Utility debts in Ukraine are growing, almost 110,000 more cases opened

In the first six months of 2026, 108,561 enforcement proceedings about non-payment of utility services were added to the Unified Debtors Register. Almost two-thirds of them - 70,206 cases, or 65% - remain open and unpaid. This is reported by Opendatabot.

In total, at the beginning of July, the register contained 829,768 proceedings regarding utility debts. Their number has increased more than 2.4 times compared to January 2021, when about 345,000 such cases were recorded.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the number of proceedings has increased by almost 317,400, or 62%. In February 2022, there were 512,359 of them.

Heat is the most common unpaid service

The largest number of new proceedings in 2026 relates to debts for heat supply - 46,186 cases, or 42.5% of the total.

Other utility debts were distributed as follows:

• water supply - 19,416 proceedings, or 17.9%;
• housing maintenance - 12,648, or 11.7%;
• gas supply - 11,538, or 10.6%;
• energy supply - 9,947, or 9.2%;
• waste disposal - 7,020, or 6.5%;
• other services - 1,806, or 1.7%.

Heat remains the main reason for utility debts for more than a year. In September 2025, this category also accounted for about 42% of all relevant proceedings.

Where the most cases were opened

The largest number of new proceedings for utility debts were recorded in Kharkiv Oblast - 22,171, or 20% of the total. In Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, 19,636 cases were opened, and in Mykolaiv Oblast - 12,841.

Most often, debtors were people aged from 46 to 60 years - they accounted for 38,119 new proceedings, or 35.1%. Another 25.5% of cases were opened against people over 60 years old, and 24% - against Ukrainians aged 36 to 45 years.

More than half of the new proceedings were opened against women - 60,141 cases.

A completed case does not mean the debt was paid

About 62% of all utility proceedings in the register have the status of completed, however, this does not mean that the debt was repaid. The executor may complete the case due to impossibility of collection or for other reasons provided by law, and the debt record continues to remain in the register.

A similar trend was observed at the end of 2025: then 60% of proceedings were completed without actual debt payment.

Some open utility debts have been in the register for over nine years. The oldest cases concern heat debt in Chernihiv Oblast and water supply and sewerage debt in Lviv Oblast.

Based on materials: Opendatabot