In Ukraine, 222,300 new sole proprietorships were registered from January through September 2026, while 155,600 sole proprietorships ceased operations. Thus, the number of new registrations exceeded the number of closures by 66,600, according to data from the Unified State Register analyzed by Opendatabot.
The number of new sole proprietors remained virtually unchanged compared to the same period in 2025, while the number of closures dropped by 27% at once.
In total, since the beginning of the year, 222,288 new sole proprietors have been registered in Ukraine, while 155,645 have ceased operations. The net increase amounted to 66,643 entrepreneurs.
However, the trend throughout the year was uneven. More new sole proprietorships were registered in January, March, April, and May than in the corresponding months of the previous year. In February, June, July, August, and September, the number of registrations was lower than last year’s.
Despite this, September set a record for 2026 in terms of the number of new businesses—approximately 27,400 new sole proprietorships were registered.
Opendatabot notes that any comparison with the beginning of 2025 must take a technical factor into account. The sharp increase in the number of business closures in January of last year was due to the suspension of state registries in December 2024, when entrepreneurs were effectively unable to register the opening or closure of a business.
The largest number of new sole proprietorships over the nine-month period was registered in Kyiv—27,300. Dnipropetrovsk Oblast ranked second with 22,300, followed by Lviv Oblast with 17,200, Odesa Oblast with 16,700, and Kyiv Oblast with 16,500.
Retail trade remains the leading business sector. It was chosen by 60,300 new entrepreneurs, accounting for more than a quarter of all sole proprietorships registered since the beginning of the year.
Computer programming attracted 16,700 new entrepreneurs, while wholesale trade drew 16,600. Another 10,700 registrations each were recorded in education and food and beverage services.
At the same time, retail trade also leads in the number of business closures—over the course of nine months, 49,400 sole proprietorships in this sector shut down. In computer programming, 17,100 entrepreneurs ceased operations; in wholesale trade, 11,700; and in the food service sector, 7,900.
In 22 regions of Ukraine, the number of sole proprietorships opened exceeded the number that closed. A negative balance was recorded in only three frontline regions—the Donetsk, Kherson, and Luhansk regions.
Source: Opendatabot’s “FOPonomics” study for the first nine months of 2026.
