Diia.City criticality and reservation: the complete CEO guide

For most Ukrainian IT companies, one question outranks tax: can I legally keep my engineers? Under martial law, reservation from mobilization (бронювання) is the only lawful way to keep a military-liable specialist working instead of mobilized, and for an IT company the only realistic route to it runs through Diia.City.

This article covers the whole subject: the foundations of critical-enterprise status, who can be reserved and who cannot, the procedure end to end, and the changes introduced in 2026 by Cabinet Resolution No. 692. It is meant as a working reference.

Who this article is for

You own or run a Ukrainian IT company with 10 to 200 people, already a Diia.City resident or seriously considering it, and you have military-liable men on the team whom you cannot afford to lose. You want to know precisely what to do, in what order, by when, and at what cost.

The chain of dependency

Reservation is not a single permission you apply for. It is the last link in a chain, and breaking any earlier link drops everything downstream:

1. Diia.City resident status, which lets you →
2. meet at least three criticality criteria (two of them mandatory), which earns you →
3. “critically important enterprise” status (for Diia.City companies, granted by the Ministry of Digital Transformation), which gets you →
4. listed in the Single Register through the Diia portal, which lets you →
5. reserve up to 50% of your military-liable staff, recorded as a deferral in Reserv+.

Each link has its own failure conditions and, since 2026, its own deadline. Resolution No. 692 tightened several of them at once. Companies that lose the status usually break an early link without noticing the rest goes with it.

What “criticality” actually is

“Critically important enterprise” (критично важливе підприємство) is a wartime status that, once granted and recorded, gives a company the right to reserve specific employees from mobilization. It rests on Cabinet Resolution No. 76 (27 January 2023), which contains two linked documents: the reservation procedure and the criteria for determining critical enterprises.

There are two parallel criticality tracks — and confusing them is a common, expensive mistake:

• Critical for the economy and the community. This is the track for ordinary IT and Diia.City companies. Decided by sectoral ministries or regional military administrations — and for Diia.City residents, by the Ministry of Digital Transformation.
• Critical for the needs of the Armed Forces / the defense-industrial complex. Decided by an authorized body of the Ministry of Defense, with different criteria, higher reservation quotas, and broad exemption from the 2026 re-review described below.

Everything in this guide concerns the first track unless stated otherwise.

Who can actually be reserved — the contract-type trap

Companies get this wrong more often than anything else, and it is expensive. Reservation follows the employment relationship. Residency and seniority have no bearing on it.

Engagement type	Reservable?	Note
Employee (employment contract, Labour Code)	Yes	The only standard reservable category.
Final beneficial owner (UBO) who is not an employee	Yes	Explicitly reservable even without an employment contract.
Gig-specialist (gig contract)	No	Civil-law relationship; the registers do not treat them as employees.
FOP (sole proprietor) / contractor	No	Not an employment relationship.
Conscripts / reservists	No	Reservation covers military-liable men (roughly 25–60), not conscripts or reservists.

This runs against the tax logic of Diia.City. On tax, gig contracts look better: the same low PIT, minimal social contribution, fewer obligations. On reservation, they are useless. So the people you most want to protect have to sit on employment contracts before you file, even where a gig contract would otherwise be cheaper. Decide that consciously, rather than finding out during an audit.

One exception is worth knowing. If a critical enterprise has exactly one military-liable worker subject to reservation, the percentage limits do not apply and you can reserve that person. A company can also reserve a UBO who holds no employment contract at all.

The reservation quota — how many you can keep

Company category	Reservable share of military-liable workers
Default (most IT and Diia.City companies)	Up to 50%
Communal utilities (heat, water, waste)	Up to 75%
Defense-industrial / energy / frontline-critical	75–100% (a fixed number set in the decision)
Anyone needing more than 50%	Only by Ministry of Defense decision, on the recommendation of an interagency working group

Two mechanics that catch companies out:

The 50% is measured against your total military-liable headcount, and you must stay within it continuously. Headcount changes break the ratio. Suppose you have ten military-liable workers and reserve five — exactly 50%. Two of the unreserved workers then resign. Your base is now eight, but five are still reserved: that is 62.5%, over the limit, and your status is now at risk. Resolution No. 692 gives you ten business days to cure such an overrun — either cancel the surplus bookings through Diia, or hire new military-liable workers to enlarge the base back into compliance.

Since late 2025, the system has been shifting from a pure percentage toward a fixed number of reservable persons recorded in your decision. For most non-defense IT firms the practical limit is still the 50% ratio, but the legal direction is toward a hard cap.

The eight criteria

To be deemed critical for the economy, a company must satisfy at least three of the eight criteria in the resolution. For most private companies two of them are mandatory — no tax debt and the salary threshold — and you need at least one more from the rest.

