Outstaffing in Ukraine: no permit since 2022 — and the rules that still apply

Rules checked on 14 September 2026 against the current text of the Law “On Employment of Population”.

Many guides, and some providers, still say that outstaffing in Ukraine needs a permit or a licence. That was the wording of the law until 2022 — and even then the permit could never actually be issued. Today Ukrainian law requires no permit for it at all. What it does require is set out in Article 39 of the Law “On Employment of Population”, and those rules are stricter than most foreign companies expect.

What the law regulates

Article 39 covers a business that employs people under its own employment contracts and sends them to work in Ukraine for another employer. The market calls this outstaffing, staff leasing, personnel leasing or temporary agency work.

It is not the same as outsourcing. The difference lies in who directs the work:

Model	Who employs the people	Who directs the daily work	Article 39
Outsourcing (a service contract)	The service provider	The service provider	Usually not, if the service is genuinely independent
Outstaffing (staff leasing)	The provider	The client, in practice	Yes — this is the Article 39 case
Direct hire	The client	The client	No
Secondment within a group	Depends on the structure	Often the host company	Case by case; in substance it can fall under Article 39

The name on the contract does not decide the question. If your managers give the people daily instructions, set their schedules and workplace, and you receive their work rather than an agreed result, the arrangement is outstaffing — whatever the contract calls it.

How the permit came and went

• Until October 2022 Article 39 said that this activity was carried out on the basis of a permit from the central employment authority, under a procedure set by the Cabinet of Ministers, and prohibited it without that permit. Article 53 set a fine of 20 times the minimum wage for operating without it.
• The permit never became obtainable. The Cabinet approved a procedure for issuing it — Resolution No. 359 of 20 May 2013 — but made it conditional on a separate law that was never adopted. The resolution has never entered into force.
• Since 15 October 2022 Law No. 2623-IX has been in force. It rewrote Article 39 without the permit sentences and deleted the prohibition on operating without a permit.
• Since October 2023 Law No. 2982-IX has limited the 20-times fine in Article 53 to agencies that place people in jobs abroad without being included in the register for that activity. The law no longer contains a fine for outstaffing without a permit.

So there is no outstaffing permit, no permit fee and no permit fine in Ukrainian law today. Other permissions are separate matters: a foreign employee still needs a work permit, and agencies placing Ukrainians in jobs abroad have their own rules.

Check: Law No. 5067-VI, current text, edition before the 2022 amendment, Law No. 2623-IX, Law No. 2982-IX, Resolution No. 359.

What Article 39 requires today

A condition for sending workers. A provider sends workers to a client only if this is provided for in the collective agreement of “such employer” and the primary trade union organisation agrees. The wording can be read as referring to the provider or to the client, and the law does not say how the condition works at an employer that has neither a collective agreement nor a trade union — which is the case at many employers in Ukraine. Settle how it applies to your set-up with Ukrainian labour counsel, in writing.

Five duties of the provider. The provider must:

1. sign a contract with the client on the use of the worker's labour;
2. pay the worker at least the statutory minimum wage and at least what the client pays for the same work;
3. give the worker working and rest time on the terms set for the client's employees by the collective agreement and internal work rules;
4. calculate and pay the single social contribution for the worker;
5. not prevent the worker from signing an employment contract directly with the client.

Placements that are banned. A provider may not send workers to a client that:

• has reduced its headcount within the past year;
• has not met the staffing norm for workers in the core professions of its main production process;
• would use the workers in harmful, dangerous or arduous conditions, or in core professions of its main production process.

General duties under Article 36. Businesses that hire people to work for other employers must also give job seekers full and accurate information about vacancies, requirements, working conditions and pay; protect their personal data; cooperate with the state employment service; and report the number of people they have employed to the employment service in the established procedure.

Check: Law No. 5067-VI, Articles 36 and 39.

