Customer Service in 18 Months, Local Newspapers in 5 Years: Ukraine’s Staggered State Language Law

On April 25, 2019, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada adopted Law No. 2704-VIII, “On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language.” This article calls it the “State Language Law.” It entered into force on July 16 of the same year. However, not every article took effect on that day. The law staggers, field by field — customer service, print newspapers, film, websites, and so on — the timing at which each provision takes effect, from six months to several years apart, with the last one taking effect January 1, 2030.

The content of the provisions closest to daily life — the language used in shops and services, the workplace, and schools — is introduced in What Kind of Country Is Ukraine?. This law was born after the 2012 language law was found unconstitutional, extends its effect field by field in sequence, and has a mechanism under which a dedicated commissioner enforces it. Its treatment of languages other than Ukrainian also drew criticism from Europe.

The 2012 Language Law and the 2018 Unconstitutionality Ruling

Article 10 of the Constitution establishes Ukrainian as the state language of Ukraine. The law governing its application had been Law No. 5029-VI, “On the Principles of the State Language Policy,” adopted on July 3, 2012. This law provided that, where speakers of a given language as their native tongue made up 10% or more of a region’s population, measures for using that “regional or minority language” would apply there (Article 7, paragraph 3).

On February 28, 2018, the Constitutional Court, acting on a petition from 57 members of the Verkhovna Rada, issued Decision No. 2-r/2018 finding this 2012 law unconstitutional. The decision’s grounds were not the content of the law but the procedure by which it was adopted. It found that, at the plenary session on the evening of July 3, 2012, votes were counted as “yes” for members who were not present, among other things, and held that the procedural violations were “systematic” and had a material effect on the final result. It further stated that where there is a procedural violation, what is subject to review is the procedure, not the content of the law. The 2012 law lost effect on the date of this decision.

The 2019 State Language Law was adopted after this gap. Its preamble notes that the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission (the European Commission for Democracy through Law), in an earlier opinion, had recommended finding a way to establish Ukrainian as the sole state language and to strengthen its role in society.

Where the Law Does Not Apply

Article 1 of the State Language Law defines Ukrainian as the “sole state (official) language” and requires its use in the exercise of state and local government authority and in the “public spheres” the law defines. Article 2, on the other hand, states that the law does not extend to “private communication and religious rites.” What language people speak at home or with friends is not covered by this law.

Even within the public spheres, the text leaves room for using other languages. Article 30, on serving consumers, provides that service and product information are to be given in Ukrainian, but that the Ukrainian-language information may be given alongside another language, and that, at a customer’s request, service to that individual person may be in another language acceptable to both sides. Article 23, on film, permits screening foreign films in their original language with Ukrainian subtitles, capping this at up to 10% of a cinema’s monthly screenings.

The Order in Which Provisions Took Effect

The “Final and Transitional Provisions” at the end of the law list, in detail, the exceptions to the date of entry into force (two months after promulgation). The text sets each period as “so many months after entry into force”; the dates in the table below are counted from July 16, 2019.

Many of the provisions in this table have since been rewritten by later amendments. For example, a paragraph was added to Article 26, on books, by a June 2022 amendment, and Article 24, on television and radio, was replaced, to coincide with the enactment of the Media Law in December 2022, with a single sentence stating that the language of broadcasting is governed by the Media Law. As of September 2026, the text of the law notes amendments by 20 laws and codes.

Who Enforces It

The State Language Law divides the role of enforcement between two bodies. One is the National Commission on Standards of the State Language (Article 43), which sets standards for the Ukrainian language and decides the method of testing the language proficiency required for naturalization and public office. The other is the Commissioner for the Protection of the State Language (Уповноважений із захисту державної мови).

The Commissioner is appointed by the Cabinet of Ministers for a five-year term (Article 50). Candidates are each nominated to the Cabinet by the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, the head of the central executive body responsible for justice policy, and the head of the central executive body responsible for state language policy. The Commissioner monitors compliance with the law, accepts complaints from individuals and legal entities, and submits and publishes a report on the previous year to the Cabinet by May 1 each year (Article 49). Complaints are to be filed within six months of noticing the violation (Article 54).

Article 57 sets out the procedure for a violation of Article 30 (customer service). The first step is limited to a warning and a request to correct the violation within 30 days. If the same violation is repeated within a year, a fine of 300 to 400 times the tax-free minimum income (the reference amount Ukrainian law uses as the unit for fines) may be imposed. The Commissioner’s decisions can be challenged in court (Articles 55 and 57).

Languages Other Than Ukrainian

The State Language Law does not treat languages other than Ukrainian uniformly. Many of its provisions distinguish indigenous languages such as Crimean Tatar, English, and the official languages of the EU from other languages. Article 21, on education, for example, provides that classes taught in a national minority language that is also an official EU language are guaranteed the right to use that language alongside Ukrainian. Article 25, on print newspapers and magazines, exempts publications issued only in an indigenous language such as Crimean Tatar, in English, or in an official EU language, from the obligation to also issue a Ukrainian-language edition at the same time.

This distinction drew criticism from abroad. The Venice Commission, in its opinion of December 2019 (CDL-AD(2019)032), recognized that strengthening the state language is a legitimate aim for any country and said it “fully understands” the Ukrainian legislature’s measures in light of the past suppression of the Ukrainian language. It went on, however, to find that the law does not strike a “fair balance” between strengthening the state language and safeguarding minority-language rights, and recommended repealing provisions that treat indigenous languages, national minority languages that are official EU languages, and national minority languages that are not official EU languages differently, unless the distinction is based on an objective and reasonable justification. It also called for repealing the complaints and penalty mechanism, or at least considering limiting it to extreme cases in the public sphere. It listed the continued absence of a separate law setting out minority rights in detail as an issue to be addressed urgently.

Within Ukraine, 51 members of the Verkhovna Rada sought a review of the law’s constitutionality. The Constitutional Court, in Decision No. 1-r/2021 of July 14, 2021, found the law constitutional. The decision stated, regarding the group of “Russian-speaking citizens” that the petitioning members argued was being discriminated against, that this was a political construct and not a legal category.

After that, on December 13, 2022, “On National Minorities (Communities) of Ukraine” (Law No. 2827-IX, in force from July 1, 2023) was adopted. On December 8, 2023, Law No. 3504-IX, whose title reads “Taking into Account the Expert Assessment of the Council of Europe and Its Bodies,” was adopted, amending the State Language Law’s provisions on education (Article 21) and books (Article 26). The European Commission of the EU, in its opinion of June 2022 recommending that Ukraine be made a candidate country for accession, called for implementing the Venice Commission’s recommendations on the State Language Law (see our article on the EU accession negotiations).

A Note on Reading the Text

The State Language Law was adopted in 2019, before the invasion. Its preamble states, as an aim, raising the role Ukrainian plays in securing territorial integrity and state security, and its transitional provisions list, as one of the tasks to be addressed until the occupation ends, enabling citizens living in temporarily occupied territory to learn Ukrainian (Transitional Provisions, paragraph 4). Amendment has continued since Russia’s full-scale invasion of February 24, 2022, and the text is not something to be read only once.

How Ukrainian and Russian differ as languages is covered in How Do Ukrainian and Russian Differ?. When these provisions are relevant to working in Ukraine, selling products, or running a website, check the current text in the Verkhovna Rada’s legal database and confirm it with a local expert.