Permanent residence in Ukraine on the strength of your degree

What this route actually is

Ukrainian immigration law sets an annual quota, and inside that quota there is a category for highly qualified specialists and workers whose acute need is significant for the economy of Ukraine. Every year the Ministry of Economy publishes the list of specialities that category covers, and the qualification required to be counted in it.

For 2026 the qualification requirement is one line, repeated identically against all 23 specialities: a document confirming higher education in the relevant speciality at not lower than bachelor’s degree level. That is the whole test. There is no salary requirement, no employer, no contract, no capital.

It used to be described as an IT route, and IT specialities are still on the list. That is no longer what it is. Medicine, civil engineering, metallurgy, agricultural engineering, finance, ecology, rail and road transport are all on the 2026 list. If you hold a bachelor’s degree or higher in one of them, this route is open to you.

What you receive at the end is a permanent residence permit, not a temporary one. It does not expire with a job, it is not tied to a company, and your spouse and children under 18 may immigrate with you.

The 23 specialities on the 2026 list

Approved by Order of the Ministry of Economy, Environment and Agriculture of Ukraine No. 3663 of 3 March 2026. The Ukrainian speciality names follow the official classification; the field in brackets is the corresponding ISCED-F 2013 detailed field, which is what matters when your foreign diploma is compared against the list.

The list is reissued every year and specialities move on and off it. The 2026 list is the one above. If your degree is close to a listed speciality but not identically named, that is a question of matching your diploma to the ISCED-F field, and it is the first thing we look at.

Price

Our fee does not include the legalisation of your diploma in the country that issued it, the certified translation, or the notarial charges. Those are paid to the bodies and professionals who provide them, and what they come to depends on your country and on how many documents your file needs. We quote the whole chain before you commit to it.

What you will need

The qualification document is the heart of the file, and its formalities are where applications fail.

• Your diploma, at bachelor’s level or above, in one of the listed specialities, together with a free-form application.
• Legalisation. The diploma must be certified under the law of the country that issued it and legalised at a Ukrainian consular institution, or certified at that country’s embassy in Ukraine and legalised at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, unless an international treaty of Ukraine removes that requirement. For many countries an apostille is the mechanism.
• Translation. Documents in a foreign language are translated into Ukrainian and the translator’s signature is notarised.
• The general immigration file: passport with translation, three photographs 35 by 45 mm, proof of where you will live in Ukraine, family composition and marriage certificate if applicable, a medical certificate confirming the absence of specified diseases, a criminal record certificate from your previous country of residence, and proof of payment of the state charge.

Where the speciality falls within the IT sphere, a copy of the document package is forwarded to the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine as part of the process.

How long it takes, and what happens after

1. Eligibility. We compare your diploma against the current list and tell you in writing whether it matches, before you spend anything on legalisation.
2. Document preparation. Legalisation, translation, notarisation, medical certificate and police clearance. This is the stage that takes real time, and most of it happens in your own country.
3. The immigration permit application. Filed with the State Migration Service in Ukraine if you are lawfully here, or through a Ukrainian consulate if you are abroad. By law the decision comes within six months where the application is filed in Ukraine and within one year where it is filed abroad.
4. The permanent residence permit. Once the immigration permit is granted you have one year to apply for the permanent residence permit itself. We file that too.

The honest caveats

Three things you should know before you start, because they are the ones that get left off other websites.

• It is a quota. This category sits inside the annual immigration quota set by the Cabinet of Ministers. Places are finite and the quota is set year by year. We check the current figure and how much of it remains before advising you to file, and we will tell you if the answer is to wait for the next year’s quota.
• The list changes annually. A speciality on the 2026 list is not guaranteed to be on the 2027 list. If your degree is on the list now, that is an argument for starting now rather than next year.
• The decision is discretionary. Meeting the qualification requirement makes you eligible to apply. It does not oblige the State Migration Service to grant the permit. Nobody can promise you this permit, and we do not.

Questions we are asked

The legal basis

• Law of Ukraine “On Immigration” No. 2491-III of 7 June 2001, article 4, which provides for an immigration permit within the quota for highly qualified specialists and workers whose acute need is significant for the economy of Ukraine, together with their spouse and children under 18 entering with them.
• Order of the Ministry of Economy, Environment and Agriculture of Ukraine No. 3663 of 3 March 2026, issued under part one of article 8 of that Law, approving the List of specialities and qualification requirements for specialists whose need may be met through immigration in 2026. The list of 23 specialities above is that list, and the qualification requirement is a higher education document in the relevant speciality at not lower than bachelor’s level.
• Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 266 of 29 April 2015, as amended by Resolution No. 1021 of 30 August 2024, which is the classification the Ukrainian speciality names are taken from.
• State charge: 0.5 of the subsistence minimum for able-bodied persons, being UAH 1,664 in 2026, where the application is filed in Ukraine. Consular charges apply where it is filed abroad.
• Deadlines: six months for applications filed in Ukraine, one year for applications filed abroad; one year from the grant of the immigration permit to apply for the permanent residence permit, per the State Migration Service of Ukraine.

The speciality list is reissued annually and the quota is set annually. Everything on this page is current for 2026 and we verify it again at the point of filing.

UA-Residency is the practice of Taras Guk, a licensed Ukrainian attorney in Kyiv. Immigration permits and permanent residence permits are granted by the State Migration Service of Ukraine at its discretion, within a quota set by the Cabinet of Ministers. We assess, prepare and file; we do not decide, and we cannot guarantee that any application will be granted. You may apply to the authorities yourself and pay only the official charges. Prices on this page are indicative and the binding figure for your matter is the one we confirm in writing.