How can a foreigner legalize his income in Ukraine if he receives it abroad?

The IT profession has firmly taken its niche in the global market - and indeed, the Internet gives us more and more opportunities - from online shopping to managing multimillion-dollar businesses around the world. Budgeting for large businesses, and even developing an online tutorial is impossible without IT professionals.

Today, a huge number of professionals come from the CIS countries. The leaders today are Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. These are high-class professionals whose services are valued all over the world.

Today, due to some political or other reasons Ukraine is becoming the country where many IT-specialists prefer to go for permanent or temporary residence. Many such specialists have business not only in their country of residence, and coming to Ukraine they have a question - how to buy an apartment, car, house, cottage, etc. and how to move their business to our country.

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What to do if you want to buy real estate in Ukraine, but do not yet have income in the country?

This issue is much more complicated than meets the eye - because in conditions of ever more expensive square meters and “four-wheeled friends”, the sums turn out to be significant.  

The trend of Ukrainian legislators and fiscal authorities is that all major purchases must not only be taxed upon purchase, but also have a legal history of the origin of the funds with which they are purchased.

Thus, when you physically move to our country and want to get everything you need for a comfortable life, you need to think through all the nuances of the move: both your business and your funds. 

Here you need to thoroughly study the following issues and their impact on the possible solution to your problem:

• Do you only want to make capital legally, or do you intend to work in Ukraine? 
• What is the expected scale of your business? 
• Do you need hired employees to conduct business in Ukraine? 
• Will it be connected with import or export, etc.?

For example, we were contacted by a Client who had his own registered business in Great Britain (IT company) and commerce in the UAE. He intended to live in Ukraine, wanted to buy an apartment here and get income from his business while in Ukraine. The Client wanted to understand how to do it legally.

First of all, we pointed out that he came to Ukraine only this year, which means that he won't have to file his CFC report in 2022 (more info here). 

However, as an option, the money from his foreign business, such as buying an apartment, could be transferred to the investment account opened in the bank, and then used to pay for the purchase of the apartment, house or land.

The second option for the Client was to create an LLC, which would be a “subsidiary” company (in fact, but not in documents) of the Emirates company. Here moved the website (the money for its use paid to the beneficiary, going to his personal account of a natural person, which gives the free use of funds “for living”), here was recruited staff, who were officially paid a salary. That is, the business is transparent, taxes are paid, and all work is done within the legal framework of Ukraine.

As for the company in the UK - the Client and his partner were registered as sole proprietors, and were able to carry out all the activities on the territory of Ukraine officially, paying the minimum of possible tax - 5%. And due to the fact that no business activity was conducted in the territory of Great Britain - it allowed the Client to save  on local taxes.

As you can see from the example, in order to choose the most suitable and profitable option for you, we need to know your needs as a Client, and have all the necessary information.

Since these issues are strictly individual, it is impossible to describe in detail the answer to this question without having specific inputs, so we have given only one example.

Everything matters - the time you arrived in the country, your country of origin, the location of your business, what business or what part of it you want to bring to Ukraine, your needs and goals and the desired timeframe. 

If you want to understand how it will be exactly in your case, we recommend that you think of the pressing questions in advance so we can provide you with the most complete and useful advice.

Didn’t find the answer to your question?

Everything about starting a foreign business in Ukraine here.

Read more about the immigration of IT specialists to Ukraine here.