Foreign Investment Customs Clearance

Cargoes that are imported to Ukraine as an investment of a foreign investor in statutory fund of a Ukrainian company are exempted from customs duty.

At that the customs authorities provide the customs clearance based on a promissory note issued to the Ukrainian company for the amount of the duty with deferring of payment for not more than 30 calendar days from the date of cargo customs declaration.

I.e. there is an obligation to enter the foreign investments into the company’s statement of assets and liabilities within 30 days. If it is not done this way, then the amount of customs duty shall be paid in full.

In case the assets invested into the statutory fund of the company is sold within three years from the date of their entry into the company’s statement of assets and liabilities (except for the export of foreign investment beyond the Ukrainian borders), then the company with foreign investments pays the import duty based on the customs value of such assets in Ukrainian currency based on official exchange rate of the National Bank of Ukraine on the date of alienation.

The main stages of foreign investing:

  • To register a company with joint ownership for further investing in this company (a company with foreign investments);
  • To accredit this company in the Ukrainian customs authorities. The accreditation gives the right to carry out the foreign economic activity;
  • To prepare the statutory documents, the investment agreement with complete identification of the cargo that will be invested as foreign investment, to specify the country of origin, the cost and delivery schedule. In case of investment it in the form of equipment or the unitized object it is necessary to submit a project with drawings specifying the main function of this object and giving its full description.
  • To register the foreign investments. Regional State Administration provides the state registration of the foreign investments.
  • If the investments are imported as a unitized object then it is necessary to get the import permission. It is done the following way: all the documents on delivery are submitted to the customs authorities together with the request to permit the importation of the said investments within a year. Then the data are sent to The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. If the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approves the request, then it issues the permission to import the unitized object. In this case the certification is done upon installation of the equipment. I.e. at customs clearance the components of the unitized object are not certified, the certification authority issues the decision stating that the certification will be done on completion of the installation works.

At any stage of coordination with appropriate Ukrainian authorities there a situation may occur when getting the certain permission may take several month.

Quite often the companies that plan to get the foreign investments carry out the negotiations with their foreign investors guaranteeing them the certain time frame for organization of the pre-project operations in Ukraine. At that the most important is to fulfill the promises given to the investor and to prepare everything necessary for getting the possibility to provide the foreign investment into the Ukrainian company.

We realized several successful projects on delivery and customs clearance of the foreign investments in the form of the production lines, socially oriented companies, automotive fleets and equipment.