In Ukraine, out of 77,060 individual entrepreneurs registered in the real estate sector, only 441 hold a valid certificate issued by the Association of Real Estate Specialists of Ukraine (AFNU). Thus, the share of certified specialists among entrepreneurs in this sector is approximately 0.57%.
This is evidenced by the results of an Opendatabot study and their analysis by the Experts Club analytical center, published on November 6, 2026, based on data from the Register of Certified Realtors of Ukraine.
The register contains a total of 1,665 entries, but 1,252 people, or approximately 75% of the total number of registered specialists, hold valid professional certificates.
Of these, 441 specialists, or 35.2%, have an active registration as individual entrepreneurs in the real estate sector. Another 40 certified realtors previously conducted entrepreneurial activities under the relevant type of economic activity but have discontinued them.
The remaining 771 certified specialists do not have a registered individual entrepreneur status in this field.
At the same time, analysts point out that the number of registered entrepreneurs in the real estate sector is not equivalent to the number of realtors.
The relevant classification of economic activities covers not only intermediary services for the purchase, sale and rental of real estate, but also other types of activities. In addition, specialists may work as employees or under other organizational and legal forms.
Therefore, the figure of 0.57% cannot be interpreted as the share of certified realtors among all specialists actually working in the Ukrainian market.
It is also important that AFNU certification is currently voluntary. Current Ukrainian legislation does not establish a mandatory requirement to obtain this particular certificate in order to carry out real estate brokerage activities.
According to Opendatabot, women predominate among the 1,252 specialists holding valid certificates. There are 940 women, or approximately 75%, compared with 312 men, or 25%.
Thus, the number of certified women in the profession is approximately three times higher than the number of men.
The highest concentration of specialists holding professional certificates is observed in Kyiv and Kyiv region. These two regions account for 344 specialists, or more than 27% of all holders of valid certificates.
Against the backdrop of the development of Ukraine’s residential and commercial real estate market, the issue of professional training for intermediaries and quality control of real estate brokerage services remains a subject of legislative discussion.
In particular, draft law No. 16145 has been registered in the Verkhovna Rada, proposing the introduction of new rules for professional activities, including training, examinations and mandatory registration of intermediaries.
However, as of November 7, 2026, the document has not been adopted, and AFNU certification remains voluntary.
Opendatabot is a Ukrainian service for monitoring and analyzing open government data that publishes studies on entrepreneurial activity, court registers, the real estate market and other sectors of the economy.
Sources: Opendatabot, study dated November 6, 2026; Register of Certified Realtors.
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.
Retail remains the most popular sector for starting a small business in Ukraine—in the first nine months of 2026, 60,300 new sole proprietorships were registered in this sector, according to Opendatabot data based on the Unified State Register and an analysis by the Experts Club think tank.
Retail accounts for more than a quarter of all new sole proprietorships registered in Ukraine since the beginning of the year. In total, 222,300 sole proprietorships were established from January through September.
Computer programming was the second most popular sector, with 16,700 new sole proprietorships. Wholesale trade showed virtually the same result—16,600
Approximately 10,700 new entrepreneurs were registered in the education sector. The same number of sole proprietorships began operations in the food and beverage sector, which includes, in particular, various formats of food service.
However, the most popular business sectors also lead in the number of closures.
In retail trade, 49,400 sole proprietorships ceased operations over the nine-month period. Thus, despite the large number of closures, the net increase in the number of entrepreneurs in the sector amounted to approximately 10,900.
The situation was different in computer programming. With 16,700 new registrations, 17,100 sole proprietorships ceased operations. Thus, based on the absolute figures published by Opendatabot, the number of closures in the IT segment exceeded the number of new openings by approximately 400.
In wholesale trade, the situation remains positive: with 16,600 new sole proprietorships, 11,700 closed, resulting in a net increase of approximately 4,900 entrepreneurs.
In the food service sector, approximately 10,700 new sole proprietorships were registered, with 7,900 closures—a positive difference of about 2,800.
In total, over the first nine months of 2026, 222,288 sole proprietorships opened in Ukraine, while 155,645 closed. The number of new entrepreneurs exceeded the number of those who ceased operations by 66,643.
Source: Opendatabot — “This year, 66,000 more sole proprietorships were opened than closed”.
entrepreneur, EXPERTS CLUB, IT, Sole proprietorship, TRADE, UKRAINE
In Ukraine, 1.5 million sole proprietors have tax debt, the total amount of which reached 16.6 billion UAH as of July 2026, according to data from the State Tax Service published by Opendatabot.
Since the beginning of 2026, the number of individual entrepreneurs with tax debt has increased by approximately 3%, while the total amount of debt has decreased by 300 million UAH.
On average, each individual entrepreneur with tax debt owes the state about 11,000 UAH in unpaid taxes.
In recent years, the number of entrepreneurs with tax debts has been growing by an average of about 16% annually.
Since the start of the full-scale war, the number of individual entrepreneurs in debt has more than doubled—by approximately 840,000 people—and the total amount of debt has increased by 9.6 billion hryvnias.
Thus, while at the start of the full-scale invasion, approximately 660,000 entrepreneurs had tax debts totaling about 7 billion UAH, by mid-2026 both figures had more than doubled.
Source: Opendatabot, based on data from the State Tax Service of Ukraine.
As of the end of July 2026, there were 7,865 businesses and entrepreneurs operating in the jewelry sector in Ukraine, 84% of which are registered as sole proprietors, according to data from the Unified State Register analyzed by Opendatabot. The study was published on August 17, 2026.
In total, there are 6,583 sole proprietors and 1,282 companies operating in the market, engaged in the production and sale of jewelry, as well as the repair of jewelry and watches.
However, the trends in these two segments differ significantly. The number of legal entities in the jewelry industry has been growing for five consecutive years, including after the start of the full-scale war. By the end of 2025, 54 more jewelry companies were registered than ceased operations.
Among sole proprietors, the situation is less stable. In 2021–2022, the number of closures exceeded the number of registrations by 498. In 2023, the segment returned to growth, and in 2024, the net increase reached a record 611 entrepreneurs. However, by 2025, the trend had shifted again—there were 169 more sole proprietorships that ceased operations than new ones.
Kyiv remains the main hub of the jewelry business, with 1,365 registered manufacturers, retailers, and other industry participants.
In second place is the Zaporizhzhia region with 679 enterprises, followed by the Kyiv region with 585, the Kharkiv region with 548, and the Dnipropetrovsk region with 484.
Thus, despite the dominance of small businesses, the structure of Ukraine’s jewelry market is gradually changing: the number of sole proprietorships is declining, while the number of companies continues to grow.
entrepreneur, jewelry business, KYIV, Sole proprietorship, UKRAINE
