Kyiv ranks first among Ukraine’s regions in terms of the number of individuals registered as owners or beneficiaries of at least 50 companies. As of October 2026, there were 131 such owners in the capital out of 478 nationwide, according to data from an OpenDataBot study published on October 26.
Thus, Kyiv accounts for more than a quarter of all so-called mass company owners listed in the Unified State Register.
Second place goes to the Kyiv region, where 34 individuals are registered, each linked to at least 50 companies.
In third place is the Dnipropetrovsk region with 27 such owners.
Next are the Donetsk region, where 24 mass company owners are recorded, and the Kharkiv region with 18 entries.
Combined, Kyiv and the Kyiv region have 165 mass owners, accounting for more than a third of the national total.
At the same time, the largest owners by number of affiliated companies are also predominantly based in the capital.
Vitaliy Ilnitsky of Kyiv ranks first in the Ukrainian ranking with 5,889 companies. Another Kyiv resident, Vladislav Melekhin, ranks third with 858 companies.
Kateryna Doroshenko of Kyiv ranks fifth with 674 registered companies.
The largest mass owner outside Kyiv is Ruslan Merzlyakov from Donetsk, who is listed as the owner or beneficial owner of 2,221 companies.
According to the study’s methodology, mass owners are defined as individuals with registration ties to at least 50 legal entities.
However, the owner’s address listed in the registry does not necessarily correspond to the location where the companies they own actually operate.
Therefore, the concentration of mass owners in Kyiv does not mean that a corresponding proportion of these companies conducts business directly in the capital.
The structure of ownership of a large number of legal entities deserves special attention. Miroslav Laba, an expert on tax and regulatory policy at the Economic Expert Platform, notes that the registration of hundreds of companies under a single individual may be a sign of nominal ownership.
At the same time, he emphasizes that the mere fact that a single individual owns or manages a large number of companies does not, in and of itself, violate the law.
According to the expert, to ensure transparency in business activities, it is important to identify the actual managers and individuals who make business decisions.
In total, according to “OpenDataBot,” as of October 2026, there were 478 individuals registered in Ukraine, each of whom is linked to 50 or more companies.
Source: “OpenDataBot,” study dated October 26, 2026.
