Almost 2000 companies in Ukraine owe wages to employees: the largest debtors

As of August 2025, 35,471 wage arrears proceedings were registered in Ukraine. This is evidenced by the Unified Register of Debtors, writes Opendatabot.

Currently, wage arrears are 11% higher than at the end of 2021. A total of 1,983 companies owe their employees wages.

The most common debtors are state-owned enterprises – 33% of the total (11,562 debts), and joint stock companies – 29% (10,308 debts). Limited liability companies account for almost 18% of debtors (6,298 debts).

The largest number of proceedings on wage arrears were opened in Sumy region (6,305), Kyiv (3,784) and Dnipropetrovs'k region (2,456).

The leaders among the companies were:

• Sumy Machine-Building Research and Production Association – 4,063 proceedings;
• Karpatnaftochim – 1,188 proceedings;
• Sumy Machine-Building Research and Production Association – Engineering – 1,015 proceedings.

In addition, 7% of the total number of proceedings are related to various Oblavtodor (regional road authorities) – 2,499 proceedings for unpaid wages.

Among large Ukrainian financial groups, two companies of Dmytro Firtash's group have the most debts due to unpaid wages – 336 and 2 proceedings respectively.

By type of activity, the largest amount of debt was accumulated by companies engaged in manufacturing:

• production of machinery and equipment – 16% (5,681 proceedings);
• construction of structures – 7.6% (2,696 proceedings);
• chemical production – 7.5% (2,670 proceedings).

Among the employees who have not been paid their salaries, 56% are men and 44% are women.

• As of August 6, 2024 more than 34,000 debts were registered on salary payments. In total, 1872 companies did not pay salaries to their employees.