The growth rate of housing construction costs in Ukraine in 2026 will slow down slightly compared to previous periods, with an average increase of 10–15% over the year, according to Ukrainian developers.
“In 2026, we expect further growth in construction costs, but the pace of this growth is likely to be more moderate than in previous periods. The main factors remain the cost of construction materials, energy, logistics, and labor, as well as currency fluctuations,” the press service of the DIM group of companies told Interfax-Ukraine.
Containing the growth of construction costs is possible thanks to the adaptation of the construction market to new conditions: optimization of design solutions, construction processes, and supply chains. At the same time, maintaining a balance between the economic efficiency of projects and the preservation of housing standards remains an important condition, the company noted.
At the same time, pressure on costs next year will come from the cost of energy, logistics, import-dependent building materials, as well as stricter requirements for engineering systems and safety, said Perfect Group project manager Oleksiy Koval. According to him, the company expects costs to grow by 15-20% in 2026.
“Our baseline scenario is a 15-20% year-on-year increase in production costs, but the range will depend on the exchange rate, material prices, and the situation on the labor market. We are building in a safety margin through longer contracts with contractors, optimising project solutions without compromising quality, and planning purchases of critical materials in advance,” he said.
Wages in the industry remain an important factor in the growth of construction costs, Koval added. To combat the labor shortage, Perfect Group is working on employment contracts with foreigners, particularly from India, to attract them to contract work.
In turn, Dan Saltsov, commercial director of Greenville’s Kyiv projects, predicts a moderate increase in the cost of housing construction within the range of 6-12% per year.
“It is likely that the cost will continue to grow by 6-12% per year. Trends in recent years confirm an annual increase. The main factors influencing this are inflation, rising prices for construction materials, higher wages, labor shortages, and currency fluctuations. The market is undergoing structural changes,” said the expert, adding that a decline in housing prices is not to be expected.
This is also confirmed by experts from the developer RIEL. As the company told Interfax-Ukraine, in addition to rising costs, the price per square meter will also be affected by the rising cost of loans in the construction sector.
“We predict further price increases due to rising costs, growth in investments that developers make at the start of a project, and the rising cost of loans in the construction sector. However, in our opinion, demand will remain stable, although a significant increase in new construction should not be expected,” the developer said.
According to the forecast of the construction company Intergal-Bud, the cost of housing will continue to grow within the range of 10-15% compared to 2025.
“The cost per square meter is likely to continue to grow, but without sharp jumps, within the range of 10-15%, and will have objective reasons related to the rise in the cost of construction materials, engineering solutions, labor shortages, as well as security, military, and political factors,” said Olena Ryzhova, commercial director of Intergal-Bud.
According to her, the primary residential real estate market will maintain cautious positive dynamics in 2026. Thus, demand for housing in the “comfort” and “business” segments will remain stable, as will the purchase of apartments in the early stages of construction, traditionally one of the most reliable assets for preserving funds.
However, the residential construction market has not yet recovered to its pre-war levels, the Kovalskaya Group emphasizes. According to the developer, construction costs will continue to rise in response to the rising cost of building materials and energy, as well as due to a reduction in new projects.
“Given the realities we are seeing, the construction market has not yet recovered to pre-war levels. Developers are mainly completing previously started projects, with only one new project for every five completed. The rise in the cost of construction materials and electricity, as well as the reduction in supply, will lead to an increase in the cost of construction. The sale price of apartments is expected to grow by 10-15% per year in currency terms,” the company notes.
As reported with reference to data from Ukrainian developers, the cost of housing construction in Ukraine in the first nine months of 2025 grew by an average of 10-25%, depending on the class of housing. According to the State Statistics Service, prices for construction and installation works in the third quarter of 2025 increased by 5.3% compared to the same period last year, while prices in the primary housing market increased by 12.8% during the same period.
Four enterprises in Volyn, Rivne, Cherkasy, and Khmelnytskyi regions received UAH 116.3 million in partial state compensation for the construction and reconstruction of six livestock farms, according to the Ministry of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture.
“The state reimbursed up to 25% of the cost of farms, milking parlors, and production facilities for processing by-products that were put into operation,” the ministry said, clarifying the decision of the Ministry of Economy’s commission on state support for the development of livestock farming and agricultural product processing.
It is expected that agricultural producers will be able to keep about 3,000 head of livestock on new and reconstructed farms.
“Supporting livestock farming is an investment in Ukraine’s food security. Enterprises that modernize production and build new facilities in wartime receive real financial assistance from the state. This year, we have reimbursed up to 25% of the cost of facilities that have been put into operation since the beginning of the year,” said Deputy Minister of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture Taras Vysotsky, whose words are quoted in the report.
The Ministry of Economy reminded that support is provided in accordance with the procedure for the use of funds allocated in the state budget for the development of livestock farming and agricultural product processing, approved by Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 950 of August 6, 2025. Compensation is provided for completed projects submitted through the State Agrarian Register.
The Serbian Economist reports that Prindon Sadrija, the husband of Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani, called on Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to move the Trump Hotel project to Pristina, which his organization had previously rejected in Belgrade.
Sadrija wrote on social network X that the withdrawal from the Belgrade project confirms the thesis that “significant projects should unite, not divide,” and suggested “moving this idea to Pristina” with the transformation of the capital’s Grand Hotel into Trump Hotel.
The statement came amid reports that Affinity Global Development, linked to Kushner, has withdrawn from plans to build a hotel and residential complex on the site of the former General Staff building in downtown Belgrade, which was damaged during the 1999 NATO bombing and has been the subject of public controversy over memory preservation and cultural heritage status.
