Ukrainian contractors, administered properly, without a company here
Most companies treat the sole proprietor (ФОП) as the contractor’s own problem
It is an understandable assumption. They are an independent business, so their registration, their tax filings and their bank are their responsibility. Many arrangements run for years on exactly that basis without anybody looking.
The difficulty is that the consequences do not stay with the contractor. Your own tax authority may want evidence of their status before accepting the cost as deductible. Your finance team may find a payment rejected because their bank asked a question nobody answered. And in some jurisdictions the arrangement itself gets re-examined, at which point the question is not whether they were registered but what the relationship actually looked like.
Long-standing sole proprietor (ФОП) in poor standing
Registrations under the wrong activity codes, the wrong tax group for the work being done, unfiled returns, accrued penalties and missing documentation. Usually discovered when somebody finally needs the paperwork.
Clean it up before the contract, not after
We check the standing of every existing sole proprietor (ФОП) before you commit to anything, and resolve what is outstanding. You start from a known position rather than an assumed one.
Registration, handled end to end
The right KVED for the actual work
Registered activity has to cover what you are paying for. The wrong codes are the most common defect we find, and it is the one that undermines invoices retrospectively.
Simplified taxation, chosen deliberately
Group 3 at 5% of turnover suits most consulting and IT work; group 2 carries a flat monthly charge and tighter restrictions on who you may invoice. The choice has consequences and should not be made by default.
Filing and the state extracts
Documents prepared and filed, the extract from the Unified State Register obtained, and single-tax payer status confirmed in writing rather than assumed.
A notarised power of attorney
So we can act for the sole proprietor (ФОП) on filings and administration. Without it, every routine matter waits for the contractor to find time for it.
A dedicated business account
Opened for the sole proprietor’s (ФОП) business activity and kept separate from personal money, which is the first thing anyone examining the arrangement looks at.
Before you sign anything
For contractors who are already registered, a full review of the position: filings, liabilities, penalties and documentation, with what we found in writing.
What happens every month
Expenses reviewed and validated
Office rent, travel, equipment and anything else recharged through the sole proprietor (ФОП), checked for whether it belongs there and whether it is documented well enough to survive being questioned.
What has to be invoiced so the net arrives
Working backwards from the amount agreed with your contractor to the invoice figure, after single tax, the social contribution and bank charges. Get this wrong and either they are short or you are overpaying.
Issued in English and Ukrainian
Your finance team gets a document they can process and file. The Ukrainian side gets one that satisfies local requirements. Same invoice, both audiences.
Kept current, not filed and forgotten
Service agreements and annexes updated as the work changes, because a contract describing work nobody does any more is worse than no contract at all.
The sole proprietor’s (ФОП) own obligations
Single tax and social contribution prepared on time for your contractor to pay, returns filed, and the turnover ceiling for the chosen group monitored so nobody discovers it after crossing it.
Financial monitoring, answered early
Ukrainian banks query cross-border payments to sole proprietor (ФОП) accounts as a matter of routine. We answer those queries when they arrive. An unanswered one becomes a frozen account, and a frozen account means your contractor is not paid.
Also available, quoted separately
Finding the right freelancer
We find and interview Ukrainian candidates for a role your business depends on.
Know who you are hiring
Before a long-term engagement starts, we check the candidate’s background and the standing of their sole proprietor (ФОП), and give you the result in writing.
Office, network and HR help
For when your contractors need more than administration: office space, a working computer network, or day-to-day HR support in Ukraine.
The exposure sits with you, not only with them
The cost stops being deductible
Several jurisdictions require evidence of a foreign contractor’s legal and tax standing before allowing the expense. If the sole proprietor (ФОП) cannot produce current documentation, the deduction can be challenged in your accounts, not theirs.
A frozen account, mid-month
Financial monitoring queries are routine and answerable. Ignored, they stop the account. Your contractor does not get paid, and reopening it takes considerably longer than answering the question would have.
A contractor who looks like staff
Some tax authorities will examine whether the arrangement is really independent contracting. That question is decided on how the relationship works day to day, and the answer can carry employment tax consequences in your own jurisdiction as well as in Ukraine. Worth taking to your own advisers rather than assuming.
A similar price. A fraction of the service.
Global payroll platforms charge about the same per contractor as we do. The difference is what the fee covers. The platforms handle your side: contracts, invoices and payments. We handle your side and your contractor’s side, and that second side is where the risk sits.
Full service, both sides
- Per contractor, per month
- EUR 38 (about USD 44)
- Contractor of record
- EUR 249 (about USD 291)
- What it covers
- You and your contractor: ФОП registration and upkeep, tax filings prepared, bank queries answered, standing checks, plus your invoices and contracts.
Your side only
- Per contractor, per month
- USD 29 to 49
- Contractor of record
- USD 325 where published
- What it covers
- Contracts, invoices and payments. The contractor’s own registration, taxes and bank are left to them.
You pay about the same. You get the full service, and your business carries far less risk.
Published prices of Deel, Remote, Oyster, Multiplier, Papaya Global, RemotePass and Globalization Partners, checked 19 and 20 August 2026, at EUR/USD 1.17.
The platforms cover your workflow. The risk sits on the contractor’s side.
