Two different salary figures, constantly confused
Ukraine's reservation rules involve two salary measures, and that is where most errors come from.
| Measure | What it governs | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Average salary across the enterprise | obtaining or confirming critical-enterprise status | from 02.06.2026 — at least 3 minimum wages, UAH 25,941 |
| Salary of the individual reserved employee | reserving that person | from 01.09.2026 — 3 minimum wages, UAH 25,941 |
For enterprises located and operating in territories of possible or active hostilities and in temporarily occupied territories, both thresholds remain at 2.5 minimum wages — UAH 21,617.50.
Both derive from the UAH 8,647 minimum wage: 3 × 8,647 = 25,941, and 2.5 × 8,647 = 21,617.50.
What changed this year
The changes came in two steps, which is why sources disagree.
2 June 2026 raised the enterprise average-salary threshold for criticality to 3 minimum wages, with no transition period.
1 September 2026 raised the threshold for the reserved employee's own salary, also to 3 minimum wages. Until then it was 2.5.
So as of today, UAH 21,617.50 applies only to front-line and occupied territories. For everyone else it expired a fortnight ago — and it is still the figure most search results show, because they were written in summer and never updated.
Criticality and reservation are different things
Confusing them costs time.
Critical enterprise is a status of the company, granted against a set of criteria including average salary, absence of tax debt, significance to an industry or community, taxes paid or foreign-currency earnings.
Reservation is then an action concerning a specific employee: they are on military record, work at an enterprise holding the status, and their own salary meets the threshold.
The order is one-way: company status first, then reservation of people. Without status, an enterprise reserves nobody, whatever it pays.
Sector-specific rules with different quotas also exist — defence-industry and several industrial sectors have their own conditions on the share of employees. If you are in one, the general figures do not apply and you need your own procedure.
Common mistakes
Raising salary on paper rather than in fact. What is checked is accrued average for the calendar month. A one-off top-up before filing is visible.
Averaging across the whole headcount including part-timers. Fractional posts and incomplete months drag the average down, and an enterprise fails on a measure it actually meets.
Forgetting tax debt. Outstanding debt closes the status question regardless of salaries.
Taking a figure from an undated article. Right now this is the expensive one: the gap between 21,617.50 and 25,941 is over four thousand per employee per month.
Why the check date matters here more than anywhere
Plainly: this is the least stable subject we write about. The thresholds moved twice during 2026, and there is no reason to assume that was the last time.
So the rule for this page is stricter than usual: a figure without a check date has no value here. If you are reading about reservation and cannot see when it was last verified, assume it is stale.
Our position: decisions to raise salaries for the sake of criticality should be modelled a year ahead rather than to the next filing. Raise to the threshold, watch the threshold rise again a quarter later, and you either raise again or lose the status along with every reservation under it. The objection applies when the status is needed for a specific contract of known duration — then model that duration.
Verified 17 September 2026 against the criteria approved by the Cabinet of Ministers. Check the current wording before filing; here that is a practical requirement rather than boilerplate.