The Ministry of Economy, Environment, and Agriculture of Ukraine has revised the criteria for identifying enterprises of vital importance to the national economy, significantly raising the requirements regarding the area of cultivated land, annual revenue, and average wage levels for business entities.
The relevant changes were approved by Order No. 6954 dated June 24, 2026
The document provides for stricter sector-specific and general thresholds for obtaining the status that allows enterprises to claim employee quotas. For the agricultural sector, the ministry doubled the minimum area of cultivated land, from 500 hectares to 1,000 hectares, and raised the annual revenue threshold for agricultural enterprises from UAH 20 million to UAH 40 million. At the same time, the requirement to pay personal income tax of at least UAH 324,000 per quarter and the possibility of obtaining this status through ownership of 90% of the capital of other critically important enterprises have been removed from the list of sub-criteria. Instead, a mandatory requirement has been introduced for the agricultural sector to submit a copy of the tax calculation certified by the tax authority.
In the forestry sector, the requirements for the area of land plots under permanent use have increased fivefold, from 500 hectares to 2,500 hectares. The alternative requirement regarding the number of insured employees has been reduced from 15 to 10, but it must now be supplemented by a financial criterion, an annual income of at least UAH 10 million, which did not previously apply to forestry enterprises. In addition, hunting, engineering, geology, and other types of education have been excluded from the list of specialized Classifier of types of economic activity codes (KVED) in this sector.
The order also introduces differentiated salary criteria for the general list of enterprises, which did not exist previously. For companies with an average workforce of more than 50 employees, the average salary must not be lower than the national average for the most recent reporting year, multiplied by a factor of two; for enterprises with 20 or more employees, it must be multiplied by a factor of three. For interregional status (operations in three or more regions), mandatory conditions have been established: a staff of at least ten employees and payment of taxes and social security contributions (excluding customs duties) of at least UAH 24,000 in each region over the past three months.
For permanent representative offices of non-residents, the salary threshold has also been raised: the average salary must not be lower than the national average multiplied by a factor of three, whereas the previous version of the order applied a factor of two.
In addition, manufacturers of domestically produced machinery and equipment may qualify for "economically significant" status if their products are included in the Economy Ministry's list of goods whose cost is partially subsidized by the state budget. This mechanism is implemented as part of a pilot project for partial compensation of the cost of domestically produced machinery within the framework of the All-Ukrainian economic platform "Made in Ukraine," as well as through a separate program for partial compensation of the cost of agricultural machinery and equipment.
At the same time, the previous criteria remain unchanged. Enterprises are deemed critical if they receive state grants; provide services to the Economy Ministry based on agreements (contracts) concluded for a term of at least 6 months; are under the management of the Ministry of Economy or are enterprises in which the state, represented by the Economy Ministry, is the sole founder and shareholder; conduct expert reviews of draft regulatory and legal acts concerning the economy or foreign economic activity; operate in three or more regions of Ukraine; are members of an industrial park (IP); have entered into investment agreements involving significant investments in the processing/production of biogas or biomethane, or in the extraction and processing of minerals.