The international platforms are genuinely good at what they do. Contracts, invoices and payments are consolidated in one application, on rails that move money in any currency. All of that is your side of the arrangement. None of it touches the contractor's side, which is where a Ukrainian contractor relationship actually comes apart.
| What it covers | APEX AV | International platforms |
|---|---|---|
| Your workflow | ||
| Contract signed and stored in the application | Not our tool. We keep the service agreement and its annexes current | Yes, and they do it well |
| Invoice collection and approval | Yes, prepared and checked before it reaches you | Yes |
| Cross-border payment | Runs through your own bank, from you to the contractor | Executed by the provider, multi-currency |
| Risk on the contractor's side | ||
| ФОП registered, КВЕД codes matched to the actual work | Yes | None of them |
| Tax group chosen, turnover ceiling watched | Yes, before the ceiling is reached | None of them |
| Single tax and ЄСВ | Prepared and filed by us, paid by the contractor from their own account | Left entirely to the contractor |
| Standing of a contractor you already use, re-checked | Yes, every month, not only at onboarding | None of them |
| Bank query on an incoming payment | We answer it for the contractor | None of them |
| Conflict of interest, or a route for your intellectual property to leave | We hold the contractor's ФОП administration mandate, including their business account, and their written authorisation to tell you | Not covered by any. They see your own payments and nothing else |
| Written classification finding per contractor | Yes, before you commit | An automated check at three of them; indemnity on higher tiers only |
Platform capabilities as published, checked 19 and 20 August 2026.
What goes wrong on the contractor's side
None of it shows up in a platform dashboard, because a platform sees only the money you send.
- 1The ФОП is no longer active, or has dropped off the simplified system, while you keep receiving invoices that assume it is
- 2The single tax and ЄСВ are not paid, and a debt builds against the person doing your work
- 3The turnover ceiling for the group is passed, and the rate changes behind them
- 4The bank suspends a payment under financial monitoring, for two business days and up to seven, and nobody answers for the contractor
- 5Other clients you cannot see, which is their right, until one of them is a competitor
Every one of these lands on you. A contractor who cannot show a clean compliance record is not only a delivery risk: that record is the first thing a tax authority reaches for when it argues the contractor was really your employee.
How we can see a conflict of interest, and what we tell you
Your contractor is free to work for other clients. That is in the contract between you and them, and we would not change it. What you should know is when that freedom becomes a conflict of interest, or a route for your intellectual property or commercial insight to leave.
We can see it because our engagement does not stop at you. Alongside it, the contractor signs a separate mandate with us for the administration of their ФОП, which includes their business account. In that mandate they authorise us, in writing, to inform you when a case like this arises.
The authorisation is theirs to give and theirs to withdraw at any time. We tell the contractor when we act on it, and we report what the account shows, not what we infer from it: a payment received from a named competitor of yours is a fact, and that is what you get.
When you need us, and when you do not
Short jobs and freelance sites
- Short, one-off projects with a Ukrainian contractor.
- Ukrainian contractors you hire through Upwork* or a similar freelance site.
*Want to move an Upwork freelancer to a direct contract? Check the fee first. Upwork charges a conversion fee of USD 1,000 to 50,000 if you move within two years. See section 7.3 of the Upwork User Agreement.
Key freelancers, for the long term
- You need to find, interview and check a freelancer your business depends on.
- You plan to work with a Ukrainian freelancer for a long time.
- You want to turn a short job into a long-term relationship.
- You need more support: an office, a computer network or HR help.
Questions about sole proprietor (ФОП) arrangements
Do we need a Ukrainian company for this?
No. That is the point of the arrangement. Your contractor is an independent Ukrainian business invoicing you directly, and you contract with them from wherever you are.
If you later reach the stage of employing people here rather than contracting with them, that is a different structure with different obligations, and we run that too. But nothing about this service requires you to incorporate first.
What does it cost to run a sole proprietor (ФОП)?
On simplified taxation, a group 3 sole proprietor (ФОП) pays 5% of turnover as single tax, plus a monthly social contribution set at 22% of the minimum wage, which is UAH 8,647 in 2026. There is also a turnover ceiling for the group, which we monitor.
Our administration fee sits on top of that: EUR 38 per sole proprietor (ФОП) per month to administer the arrangement, or EUR 249 per sole proprietor per month if we take the contract ourselves as contractor of record. Registration of a new sole proprietor and the standing check on one you already work with are quoted separately, because the work depends on what we find.
Can you control who else our contractor works for?
No, and you should be wary of anyone offering to. A sole proprietor is by definition an independent business entitled to other clients, and restricting that is precisely the kind of control that makes an arrangement look like employment rather than contracting.
What we can do is make sure the arrangement is documented, the standing is clean and the commercial terms are clear. Exclusivity, where you need it, is a matter for the contract and for your lawyer.
We inherited some sole proprietor (ФОП) arrangements. Where do we start?
With a standing check, once you appoint us. We look at each registration: activity codes, tax group, filings, outstanding liabilities, penalties and documentation, and give you the position in writing before anything else changes.
It is common to find something. It is much better to find it deliberately than to find it because a bank, an auditor or a tax authority found it first.
EUR 38 per sole proprietor (ФОП) per month. EUR 249 if we take the contract.
Book thirty minutes and tell us how you work with your sole proprietors (ФОП). You do not need to send any documents to get a quote. Once you appoint us, we first check each one’s standing, activity codes, tax group, filings and outstanding liabilities, and tell you in writing what we found.
