Free Passage Through the Locks: The 2020 Inland Waterway Law and Freight on the Dnipro

Along the Dnipro River, from Kyiv to past Zaporizhzhia, dams and reservoirs run in a staircase. Ships travel up and down the river through locks beside the dams — facilities that raise and lower vessels between stretches of water at different levels. The first law to set out the rules for ships using this river is Law No. 1054-IX “On Inland Water Transport,” adopted by the Verkhovna Rada on December 3, 2020. It took effect on January 1, 2022.

The origins of the dams and reservoirs are covered in the article on the Dnipro’s six dams, and the river’s course as a whole in the article on Ukraine’s rivers and climate. Here, we look at what the law changed and how much freight the river has carried.

Before the Law Existed

The then Ministry of Infrastructure, on a page introducing the situation before the law, listed problems with inland water transport: aging facilities such as locks and navigation signage; the absence of a law on inland water transport and of a mechanism for securing funding; and the fact that “the Dnipro cannot be freely navigated by foreign-flagged vessels without a permit for each passage, nor can foreign vessels carry cargo between Ukrainian ports (cabotage) without a permit.”

From Adoption to Entry into Force

The law did not take effect all at once. Its stages are set out below.

The then Ministry of Infrastructure issued an explanation on December 30, 2021, just before the law took effect, stating that it incorporated five EU directives (on technical requirements for inland vessels, mutual recognition of crew qualifications, market access for domestic and foreign transport operators, the unification of river information services, and others).

What the Law Changed

Foreign-Flagged Vessels

Article 53 permits international transport connecting Ukrainian river ports with foreign ports to be carried out by both Ukrainian and foreign vessels. Transport between Ukrainian ports (cabotage) was also opened, in addition to Ukrainian vessels, to foreign-flagged vessels owned by companies registered in Ukraine. In both cases, however, vessels flagged by an aggressor state, vessels owned or beneficially owned by citizens or companies of an aggressor state, and vessels belonging to sanctioned individuals or companies are excluded. This exclusion was already written into the text at the time of adoption in 2020.

Free Passage Through Locks and Free Use of the River

Article 9 provides that “use of inland waterways for the navigation of vessels shall be free of charge.” Article 14 made passage through navigation-related hydraulic structures such as locks free for all vessels, including foreign ones. According to the Ministry of Infrastructure’s explanation, from the date of entry into force, fees for passing through locks and for opening drawbridges stopped being charged, and part of the fees river vessels pay at sea ports was also waived (Article 9 waives administrative, canal, ship, and sanitary fees when a river vessel with a maximum draft of 4.5 meters or less enters a sea port for domestic transport).

Money for Repairing the Locks

In its place, the law established a special fund in the state budget called the “State Inland Waterway Fund” (Article 12). Under Article 14, the costs of maintaining, repairing, upgrading, and guarding the locks are paid from this fund, one source of which is a share of the water-use fee paid by companies that use water for hydroelectric power generation. The Ministry of Infrastructure describes this as “a mechanism for channeling money to the locks that includes a contribution from electricity producers.”

The Dnipro’s Six Locks

The locks are operated by the state enterprise Ukrvodshliakh (Укрводшлях). According to the company, the Dnipro has a succession of six reservoirs — Kakhovka, Dnipro, Kamianske, Kremenchuk, Kaniv, and Kyiv — with six corresponding locks.

Since the full-scale invasion, this lineup has been incomplete. The Kakhovka Dam, the furthest downstream, was destroyed on June 6, 2023, while under Russian control (the article on Kakhovka). The State Agency of Maritime and Inland Water Transport and Navigation announced on January 6, 2025, that the Middle Dnipro Lock at Kamianske had been taken out of operation from December 30, 2024, “due to an emergency situation.” The same agency’s announcement of December 11, 2025 set the winter maintenance shutdown period for the Kyiv, Kaniv, and Kremenchuk locks and the Second Dnipro Lock from December 15, 2025 to March 31, 2026.

River Freight: A Fourfold Difference Depending on How It’s Counted

The volume of river freight varies by orders of magnitude depending on who reports it. The State Statistics Service counts “freight transport by inland waterway” from reports filed by inland-water-transport companies. The Ministry of Infrastructure had published the volume of freight on the Dnipro as captured by river information services.

Which Figures Should Be Used?

Comparing 2021, the Ministry of Infrastructure’s Dnipro figure is roughly four times the State Statistics Service’s inland-waterway figure. The biggest gap is in construction materials: the Ministry of Infrastructure put construction materials, etc. on the Dnipro in 2021 at 9,517,900 tonnes (up 63% year on year), while the State Statistics Service put construction materials on inland waterways at 1.811 million tonnes. Neither body explains the difference in which vessels and companies’ transport each one counts. When comparing, figures need to be compared within the same source.

According to the Ministry of Infrastructure, freight on the Dnipro in 2021 was 14,365,500 tonnes, up 27.9% from 2020, of which grain accounted for 3,611,480 tonnes and metal products for 1,220,560 tonnes. Vessels passed through the locks 15,840 times, of which 13,835 were river vessels and 2,005 were sea-going vessels.

Figures Since the Full-Scale Invasion

Looking at the State Statistics Service’s figures, inland-waterway freight in 2022 fell to roughly a third of the 2021 level. The extent of the decline varies by type of transport. Transport between domestic ports fell from 2.406 million tonnes in 2021 to 212,000 tonnes in 2022 and 197,000 tonnes in 2023, and construction materials likewise fell from 1.811 million tonnes to 79,000 tonnes and then 70,000 tonnes. Transport connecting with destinations abroad, on the other hand, rose from 1.076 million tonnes in 2021 and 979,000 tonnes in 2022 to 1.588 million tonnes in 2023.

Much of the transport connecting with destinations abroad runs through Danube River ports. Grain export routes used since 2022 are covered in the article on grain export routes, and the contracts for Kherson port at the mouth of the Dnipro and Olvia port in Mykolaiv oblast in the article on ports and concessions. As of September 2026, no annual State Statistics Service figures for inland waterway transport since 2024 have been found.

The Name of the Responsible Ministry

The law was drafted by the then Ministry of Infrastructure. The responsible ministry’s name has since changed through reorganization: under Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 963 of July 17, 2026, the “Ministry for Communities’ and Territories’ Development” was renamed the “Ministry for Restoration, Infrastructure and Transport.” The text of the law does not name a specific ministry but instead refers to “the central executive body responsible for inland water transport policy,” so its provisions remain unchanged regardless of the ministry’s name.