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The Economy Tracker provides regular updates on the state of Ukraine’s economy during the war, bringing together key indicators and charts in one place. Sections are updated on a rolling basis to reflect the latest data.

You may also be interested in our Monthly Economic Reviews, which feature a focused topic and bring together key experts for discussions.

After a 28.8% contraction in 2022, the economy rebounded by 5.5% in 2023. In 2024, GDP growth amounted to only 2.9% y-o-y, below expectations. The economic recovery is gradually slowing.

In 2025, real GDP grew by 1.8%. Most forecasts had expected a stronger outcome (the average estimate of non-government analysts was +2% in 2025). The weaker recovery reflected Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

In Q4 2025, real GDP increased by 3.0% y-o-y and by 0.7% compared with the previous quarter (seasonally adjusted).

Economic recovery in Q4 was supported by the harvest of late crops, particularly maize, which boosted exports and supported freight transport.

The economy also benefited from budget spending, with a pronounced seasonal surge at the end of the year. Consumer demand remained resilient, with growth in retail trade, partly driven by faster growth in real wages amid easing inflationary pressures.

Prices continue to rise faster than last year. In March 2026, prices increased by 1.7% (after 1.0% in February). In y-o-y terms, inflation accelerated from 7.6% in February to 7.9% in March. Ukraine entered the full-scale war with consumer inflation at around 10% y-o-y.

The current pickup in inflation is driven mainly by higher fuel and transport costs, as well as, with a lag, the sharp increase in electricity tariffs for businesses in January–February, which is now starting to feed through into prices, alongside the impact of hryvnia depreciation. In this environment, the NBU will likely keep the policy rate at least at its current level to prevent CPI from breaching 10% y-o-y — a widely perceived psychological threshold of “normality”. At the same time, the Ministry of Finance may find it easier to meet its revenue targets amid the real erosion of expenditures. To avoid a further acceleration in inflation in the autumn, it is critical to provide maximum support to farmers to ensure a smooth sowing campaign and adequate fertiliser application.

The NBU kept the key policy rate at 15% at the Monetary Policy Committee meeting on 29 March 2026. The NBU postponed easing due to rising inflation risks and expectations at the start of 2026. It also stated that it stands ready to raise the rate if needed.

In March 2026, Ukraine’s FX reserves fell by 5% to $52 bn. Over the month, the NBU carried out FX interventions totalling $4.8 bn to support the hryvnia.

Lower gold prices and a stronger US dollar reduced the value of reserves by another $656 mn. A further $383 mn went to debt servicing and repayments.

At the same time, $3 bn flowed into reserves: $1.5 bn from the IMF, $1.5 bn via the World Bank, and $50 mn from FX domestic bonds. This inflow did not fully offset FX outflows, so reserves declined.

The current record-high level of reserves covers 5.5 months of future imports (compared with the 3-month benchmark).

Since the second half of October, the dollar exchange rate — both the NBU’s official rate and the cash market rate — has started to rise and has crossed UAH 42/$. This depreciation is controlled, as the NBU maintains a regime of managed flexibility, intervening in the market to prevent large fluctuations. Sharp swings are unlikely given the adequate level of FX reserves, which allow these interventions to continue.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, all domestic revenues of Ukraine’s state budget have gone to finance defence; these expenditures account for roughly half of the budget. Ukraine finances all civilian state budget expenditures with foreign financial assistance — in 2026, the need for such external financing is about $50 bn.

In 2026, Ukraine has already launched a new cooperation programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and received the first credit tranche of $1.5 bn. Ukraine also continues to receive funds under the ERA programme (financed from proceeds generated by frozen Russian assets) — $5.1 bn already in 2026.

In 2025, foreign aid covered 56% of Ukraine’s additional state budget needs, down from 73% in 2024. In 2025, the main source of external financing was the ERA programme — a mechanism for transferring proceeds from frozen Russian assets. In 2026, financing from the European Union under a large €90 bn loan will be crucial for Ukraine.

In February, CPT surged 3.2x m-o-m due to seasonality, but still a +24% annual increase. PIT grew steadily: +10% m-o-m and +22% y-o-y.

Import taxes spiked in February: excises rose by 40% and Import VAT by 18% compared to January, due to higher level of electricity imports.

Domestic VAT decreased m-o-m, but outperformed plan (by 8%) due to higher demand for energy products in January.

Subsoil rent led growth (+102% y-o-y) and exceeded plan by 27% due to low initial targets.

CPT followed with a +22% y-o-y increase, outperforming the budget plan by 9%.

