Leasing without an auction and for UAH 1: who is entitled to state and municipal property and land

“Lease without an auction” and “lease for one hryvnia” are among the most common questions about state and municipal property in Ukraine. The short answer: businesses and individuals generally get premises and land only through a Prozorro.Sale auction. Leases without bidding and for a symbolic rent go mostly to state institutions and social and cultural organizations. But there are exceptions a business can use too. Here they are, based on the law.

In short

• Premises without an auction — only for those listed in Article 15 of Law No. 157-IX: budget institutions, religious organizations, museums, educational institutions, veterans’ organizations, social service providers, sports and youth organizations and the like. Not for a commercial company.
• A lease can be renewed without an auction if it is renewed for the first time and the term is up to five years.
• UAH 1 a year — for government bodies, institutions fully funded from the state budget, administrative service centres, state and municipal media and a few other categories.
• There is a “UAH 1” for business: companies relocating production from frontline regions pay UAH 1 per square metre for the first six months — but they must win the premises at auction.
• Land without bidding is granted, for instance, if your building stands on the plot, to citizens for hay meadows, grazing and vegetable gardens, and under martial law — for evacuated enterprises.

Leasing state and municipal property without an auction

The law gives this right to two groups.

The first group can get any property without bidding: state and local government bodies and budget-funded institutions; religious organizations — for rites and ceremonies; the Pension Fund; diplomatic missions; tenants of land with a water body — for the hydraulic structures on it.

The second group — only property not put up for auction (not on the Type 1 List): museums, state and municipal cultural organizations and cultural NGOs (including artists’ unions for studios), licensed educational institutions of any ownership, veterans’ organizations for rehabilitation facilities, rehabilitation facilities for people with disabilities, registered social service providers, publishers issuing at least half their books in Ukrainian, MPs and local councillors for public reception offices, sports clubs and youth sports schools, youth centres and youth associations, and state and municipal enterprises and charities — for temporary housing of internally displaced people. Separately — organizers of conferences, concerts and public events for a few days.

Key conditions:

• Even without an auction — through Prozorro.Sale. Transfer without bidding “is carried out exclusively in the ETS”: information about the object and the signed contract is published in the electronic trading system.
• If several eligible applicants ask for the same object, the lessor chooses the tenant (for municipal property — the local council).
• Subletting such property is prohibited.
• Local councils may set extra requirements for tenants of municipal property.

How to renew a lease without an auction

As a rule, a lease of state or municipal property is renewed through an auction. It can be renewed without one if:

• it is renewed for the first time and the term is five years or less;
• it was concluded without an auction with institutions and organizations under Article 15;
• the tenant provides socially important services — under the Cabinet’s list, which local councils may extend.

The renewal application must reach the lessor at least three months before the contract ends; the decision is made within 30 days. If renewal goes through an auction, the sitting tenant takes part and can use a pre-emptive right, and their guarantee deposit is only half of the starting monthly rent. Over the past year we counted 867 such auctions with a sitting tenant’s pre-emptive right — about one in seven state and municipal property lease auctions.

Under martial law, the starting rent at a renewal auction and the rent under contracts renewed without an auction equal the last monthly rent under the contract, indexed.

Lease for UAH 1: who gets it

UAH 1 a year for state real estate, under the rent calculation methodology (Cabinet Resolution No. 630), applies to government bodies and institutions fully funded from the state budget; local governments — for administrative service centres; the Pension Fund; national art ensembles with state support; editorial offices of state and municipal publications; and a few other named organizations. For municipal property, rent is set by local councils in their own methodologies, so benefits vary between communities.

UAH 1 per square metre a month — for relocating businesses. Under martial law, auction winners leasing premises to move production or other capacities from Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, Chernihiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr and Odesa oblasts, Crimea, Kyiv or Sevastopol pay UAH 1 per square metre for the first six months. The condition is a request from the regional military administration where the premises are, issued before the auction date; it is submitted together with the signed protocol.

Abandoned architectural monuments. A monument in disrepair can be given on a long-term preferential lease for 15–25 years. Rent of UAH 1 per square metre a month applies only to Article 15 organizations receiving the monument without an auction. A business can take such a monument at auction, with part of its preservation costs credited against the rent.

Martial law: who else gets property without an auction

• Defence industry companies: designated critical by the Ministry of Defence, state contractors, makers of missile weapons, military explosives, unmanned systems and electronic warfare equipment, Defence City residents. They apply to have the property put on the Type 2 List.
• State and municipal healthcare, education, culture, sports and social protection institutions — for temporary housing of internally displaced people (up to a year after martial law ends).

There are also narrow exceptions — for example, for energy companies whose equipment was damaged by attacks, and for certain State Reserve property. The full list is in Cabinet Resolution No. 634.

Land without bidding

State and municipal land is sold and leased at land auctions — a requirement of Article 134 of the Land Code. The main exceptions when no auction is held:

• a building or structure you own stands on the plot;
• to citizens — plots for hay meadows, grazing and vegetable gardens;
• renewal of a land lease or a new lease under the sitting tenant’s pre-emptive right;
• free transfer of plots to citizens within the norms (Article 121 of the Code);
• lease together with buildings and property complexes leased from the state or a community;
• religious organizations — under places of worship; plots under field roads and shelterbelts within agricultural land; infrastructure, utilities, industrial parks, investors with significant investments and other cases under Article 134.

Under martial law land may also be leased without bidding to host production capacities of enterprises evacuated from combat zones (from an official list), for Danube river ports and sea ports, multimodal terminals and utility networks — power, gas, water and communications.

A common misconception: in 2022 a rule appeared on leasing agricultural land without bidding for up to one year. It applies only while the State Land Cadastre is suspended across all of Ukraine. The cadastre is working, so the state and communities lease farmland through land auctions.

A pond without an auction is usually not possible: a water body is leased together with water fund land at a land auction. How it works — in our article on leasing a pond.

What to do if you are not eligible

Look for an object at auction — there are thousands, and good prices happen there too: repeat auctions cut the starting rent, and in Dutch auctions it falls during bidding. See our articles on leasing state and municipal property, leasing land and repeat auctions. To take part, register on a marketplace and pay the fees.

Based on Law No. 157-IX “On Lease of State and Municipal Property” (Articles 15, 18), the Land Code (Article 134, item 27 of Section X “Transitional Provisions”) and Cabinet resolutions No. 483, 630 and 634 — as of October 2026. The rules change often, and communities set their own benefits for municipal property. This is an overview for orientation, not legal advice: check the current versions of the documents before applying to a lessor.