorities. The case file states that the tax authority sent a tax demand for payment of the tax debt, but the debt was not paid voluntarily.
Now the tax office has a court decision, and it can appeal to the executive service. The debtor may have his bank accounts seized until he pays taxes.
Changes to tax policy failed
In the Finance, Tax and Customs Committee Changes were being developed in politics long before the full-scale war: they planned to calculate the amount of tax in a new way. Back in 2020, the tax should have been tied to the cost of housing.
They say that officials will check the cost of housing for every Ukrainian and send receipts to those who have an expensive apartment or house. The current system does not distinguish between housing: you still need to pay for a house in an elite area of Kyiv, and for an old building in a remote area of the same area from the center.
“For example, if you have a three-story house in the suburbs of Kyiv , and my grandmother left me a house of the same size in a bad location, we will pay the same tax. And this is wrong. We have a database for real estate assessment, they gave us time to prepare the base,” Getmantsev said.
The new rules stipulated that those whose house or apartment cost above the threshold amount would pay the tax. “We must determine this amount, and it will meet the needs of small towns. There is a figure, but I don’t want to announce it yet and scare people,” said Getmantsev.
Right now we are not talking about real estate tax reform coming. However, problems remain. For example, as Svetlana, a resident of the Dnepropetrovsk region, says, she inherited a house with an area of 302 square meters from her grandfather. This “estate” was built back in the 90s, when grandfather made good money by supplying goods to Poland. The man died in the early 2000s, and the building has not been renovated for about 20 years.
“In winter, we all live on the first floor, there are two rooms. We only heat the first floor, and cover the entrance to the second floor with blankets to keep it warm.” It didn’t work out. I work in the civil service, my salary is 14 thousand hryvnia. And this year my tax will be 18 thousand hryvnia. My brother helps me pay, because for me this is simply an unbearable amount,” says the woman.