The company notified the decision to withdraw from the project after months of protests and amid a legal scandal surrounding the removal of the site’s protected status, for which the Serbian prosecutor’s office sought to prosecute a number of officials.
In Serbian statements, the losses are estimated at “at least 750 million euros” – a figure that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and representatives of the ruling party have voiced, linking the investor’s withdrawal to the pressure of protesters.
At the same time, earlier publications on the parameters of the project estimated the investment at about $500 million.
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The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) approved a $40 million loan agreement for a 10-year term for one of the subsidiaries of Ukraine’s largest sugar producer, Astarta Agricultural Holding.
“DFC will co-finance with the International Finance Corporation capital investments and operating expenses related to the construction of a soybean protein concentrate (SPC) plant,” the agricultural holding company said.
According to Vyacheslav Chuk, director of commercial operations and strategic marketing at the agricultural holding, in September 2025, Astarta intends to continue investing in the construction of its soy protein concentrate plant in 2026, with investments amounting to approximately EUR 40 million.
In 2024, Astarta began investing in the construction of a plant for processing soybean meal into soy protein concentrate with a capacity of 500 tons/day (approximately 100,000 tons/year) in the Hlobyn Industrial Complex (Poltava region). The agricultural holding will invest over EUR 76 million in the purchase of equipment and technologies and will create 110 new jobs.
Astarta and its structural unit Astarta Agro Protein signed the first investment agreement with the Ukrainian government to receive compensation from the state for significant investments. Under the agreement, the state will provide the agricultural holding with a number of incentives, including exemption from import duties on new equipment, import VAT on new equipment, and income tax for up to five years.
Astarta is a vertically integrated agro-industrial holding company operating in eight regions of Ukraine and is the largest sugar producer in Ukraine. It comprises six sugar factories, agricultural enterprises with a land bank of 220,000 hectares, dairy farms with 22,000 head of cattle, an oil extraction plant in Hlobyn (Poltava region), seven elevators, and a biogas complex.
In the first half of 2025, Astarta reduced its net profit by 10.3% to EUR47.11 million, and its consolidated revenue decreased by 29.3% to EUR320.71 million.
The total area of residential buildings for which construction permits (new construction) were issued in January-September 2025 increased by 48.4% compared to the same period in 2024, reaching 4 million 396.7 thousand square meters, according to the State Statistics Service (Gosstat).
According to the statistics agency, in January-September 2025, the total area of new construction of apartment buildings increased by 51.1% compared to last year, to 4.23 million square meters. The number of apartments in apartment buildings declared at the start of construction increased by 54.1% to 47,600.
Most of the new housing in the first nine months was registered in the Kyiv region: the total area of new housing construction amounted to 2 million 305.1 thousand square meters (21.2 thousand apartments), which is 142% more than in the first half of last year.
Significant volumes of new housing in the specified period were also registered in the Lviv region – 816,500 square meters (10,900 apartments), which is 63.6% more than in January-September 2024, as well as in Ivano-Frankivsk – 344,200 square meters (+8.2%, 5,500 apartments), Zakarpattia region – 368.7 thousand square meters (+26.1%, 4.7 thousand apartments), Poltava region – 160.3 thousand square meters (2.1 thousand apartments), Vinnytsia region – 167,100 square meters (-29.2%, 3,900 apartments) and Volyn region – 176,300 square meters (+25.3%, 4,000 apartments).
In Kyiv, in January-September 2025, the total area of new construction of housing amounted to 449,600 square meters (5,200 apartments), which is 36% more than last year.
The State Statistics Service reminds that the figures do not include territories temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation and parts of territories where hostilities are ongoing (or have been ongoing).
As reported, the total area of new housing construction in Ukraine in 2024 decreased by 7.2% compared to 2023, to 3.9 million square meters, while in 2023 it was 4.2 million square meters, in 2022 – 6.67 million square meters, and 12.7 million square meters in 2021.
According to the Serbian Economist, the investment company of Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, Affinity Partners, has withdrawn from the project to build a hotel and business complex on the site of the former building of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army in the center of Belgrade.
According to Radio Liberty (Balkan service), the company has withdrawn its application for the project, which envisioned the construction of a luxury complex on the site of the General Staff buildings destroyed during NATO bombing raids in 1999.
According to a spokesman for Affinity Partners, the decision was made “out of respect for the citizens of Serbia and Belgrade,” as large projects “should unite, not divide” society.
The announcement of the company’s withdrawal from the project came against the background of the fact that on the same day, the Serbian Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime filed an indictment against Culture Minister Nikola Selakovic and a number of officials. They are accused of abuse of power and falsification of documentation when the General Staff complex was stripped of its status of protected cultural heritage, which opened the way for commercial development of the site.
Kushner’s project during the year caused mass protests of the opposition, student and urban protection initiatives, which insisted on the preservation and restoration of the complex as an important monument of modernist architecture and a memorial site associated with the victims of the 1999 bombings. Activists called the investor’s rejection an “important victory,” but warned that the General Staff remains at risk of status changes and possible demolition in favor of other development projects.
The Serbian government and presidential administration had not commented on the information about Affinity Partners’ withdrawal from the project at the time of publication of the Radio Liberty piece.
Affinity Partners is a private investment company of Jared Kushner, created after his departure from Donald Trump’s administration and working with the capital of Middle Eastern and other institutional investors. In Serbia, the redevelopment project of the General Staff complex was realized through affiliated structures (including Atlantic Incubation Partners / Affinity Global Development) and envisioned an investment of about $500 million, a 99-year lease on the site and a profit share for the state of Serbia of about 22%, the New York Times and other media reported earlier.
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