1. Taxes and social contributions paid exceed €1.5 million per reporting year.
2. Foreign-currency receipts (excluding loans) exceed €32 million per year.
3. Inclusion in the register of state property of strategic importance.
4. Production, repair, or modernization of weapons, military and special equipment, or ammunition.
5. No tax or social-contribution (ESV) debt — mandatory.
6. Average salary at or above the regional average, or the minimum-wage threshold (three minimum wages in 2026) — mandatory.
7. The company is a Diia.City resident.
8. Electronic-communications provider above defined revenue thresholds.

For a typical IT company the realistic combination is no debt, the salary threshold, and Diia.City residency. That third leg — residency as a criticality criterion — is what Resolution No. 692 made harder to prove.

Diia.City residency as the lever — and the startup regime

Full residents already do the heavy lifting required for Diia.City — at least 90% qualified IT income, at least nine specialists, average remuneration of at least €1,200 per specialist. So they typically file for criticality on the base document package and use residency as the additional criterion.

Startups get a softer entry. A startup here means an IT company registered no more than 24 months before applying for residency. It may hold resident status until 31 December of the year following the year it joined, even while it does not yet meet every full-resident requirement — for example, fewer than nine specialists. For the 5% PIT rate it still needs average remuneration of €1,200, but a single specialist at that level suffices.

Since late 2025, a startup applying for criticality must provide additional documentation: an initial compliance report plus certified proof of at least €20,000 of income (sales, royalties, grants, or investment) earned in the first three full months after joining, or an annual compliance report with an independent auditor’s opinion. The same package opened criticality to defense-tech developers working under Ministry of Defense contracts.

What changed in 2026 — Resolution No. 692

Cabinet Resolution No. 692 (30 May 2026) was published on 2 June 2026 and took effect that day, with certain provisions deferred to 1 September 2026. It amends both the reservation procedure and the criticality criteria. If you have, or want, criticality, these are the changes that matter.

1. The salary threshold rose from 2.5 to 3 minimum wages

The wage floor rises from 2.5 to 3 minimum wages — ₴25,941, up from ₴21,618 (the minimum wage is ₴8,647). It applies in two places: the criticality salary criterion, and the accrued salary each reserved worker must receive during the deferral. Companies located and actually operating in zones of possible or active hostilities, or on temporarily occupied territory, keep the lower ₴21,618 floor.

The two pieces phase in on different dates. The criticality criterion moved to ₴25,941 on publication, 2 June 2026; the reserved-worker floor applies from 1 September 2026, which gives employers a runway to lift payroll.

One exemption matters for this audience: Diia.City residents (and the budget sector) are not subject to the reserved-worker salary floor. For a Diia.City company the binding figure is its own €1,200 average-remuneration requirement, which sits far above ₴25,941 anyway. The ₴25,941 criterion still applies when you confirm criticality, but a Diia.City payroll clears it without effort.

2. The Diia.City criticality criterion was rewritten

Of all the 2026 changes, this one bears directly on Diia.City residents.

	Before	After (from 2 June 2026)
What satisfies the criterion	Being a Diia.City resident (the residency order alone)	Diia.City resident and meeting the average-remuneration requirement
Remuneration requirement	Not set in the criteria	At least €1,200 average monthly remuneration for employees and gig-specialists (National Bank rate on the first of the month)
Proof	Standard document package	Standard package plus unified ESV/PIT/military-levy reporting for the last six calendar months

A residency order on its own is no longer enough. You have to prove €1,200 average remuneration across the last six months of unified payroll reporting. That changes two things:

• Startups using the discount regime — paying below €1,200, or with fewer than nine specialists — cannot obtain criticality via the Diia.City criterion until they actually meet €1,200 and have the six-month reporting history. A single specialist at €1,200 satisfies the wage test, but the six-month history still gates it.
• Brand-new residents without six months of filed payroll reports cannot immediately confirm this criterion. Criticality via the Diia.City route is only available after the reporting history exists.

Note that gig-specialist remuneration counts toward the €1,200 average and is captured in the unified return — so a company with gig-specialists (but no employees) can still satisfy this test, even while it cannot reserve those gig-specialists themselves.

3. Concurrent jobs and other deferrals are counted once

Workers who already hold a deferral on other legal grounds, and workers employed concurrently at another company, are now counted in the total military-liable headcount only once, at one place of work — to stop artificial inflation of the quota base. The supporting registers are to be upgraded by 1 August 2026, and the rule applies from 1 September 2026.

4. Exceeding the limit: cure in ten business days, or lose the status

If you exceed the reservation limit, the director must file an electronic cancellation of the surplus bookings through Diia within ten business days (or hire new military-liable workers into the base). A new provision makes exceeding the limit an express ground for cancelling the critical-enterprise status itself.