What a compliant arrangement looks like

1. The provider is the real employer. It is a registered Ukrainian company that signs the employment contracts, issues the hiring orders, notifies the tax authority before each person starts, runs payroll, withholds income tax and military levy, pays the social contribution, and administers leave, sick leave, working-time records, health and safety and dismissals. A provider that only issues invoices while the client hires, pays, manages and dismisses the people is the arrangement inspectors reclassify.

2. The Article 39 conditions are checked for every assignment — the collective-agreement and union question, pay at least equal to the client's pay for the same work, the client's working-time rules, and the banned placements — and the result is documented.

3. The service contract says who does what. At a minimum it should cover:

• that the provider remains the legal employer;
• the roles, number of people, qualifications and work locations;
• start and end dates, and how people are replaced;
• the price: salary costs, taxes and contributions, benefits, service fee, overtime, travel and protective equipment;
• the client's pay for comparable roles, so the equal-pay duty can be met;
• the client's working-time rules and internal work rules that apply to the people;
• the client's duty to provide a safe workplace, safety induction and supervision, and to report incidents;
• who records working time, approves overtime and coordinates leave;
• data-protection roles and confidentiality;
• that the people remain free to sign with the client directly;
• the client's written confirmations on its collective agreement and trade union, headcount reductions in the past year, core-profession staffing and the nature of the work;
• audit rights, and indemnities for breaches caused by either side.

The risks that remain

• Reclassification. If the provider is not the genuine employer, the arrangement can be treated as undeclared employment — a fine of 10 times the minimum wage per person, 30 times for a repeat within two years (Labour Code, Article 265), plus back taxes and contributions. This risk can fall on the client, not only on the provider.
• Pay. A worker paid less than the client's own staff for the same work can claim the difference.
• Banned placements. Sending people to a client that cut its headcount in the past year, or into core production or hazardous work, breaches Article 39 directly.
• Tax and contributions. Errors in withholding, reporting or the social contribution are assessed against whoever turns out to be the employer.
• Health and safety. Responsibility cannot simply be moved to the client by contract.
• Foreign workers. Employing a foreign national without a work permit costs 20 times the minimum wage per person (Article 53); outstaffing does not remove that requirement.

Questions to ask an outstaffing provider

1. Who signs the employment contracts, runs payroll and files the hiring notices and tax reports?
2. How do you meet Article 39's collective-agreement and trade-union condition — and what is your legal view where there is neither?
3. How do you make sure people are paid at least what we pay our own staff for the same work?
4. How do you check the banned placements: headcount cuts in the past year, core production roles, hazardous work?
5. How do you handle military registration and, where relevant, reservation of the people you employ?
6. What does the service contract say about health and safety, working time, data protection and direct hiring?
7. Who is our contract partner — a Ukrainian or an EU company — and how is VAT invoiced?

A provider that still offers you “the outstaffing licence” is working from a law that changed in 2022.

When your arrangement may not be outstaffing

If what you need is a defined result — a payroll run, a recruitment assignment, a translated document set, a finished piece of software — and the provider organises and supervises the work itself, you are buying a service, and Article 39 is usually not engaged. The test is the reality of control, not the wording of the contract, so describe the deliverables and the division of management accurately from the start.

How ClarusApex can help

Our position on Article 39. Since 15 October 2022 Ukrainian law no longer requires a permit for employing people to work for another employer, and since October 2023 it provides no fine for the absence of one. APEX AV LLC employs people on its own Ukrainian employment contracts and complies with Ukrainian labour, tax and social-security law. Where Article 39 leaves questions open — such as how its collective-agreement condition applies to employers without a collective agreement — we act on a written opinion of Ukrainian labour counsel.

APEX AV LLC runs payroll, taxes and reporting for the people it employs and keeps their military registration, so the people you work with have a genuine Ukrainian employer. For each assignment we check the Article 39 conditions, including the collective-agreement and trade-union condition. We pay the people at least what you pay your own staff for the same work, and the service contract sets out that comparison together with the division of duties. Stefan Lilienkamp and Marina Korytnyuk answer questions within one business day.

This briefing is general information, not legal advice for your case.