Domestic VAT was the only outlier, falling short of both last year’s figures (-0.3%) and the budget target (-12%) due to lower economic activity.

January 2026 total spending: UAH 268 bn, missing the monthly target and facing a seasonal drop from December.

In-kind military support decreased 4x y-o-y.

Debt service: underperformance by UAH 12 bn or 36% below plan, contributed to the overall spending gap.

Economic expenditures: totalled just over UAH 3 bn, a 10% decrease y-o-y.

The NDI “5-7-9%” programme plan at the level of 2025: UAH 18 bn annual budget, or 10% of all economic activity spending. Focus on lending: 83% of the program’s funds are dedicated to partial compensation of interest rates on business loans. Consistent execution: Jan-Feb spending reached UAH 3.5 bn in both 2025 and 2026 years.

Ukraine’s labour market experiences all the challenges of a full-scale war. The economic shock of the beginning of the Russian invasion led to a drop in both demand and supply of labour. Businesses stopped hiring and people stopped applying for jobs. Later, demand for labour began to recover slowly. The number of people looking for a new job soared in the summer of 2022 and exceeded the average for 2021. However, the trends diverged from there: the need for labour was recovering along with the economic recovery, while the activity of job seekers was declining, not least due to Ukrainians’ migration abroad and mobilisation into the Defence Forces.

Labour market activity is gradually recovering after the holidays. At the end of 2025, both new job postings and new CVs fell to about 75–80% of the 2021 average. In early 2026, the market quickly emerged from this lull: employers became more active in posting vacancies, while jobseekers stepped up CV submissions.

In mid-January 2026, the number of new CVs increased quite sharply and, for the first time since 2022, exceeded pre-war levels. At the same time, the volume of new vacancies has fluctuated at around 80% of the pre-war level. Importantly, this does not mean that there are more vacancies than CVs. On average, there are 2.5 new CVs per new vacancy.

The State Statistics Service of Ukraine stopped publishing unemployment data when the full-scale war started. The Info Sapiens research agency makes its own estimates of the unemployment rate. According to these estimates, unemployment in Ukraine increased to 15.5% in March 2026. A proxy indicator of poverty — the share of respondents who are forced to cut spending on food — decreased to 22.1% in March.

Given that neither the number of unemployed people nor the size of the working-age population is known with certainty, it is appropriate to analyse this unemployment estimate over time. We see that over the past few years Ukraine has experienced a decline in the unemployment rate, while the overall level of poverty has remained high.

In March 2026, the seasonally adjusted Business Activity Expectations Index (BAEI) improved slightly to 49.4, but remained below the neutral level. The original IBA data improved and moved into positive territory, but this happens every spring, so it is also important to look at seasonally adjusted data.

According to the NBU, business sentiment was supported primarily by the normalisation of the electricity situation.

Changes in business expectations are an important subjective indicator of the economic situation, signalling a gradual recovery or deterioration in business activity.

The Info Sapiens Consumer Sentiment Index stood at 73.5 points in January 2026, deteriorating from 78.5 in December. An index below 100 indicates that negative consumer sentiment prevails. The index consists of the Economic Expectations Index (86.8 in January) and the Current Conditions Index (53.7). Prolonged power outages began to weigh on sentiment, and in January 2026 consumer confidence fell below levels recorded in the same month in previous years.

Here we do not apply seasonal adjustment because, for consumer expectations, there are not enough observations, and the fluctuations are mostly unsystematic and not tied to the month of the year. This contrasts with businesses, whose expectations are shaped by more fundamental seasonal patterns in consumption, project cycles, agriculture, and so on.

Unfortunately, as of January 2026, Info Sapiens has discontinued its monthly consumer sentiment survey — updates will now be published on a quarterly basis.

After electricity exports were halted on 11 November 2025 due to Russian attacks, Ukraine began gradually restoring electricity exports in March 2026. In total, around 30.5 GWh were exported during the month to Hungary, Moldova, and Romania, with most volumes concentrated at the end of March. Moldova was the largest importer of Ukrainian electricity, purchasing about 16 GWh.

However, export volumes remain limited: imports exceed exports by nearly 31 times. Even so, the resumption of exports is clearly positive news. Lower consumption due to warmer weather and increased solar generation helped stabilise the power system.

