4.32 Hryvnias per Kilowatt-Hour: Ukraine’s Household Electricity Price and Its Outage Schedules

As of September 2026, the price Ukrainian households pay for electricity is 4.32 hryvnias per kilowatt-hour (including VAT). This is not a market price but a “fixed price” set by a Cabinet of Ministers decision, unchanged since June 1, 2024. As of September 2026, this Cabinet decision is stated to remain in effect until October 31.

At the same time, in winters when attacks on power plants and the grid continue, “schedules” cutting electricity for set hours in each region have been used. This article, drawing on legislation and announcements from the relevant agencies (confirmed in September 2026), sets out in turn how the household electricity price is set and how it has changed, and the types of outage schedules and who issues them. The scale of damage from attacks is covered in our article on generating electricity in smaller, distributed units in a country whose plants keep being targeted.

The price is set by a Cabinet decision

The legal basis for the household price is Cabinet of Ministers Decision No. 483 of June 5, 2019, “On Approving the Regulation on Imposing Special Obligations on Participants in the Electricity Market.” Under Article 62 of the Law on the Electricity Market, this is a mechanism through which the Cabinet imposes “special obligations” on market participants, and the decision states that the public interest it is meant to protect is “ensuring households can use electricity at an affordable price.”

The mechanism works as follows. Universal service providers (regional retail suppliers) that contract with households sell them electricity at the fixed price set by the decision. The gap with the market price is covered by the state-owned nuclear power company Energoatom and the hydropower company Ukrhydroenergo, through the Guaranteed Buyer (Гарантований покупець). These two companies are named in the decision’s annex as the producers bearing the obligation.

According to the regulator’s (NEURC’s) annual report for 2025, this mechanism cost 180 billion hryvnias (including VAT) in 2025, up 18% from the previous year. Of this, Energoatom bore 90.51% and Ukrhydroenergo 9.49%. In May 2023, the chairman of the regulator said in an interview with an industry publication that the household price at the time covered only 25% of the cost of electricity (as introduced on the regulator’s website).

How the price has changed

The Cabinet has changed the price by rewriting the annex to this decision. The prices applied to individual households are as follows.

The price from October 2021 had two tiers: 1.44 hryvnias for up to 250 kWh used a month, rising to 1.68 hryvnias on the whole amount if that was exceeded. From June 2023, the distinction by amount was removed, leaving a single rate of 2.64 hryvnias.

Winter prices for homes heated by electricity

Under the September 2026 decision, households living in homes that have installed electric heating equipment through the prescribed procedure pay 2.64 hryvnias per kWh from October 1 to April 30, for up to 2,000 kWh a month (4.32 hryvnias on the whole amount if 2,000 kWh is exceeded). Households in apartment buildings with no gas connection and no working central heating receive the same price for the same period. In this case, the local authority or another body issues documentation confirming the housing meets these conditions.

Prices that vary by time of day

Households with a meter that can measure usage by time of day may choose a time-of-day price. According to the decision’s annex, under a two-band split, the fixed price is multiplied by 0.5 from 23:00 to 7:00 and by 1 at other times. Under a three-band split, it is multiplied by 1.5 from 8:00–11:00 and 20:00–22:00, by 0.4 from 23:00 to 7:00, and by 1 at other times.

What appears on the bill

The regulator’s Rules of the Retail Electricity Market require retail suppliers to show, on the bill and on the customer’s online personal page, the price applied and its breakdown (the price of the electricity itself, the transmission tariff, the distribution tariff, the retailer’s service fee, taxes, and so on), the previous and current meter readings, and the amount used. How electricity flows, and which company handles what, is set out in the Law on the Electricity Market’s framework of generation, transmission, distribution, and retail.

There are several types of outage schedule

The types of outage schedule are defined by abbreviation in the regulator’s Transmission System Code (No. 309 of March 14, 2018). Those most relevant to households are as follows.

According to the same Code, these schedules are measures taken when the system enters an emergency state. One of the conditions for an emergency is “a shortfall of power, at the time of peak demand during the day, severe enough to require using four or more queues of the hourly outage schedule to balance the system.” How the schedules are drawn up and used follows an instruction issued by the ministry responsible for energy policy. Power is actually cut by operators of the transmission and distribution companies, acting on dispatch instructions from the transmission system operator (Ukrenergo).

The Ministry of Energy publishes the state of the system every morning. For example, the announcement on the morning of January 15, 2026 stated that “across most of Ukraine, hourly outage schedules apply to all types of users, and power limitation schedules apply to industry,” and that in several oblasts where consumption had risen because of cold weather, equipment overloads had forced the use of emergency outages. The same announcement said that in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast, the previous hourly schedule could not be used temporarily because of grid constraints, and that it would return to the schedule once the situation stabilized.

The announcement on the morning of September 23, 2026 stated that fighting and attacks had cut power in parts of Donetsk Oblast (Донецк in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ rendering), Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Kyiv Oblast, Sumy Oblast, and Kharkiv Oblast, but that no restrictions were expected to be used that day. It also called on people to check “the official sources of their local distribution company” for changes in electricity supply.

Where households find the schedule

As the Ministry of Energy advises, which “queue” an address falls into and when power will be cut needs to be confirmed through information issued by the local distribution company. There is no single nationwide schedule; each is issued by its own distribution company for its own area.

Separately, for “planned outages” that cut power for equipment work and similar purposes, the regulator’s Rules of the Retail Electricity Market set out notification requirements.

• For a planned outage, the settlements and streets affected, the reason, the start date and time, and the expected duration must be posted on the distribution company’s website and notified to the local authority at least 5 days in advance
• Users must be notified by electronic means, such as their personal page, at least 3 days in advance
• For an accidental outage affecting more than 100 users for more than an hour, the area and expected time of restoration must be posted on the website within 6 hours of the outage
• Outage information posted on the website must be kept for 3 years

For someone in Japan wanting to know the situation in a family’s area in Ukraine, these are the two sources to check: the Ministry of Energy’s daily morning announcement for the national picture, and the local distribution company’s announcement for the schedule in a specific area.

After October 31

The annex setting the household fixed price has had its deadline extended roughly every six months — in April 2025, October 2025, and April 2026. A decision of April 29, 2026 (No. 530) set the deadline at October 31, 2026, with the price remaining 4.32 hryvnias. As of September 2026, the price and deadline from November have not been decided.