More than 794,000 enforcement proceedings for utility debts are currently registered in the Unified Register of Debtors. 60% of these debts have reached a dead end: they have been formally completed but not closed, and no money has been collected. 194 thousand new debts were added to the Register this year. Most often, Ukrainians accumulate debts for heat supply. More than a quarter of debtors are pensioners. A 71-year-old pensioner from Mykolaiv region holds the anti-record for the number of debts: 28 proceedings, all for electricity.
As of the beginning of November 2025, there were 794,604 active debts for utilities in Ukraine. Despite their active status, most of these proceedings have actually reached a dead end: 60% of the cases, or more than 476,000, have already been completed without any real recovery. The debts have remained in the Register, but the enforcers have simply failed to collect the debt.
194 thousand new proceedings for utility debts have already been opened this year. Two-thirds of them are still open (132,578 proceedings).
The largest amount of utility debt is owed in Kharkiv region: 47.9 thousand proceedings. Dnipropetrovs’k region is slightly behind with 45.4 thousand proceedings. Other regions are at least three times behind: Mykolaiv region (11.9 thousand), Poltava region (11.3 thousand) and Sumy region (8.5 thousand).
In 40% of cases, Ukrainians will owe for heat supply in 2025. Water supply is in second place (18%), followed by gas supply (15%) and housing services (10%). Garbage collection and electricity account for 8% and 6%, respectively.
This year, the largest number of proceedings were opened against people aged 46-60, accounting for almost 36% of all cases. And every fourth debt falls on pensioners.
More than half of the proceedings (55%) were opened against women this year. And the anti-record belongs to a 71-year-old pensioner from Mykolaiv region, against whom 28 proceedings were opened for electricity debts this year alone. All of them were terminated due to the impossibility of collection. In fact, the debts remained, and the system only accumulated new “dead” cases.
Context
As a reminder, the Verkhovna Rada supported in the first reading the draft law No. 14005, which is supposed to significantly change the rules for working with debtors. The document proposes automatic inclusion of debtors in the register and a ban on the sale or donation of property until the debt is fully repaid. The new rules will make it easier to seize assets and prevent attempts to re-register them.
Andriy Avtorgov, a private enforcement officer, comments on the hype surrounding the yet-to-be-adopted law:
“Some of the loud statements around the project are based on a misunderstanding of the current legislation: the Unified Register of Debtors has been operating since 2017, and foreclosure on the only housing, under certain conditions, was possible even earlier. The new draft law actually brings back the rules that existed before and makes life easier for debtors by making it easier for them to pay the debt, as the enforcement proceedings will be automatically closed and the debtor will be excluded from the Unified Register of Debtors.”
The bailiff notes that the implementation of such decisions should be carried out with some caution so as not to destroy the already fragile architecture of the enforcement process, as the percentage of enforcement is already extremely low.
Despite the panic on social media, even if the law is passed, the mechanism for seizing a single home will not change significantly. It will be possible, as it is now, only if the debts exceed 20 minimum wages (UAH 160,000) and with the mandatory involvement of guardianship authorities if children are registered in the home. The law is still being finalized for the second reading, so the final rules may change.
https://opendatabot.ua/analytics/debts-bills-2025-11
