Draft Law #16073 of September 15, 2026

Initiator: submitted by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine.

Who is affected: foreigners and stateless persons who come to Ukraine to work; employers who hire foreigners; the State Migration Service of Ukraine; the State Employment Service of Ukraine; foreign students at Ukrainian educational institutions and graduates who stay on for employment.

Summary:

  • abolishes the current two-tier system: a separate permit to employ a foreign national issued by the State Employment Service, plus a separate temporary residence permit issued by the State Migration Service;
  • introduces a single permit for temporary residence and employment, which confirms both the right to reside and the right to work at the same time;
  • introduces the Unified State Web Portal for the Employment of Foreigners and Stateless Persons: the employer posts a vacancy on the portal; a territorial body of the State Employment Service approves it (based on labor market needs and the impossibility of filling the vacancy with a registered unemployed Ukrainian); the foreigner registers and applies; the employer confirms the offer; and only then does the foreigner apply for the single permit;
  • establishes the procedure for issuing the single permit by the State Migration Service: a decision is taken within 30 calendar days, the administrative fee is 0.5 of the subsistence minimum for able-bodied persons (approximately UAH 1,664 as of 2026), and an exhaustive list of grounds for refusal is defined;
  • ties the permit to the employment contract: if the contract is terminated early, the employer must notify the State Migration Service within 10 days, and the foreigner is given 3 months to find new employment; otherwise, the permit and the residence permit are revoked;
  • abolishes the current system of special categories of foreign workers (“foreign hired workers,” “posted workers,” “intra-corporate transferees,” etc.) and replaces it with a single unified procedure;
  • sets a fine for employing a foreigner in circumvention of the new procedure at 20 minimum wages per person (approximately UAH 173,000 as of 2026);
  • retains the list of 16 categories of foreigners with free access to the labor market, without the need for vacancy approval or a single permit. These include residents, EU citizens, refugees, foreign Ukrainians, teachers and researchers, clergy, international technical assistance staff, and other categories.

What is right:

  • introducing a single procedure in place of two separate permits from different bodies simplifies the employment of foreigners and is consistent with the approach of Directive (EU) 2024/1233;
  • tying the procedure to a specific vacancy and a digital portal instead of a paper permit provides more transparent records: the state will actually see which foreigners work where and on what terms;
  • the three-month period to find new employment after the contract is terminated gives the foreigner a transitional period and prevents the automatic loss of status immediately upon dismissal;
  • the fine of 20 minimum wages for employing a foreigner without a single permit is not a new sanction but a transfer of an existing provision (already applicable to work without a permit to employ a foreign national) to the new procedure. At the same time, the draft law quietly tightens liability for less serious violations: previously, employing a foreigner on terms other than those set out in the permit, or with a different employer, was punishable by a tenfold fine; now it carries the same twentyfold fine as the complete absence of a permit. This effectively doubles the sanction for this category of violations, while the text presents it as a simple streamlining of wording rather than a deliberate tightening of liability.

What is wrong:

Tying the right of residence to employment preserves the dependence of a foreigner’s migration status on the employment relationship. The draft law softens this dependence by granting three months to find new employment after the contract ends; however, once this period expires, the permit and the residence permit are subject to revocation if no new employer has been found.

Alternative solution:

Additional safeguards should be provided for cases where the employment relationship ends for reasons beyond the worker’s control, or where the worker reports violations of labor rights, so that the risk of losing migration status does not create further dependence on the employer.