After the increase in electricity price caps in January, Ukrainian businesses were finally able to scale up electricity imports. Previously, government price regulation had created an absurd situation where electricity prices in Ukraine — despite severe shortages caused by attacks — were at times lower than market prices in other European countries. On 16 January, Energy Minister Shmyhal announced the price cap increase, and on 17 January the caps were raised. On 8 February, Ukraine set a new daily import record, purchasing more than 50 GWh of electricity from abroad. Unfortunately, from 31 March the price caps are set to return to their previous, insufficient level. It is important to keep price caps at a high level that allows the market to balance itself.

In March, electricity imports declined to 942 GWh from 1,263 GWh in February. Hungary and Romania remained the largest suppliers (456 GWh and 189 GWh, respectively). Slovakia and Poland also supplied electricity (167 GWh and 117 GWh, respectively), as did Moldova (13 GWh). Ukraine pays a market price for this electricity — it is not aid.

Hungary and Slovakia together account for two-thirds of Ukraine’s total electricity imports (48% and 18%, respectively). Therefore, statements by the prime ministers of these countries about a possible halt to supplies raised concerns. However, cross-border electricity flows are governed by the common rules of the European power system ENTSO-E. Ukraine is a full member of ENTSO-E, as are Hungary and Slovakia. This means that electricity supplies to Ukraine cannot be arbitrarily stopped by a unilateral political decision.

Raising price caps made electricity more available for businesses, but also more expensive. In the first two months of 2026, the day-ahead market (DAM) price rose by 46.6% to UAH 10.1/kWh (excluding VAT). However, in March, as the situation eased, prices fell back. The average DAM price declined to UAH 7.3/kWh. Still, prices remain generally higher than in 2025.

Agricultural production fall by 14% y-o-y in January-September 2025 (after falling by 8,4% y-o-y in January-August), according to the SSSU, due to a shift in harvest pace compared to 2024.

As of mid-October, adverse weather continued to delay both harvesting and sowing. About 35 mt of grain had been harvested, down from ≈43 mt a year earlier, and winter crop planting reached 4,8 million hectares (vs over 5,4 million hectares in 2024). Yields of late crops are expected to match last year’s levels, except for sunflowers.

The new export duty on rapeseed spurred processing (250,000 t in September vs 60,000 t in July–August) and boosted rapeseed oil exports (109,000 t).

On 13 October, the EU agreed to cut or remove tariffs on many Ukrainian agri-food products, including dairy, fruit, vegetables, and meat.

In its November forecast, the USDA expects Ukraine to harvest 32 mn tonnes of corn in the 2025/26 marketing season, of which 24.5 mn tonnes will be exported. The wheat harvest is projected at 23 mn tonnes, with exports at 15 mn tonnes. The soybean crop is forecast at 6.2 mn tonnes.

Metallurgical production in January 2026 fell by 15-25% m-o-m. Export of major metallurgical products also decreased (steel by 25%, pig iron by 27%, metal ore by 34%). The decline in production and exports is linked to high energy costs, logistics disruptions, lower iron ore prices and demand.

CBAM came into effect for Ukrainian producers at the beginning of 2026, despite the discussions with the European Commission about a transition period due to the ongoing full-scale war. By GMK Center estimates, the introduction of CBAM will affect ~15% of Ukrainian exports (cement, fertilisers, pig iron and rolled steel, etc.), and export losses could reach $4.7 bn in 2026-2030, starting from $400 million in 2026. CBAM imposes additional costs on producers, making production uncompetitive compared to European or lower-carbon producers.

Household deposits continue to trend upward. Demand and FX deposits on demand have exceeded 200% of their 2021 nominal level and remain elevated, indicating strong demand for liquidity. Time deposits in hryvnia have also increased, while FX time deposits have not, pointing to caution toward long-term foreign-currency savings.

Lending in Ukraine is growing rapidly and confidently. Credit growth is driven both by strong business demand and by competition among banks, which has led them to ease lending conditions. Consumer lending is also expanding quickly.

However, note that while deposits have already reached 200% of their 2021 nominal level, loans have not. A gap between deposits and lending remains. Banks still find it attractive to place funds in NBU deposit certificates.

We updated the corporate hryvnia loans index to reflect PrivatBank’s write-off of NPLs from Kolomoisky’s era.

According to preliminary NBU data, in February 2025 the balance of goods and services was negative at $-6.2 bn. In February, Ukraine imported a total of $10.4 bn, including $8.6 bn in goods and $1.8 bn in services. Exports reached $4.3 bn, including $3.0 bn in goods and $1.3 bn in services.

The comments and data in this Tracker have been adapted for an international audience with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation.

We use ChatGPT while working on this page to help edit and translate texts. The author, economist Maksym Samoiliuk, is responsible for the quality of the final product.