New rules for Diia.City residents: critical status and employee reservation

Since 27 October 2026, Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Resolution No. 1328 of 23 October 2026 has been in force. It amends the Reservation Procedure and the Criteria for determining critically important enterprises approved by CMU Resolution No. 76.

For Diia.City residents, what changed is less the conditions for critical status than the route to a decision. A new body now stands between the company and the state authority: the Coordination Centre.

What stays the same

Diia.City residency is still a separate criterion. Under subpara. 7 of para. 2 of the Criteria, it is met if the company is a Diia City resident and meets the requirements of item 2 of part 1 of Article 5 of the Law on Stimulating the Development of the Digital Economy in Ukraine. This is confirmed by tax returns on income paid, tax withheld and the unified social contribution for the last six calendar months.

That criterion alone is not enough. The general rule in para. 3 of the Criteria requires compliance with three or more criteria from para. 2. No tax debt (subpara. 5) and the average salary level (subpara. 6, third paragraph) are mandatory.

The basic limit has not changed either: no more than 50% of employees liable for military service may be reserved (para. 8 of the Reservation Procedure).

What the Coordination Centre is

It is a temporary consultative and advisory body of the Cabinet of Ministers. Its co-chairs are deputy ministers of the economy and of defence. Its members also include representatives of the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the Interior Ministry, the Energy Ministry, the General Staff, the State Labour Service, the Pension Fund, the National Police, the SBU and the intelligence services.

The Centre:

• agrees sectoral and regional criticality criteria;
• reviews authorities’ proposals to designate enterprises as critical;
• reviews proposals for reservation above 50%;
• monitors data on employees liable for military service at companies that have applied;
• may recommend cancelling a critical-status decision, including at the request of law enforcement.

A company does not apply to the Centre itself. The application is sent by the state authority to which the company submitted its documents. For IT companies this is usually the Ministry of Digital Transformation.

The new procedure and deadlines

A decision now goes through three stages (para. 6 of the Criteria):

1. The state authority reviews the company’s application within seven business days and refers it to the Coordination Centre.
2. The Coordination Centre gives recommendations and proposals within one calendar month of receiving the authority’s request. If the authority asks for urgent review, the period is reduced to seven business days (para. 9 of the Regulation on the Centre).
3. The state authority, within three business days of receiving the recommendations, adopts a critical-status decision or sends a reasoned letter of refusal.

In the longest scenario, about a month and a half may pass between filing documents and the decision. The government expressly recommends that companies file in advance (para. 6 of Resolution No. 1328). If your current decision expires in the coming months, start preparing a new package now.

New wording of para. 4 of the Criteria

Companies may now be designated critical if a temporary halt or significant reduction of their activity due to the mobilisation of employees would harm:

• the state’s defence capability (defence contracts, production and repair of weapons, unmanned systems, ammunition);
• the functioning of critical infrastructure;
• the population’s basic needs;
• the state’s macro-financial stability (budget revenue, foreign currency earnings, investment in production and recovery).

Such harm must be confirmed by “verifiable indicators”. Information technology remains on the list of sectors.

The resolution does not specify which indicators count as verifiable. In practice, a resident should gather what can be checked against state registers and bank data:

• a certificate of taxes and social contributions paid;
• a bank certificate on foreign currency earnings;
• data on investments;
• contracts with defence or state customers, if any;
• an explanation of which processes would stop without specific employees.

Reservation above 50%

The limit can be increased by a decision of the authority that designated the company as critical. It decides taking into account the Coordination Centre’s recommendations, and it is also the authority that sends reasoned proposals to the Centre (para. 8 of the Reservation Procedure, second paragraph).

What changed in practice (para. 9-1 of the Reservation Procedure):

• a decision on an increased limit is valid for no more than one year;
• once the authority files a notice of the limit change in the Unified List via the Diia Portal, the company must reserve its employees within ten business days;
• if no reservation is made within that period, the decision on the increase loses force;
• when the decision expires, the deferments granted are cancelled via the Diia Portal within five business days.

So by the time the limit is raised, employee lists and military registration data must already be in order.

Military registration violations as a ground for refusal

The Coordination Centre may refuse to consider proposals for increased reservation if the company’s head systematically breaches military registration rules. The resolution links this to two or more documented violations in the last 12 months and/or the head being held administratively liable for them.

If you plan to ask for a limit above 50%, check your military registration first. We explained how to keep it in our article on military registration at a company in 2026.

What happens to existing decisions

Critical-status decisions in force on 27 October 2026 remain valid until they expire (subpara. 1 of para. 3 of Resolution No. 1328). The exception is decisions cancelled after a review of sectoral criteria.

Within ten days of the resolution taking effect, authorities had to review their sectoral and regional criteria (subpara. 4 of para. 2 of the Criteria) and agree them with the Coordination Centre. If the criterion on which a company was designated critical has been removed, the authority must cancel the decision (para. 2 of Resolution No. 1328).

For a Diia.City resident this means: if one of your three criteria was a sectoral criterion of the Ministry of Digital Transformation, check whether its wording has survived.

Separate rules apply to Ministry of Defence decisions on increased reservation. Those adopted before CMU Resolution No. 1608 of 8 December 2025 took effect remain valid no later than 8 December 2026. Those adopted after 8 December 2025 remain valid within the term set in the Ministry’s decision itself (subpara. 2 of para. 3 of Resolution No. 1328).

What a resident should do now

1. Check the expiry of your critical-status decision and of any increased-limit decision.
2. Check which criteria from para. 2 you meet and whether the sectoral criterion has changed.
3. Gather verifiable indicators: taxes, foreign currency earnings, investments, contracts.
4. Run an internal check of military registration and of the head’s documents.
5. Prepare employee lists for reservation before you receive the decision.
6. Plan to file a new package at least one and a half to two months before your current decision expires.

Conclusion

Resolution No. 1328 kept the Diia.City criterion and the basic 50% limit. But the procedure has become longer, and reservation above 50% now comes with strict deadlines and a new ground for refusal. Companies that rely on reservation should take care of documents, indicators and military registration in advance.

Legal framework

• CMU Resolution No. 1328 of 23.10.2026 “Certain issues of organising the reservation of persons liable for military service during mobilisation and martial law” — paras. 2, 3, 6 of the resolution; Regulation on the Coordination Centre (in particular paras. 1, 3, 9); composition of the Coordination Centre
• CMU Resolution No. 76 of 27.01.2023 — Reservation Procedure (paras. 8, 9-1); Criteria and procedure for determining critically important enterprises (para. 2, in particular subparas. 4, 5, 6, 7; paras. 3, 4, 6, 18)

ARGUS Consulting group supports Diia.City residents, helps prepare documents for critical status and audits military registration before employee reservation.

This material is for information only and is not individual legal advice. Legal framework as of 06.11.2026.