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Sobolev presented new booking rules to Parliament: what will change for businesses

Sobolev presented new booking rules to Parliament: what will change for businesses

02 July 2026, 13:15

Sobolev presented new booking rules to Parliament: what will change for businesses — The updates relate to the salary threshold, sector-specific requirements and quotas for part-time workers

The Cabinet of Ministers has updated its approach to the exemption of conscripts from military service by revising the criteria for identifying critical enterprises and the procedure for confirming their status.

Oleksiy Sobolev, Minister for the Economy, the Environment and Agriculture, announced this during a speech in the Verkhovna Rada.

“The Ministry recognises the strategic need to support businesses, which are currently operating under extremely difficult conditions. At the same time, the reservation system must remain a balanced tool that enables critically important enterprises to continue operating whilst taking into account the state’s defence needs,” he noted.

The minister reiterated that, to be granted the status of a critically important enterprise, a company must meet at least three criteria. Two of these are mandatory: an average salary of at least 25,941 UAH (or 21,618 UAH for enterprises in frontline areas) and no tax arrears. The enterprise may choose the third criterion itself – from among national, sectoral or regional criteria.

According to the minister, 66 state bodies have now approved 164 sector-specific and 225 regional criteria.

The main changes relate to three areas:

updating the salary criterion;
a review of sector-specific and regional criteria;
a new procedure for calculating the quota for part-time workers.

Preliminary estimates suggest that the review of criteria will affect around 20% of enterprises. It is these enterprises that will need to re-confirm their status as critically important in line with the updated requirements. The remaining enterprises, for which the criteria have not changed, will be able to use a simplified procedure – they simply need to submit a certificate of average salary and a tax calculation. This must be done by 10 August.

The procedure for accounting for employees with multiple jobs is also changing. From now on, they will be counted towards the reservation quota for only one place of work – the one where they have the longest period of employment. Businesses that exceed the set quota following this change must bring the number of reserved employees into line within the following week.

Separately, Sobolev drew attention to support for businesses in frontline regions. From September 2025, such enterprises may reserve up to 100 per cent of their workforce. During this period, a further 50,000 people have been reserved across 2,133 enterprises, and the total number of reserved workers in frontline regions has risen to almost 100,000.

“Critically important enterprises currently generate 60 per cent of budget revenue. Therefore, the state’s task is to ensure that such enterprises can continue to operate, pay taxes and support the economy, whilst at the same time ensuring transparency and fairness in the application of the retention mechanism,” the minister emphasised.

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