Leasing state and municipal property: how to rent premises at auction

State and municipal real estate in Ukraine is leased out through electronic auctions — as required by the Law “On Lease of State and Municipal Property”, in force since 2020. Lessors include the State Property Fund of Ukraine, community councils and state and municipal enterprises and institutions. Bidding takes place on Prozorro.Sale; anyone can rent — from an entrepreneur opening a coffee shop to a company looking for a warehouse.

What is leased

• rooms and floors in administrative buildings;
• premises in schools, clinics and community centres — for canteens, pharmacies, clubs;
• non-residential ground-floor premises in apartment buildings — for shops and services;
• warehouses, garages, production premises, whole buildings;
• parts of roofs and walls — for equipment and advertising.

All such lots are collected in the “State property lease” catalogue; you can filter them by region, price and words in the title. The catalogue also has a separate “Commercial lease” group — premises leased out by companies, most of all Ukrtelecom (see our guide to commercial lease).

What the announcement says

• The starting rent is per month; the catalogue marks it “/ mo”. Bidding starts from it.
• Area, floor, condition of the premises, available utilities.
• Designated use: premises can be leased for any purpose or with restrictions — for example, only for educational services or without selling alcohol.
• Lease term and conditions: whether renovation is allowed, whether subletting is permitted.
• The guarantee deposit, bid step, application deadline and auction date.

Besides the rent, the tenant usually pays separately for utilities and part of the building’s maintenance costs. Details are in the draft lease contract attached to the announcement.

Lease extension

Some lots are not new premises but the extension of an existing tenant’s lease via an auction. In that case the current tenant has a pre-emptive right: they can keep the premises if they agree to match the highest price offered at the auction. Whether a lot is an extension is stated in the announcement — keep this in mind when planning your budget and time.

Why the price may drop

If no tenant is found at the first auction, the premises are put up again — at an auction with a reduced starting price, and then at an auction with step-by-step price reduction. So the same premises sometimes appear several times, cheaper each time; the history is shown on the lot page in the “Previous auctions of this asset” block. More in our guide to repeat auctions.

How to take part

1. Inspect the premises — the announcement says whom to contact.
2. Register on one of the accredited Prozorro.Sale e-marketplaces.
3. Pay the registration fee and the guarantee deposit and apply before the deadline shown on the lot page.
4. On auction day, raise the rent online; whoever offers the most wins.

After you win

The winner signs the auction protocol and the lease contract within the deadlines in the announcement. Before signing, you usually need to pay advance rent and a security deposit — their amounts are in the announcement and the draft contract. Bidders who did not win get their guarantee deposit back under the auction rules.

Premises currently accepting applications

Need premises in a particular city or for a particular business? Save a filter with a region, price and keywords — the radar will message you in Telegram as soon as such premises are put up.

This is an overview for orientation, not legal advice. The binding terms of each auction are in its announcement and documents on prozorro.sale.