5. A mass re-review of every criticality decision

The scale here is large. By the Ministry of Digital Transformation’s own figure, roughly 20,000 enterprises held critical status in 2025, and the economy- and community-critical ones now go back through the filter. (How many of them are Diia.City residents is not separately published.)

Every criticality decision in force on 2 June 2026 remains valid only for its stated term — but no longer than 1 September 2026. Most companies must re-confirm under the updated criteria. A safety valve: decisions expiring before 15 July 2026 are automatically extended to 15 October 2026. Throughout the transition, current criticality and current bookings stay valid.

Defense and Armed-Forces-critical enterprises are exempt from this re-review, and certain economy-critical categories are spared the salary re-confirmation. Do not assume you are exempt; check it against your own decision before the deadline.

6. Transparency

The criteria used to grant criticality will now be shown in the Single Register and on the Diia portal, alongside the basis, decision date, limit, and end date previously visible.

The procedure, end to end

Obtaining critical-enterprise status (Diia.City company):

1. Confirm you meet at least three criteria — the two mandatory ones plus the now-tougher Diia.City criterion.
2. Prepare the package: tax-authority certificate of no debt, company salary certificate, the Diia.City residency order, and — under Resolution No. 692 — unified ESV/PIT/military-levy reporting for the last six months, plus your total military-liable headcount. Startups add the initial or annual compliance report and the €20,000 income proof.
3. File the application with the Ministry of Digital Transformation (for Diia.City), or the relevant regional military administration.
4. On a positive decision, you are included in the Single Register through Diia. Critical-enterprise status typically lasts 12 months and does not renew automatically.

Reserving the workers:

• Reserve through the eReservation flow (єБронювання) on the Diia portal. The worker must be on military registration, and his name and tax number must match the Pension Fund and the military register. Processing for critical companies takes up to three days — often about an hour.
• The 45-day “trial” booking for workers with registration defects exists only for defense / Armed-Forces-critical enterprises. Ordinary IT companies must fix military-registration data first.
• A booking runs for up to 12 months, with no automatic extension — you must re-book with an updated list before it expires.

Ongoing obligations: quarterly reporting on the number of reserved workers, continuous self-monitoring of the quota (the director is personally responsible), and filing for renewal no earlier than 45 days before the current order expires.

How you lose it

Trigger	Consequence
Loss of Diia.City resident status (drop below nine specialists, below €1,200 average, below 90% qualified income, or a reporting breach)	The residency criterion fails → criticality can be cancelled → all bookings fall
Exceeding the reservation limit	Express ground to cancel critical status
Failing to re-confirm by 1 September 2026 under the new criteria	Status lapses; the right to reserve is lost
The criterion you relied on is removed in the re-review	Status cancelled
Late compliance reporting in Diia.City (more than 20 business days)	Loss of resident status, with the cascade above
Trying to reserve a gig-specialist or FOP	Refused — invalid relationship

A cancelled status generally cannot be re-obtained for six months. Loss of Diia.City residency itself carries a separate 12-month bar on re-entry.

A note on Defence.City

Defence.City, launched in January 2026 for defense and dual-use companies, cannot be combined with Diia.City inside the same legal entity — mixing risks the loss of both. Companies that need both typically run two separate entities (one Diia.City for IT and R&D, one Defence.City for production) with arm’s-length contracts between them. Defense criticality is a different, higher-quota track, decided by the Ministry of Defense.

How this plays out in practice

A startup that looks safe on paper. A Diia.City startup holds criticality under the startup scheme. It has no employees; its beneficial owners are deferred as UBOs. The owner assumes the status runs to its printed expiry date. It does not. Resolution No. 692 caps every existing decision at 1 September 2026 regardless of the stated date, and the rewritten criterion now demands proof of €1,200 over six months. The company does pay gig-specialists at €1,200 and has a year of reporting, so it can re-confirm, since gig remuneration counts toward the test. But it has to re-file on its own initiative, and a second clock is running: when the startup grace period ends, on 31 December of the year after joining, the company must reach nine specialists or lose residency outright, and the owners’ deferrals fall with it. The binding constraint here is headcount, not paperwork.

An agency built on FOPs. A 20-person AI consultancy wants to shield its key people but engages them as FOPs and is not a Diia.City resident. Neither the company nor its key people are reservable as they stand: FOPs cannot be reserved and do not count toward the nine-specialist minimum. The fix is a structural one. Convert key people to employment, join Diia.City, run six months of payroll at €1,200 to satisfy the criterion, then file. Realistic time to the first booking is six to seven months, because the six-month history cannot be compressed. A company in this position has to start well before it needs the protection.

The numbers, in one place

Metric	Value (2026)
Minimum wage	₴8,647/month
Reserved-worker wage floor (non-Diia.City)	₴25,941 (3 minimum wages; Diia.City residents exempt)
Wage floor (frontline zones)	₴21,618 (2.5 minimum wages)
Diia.City criticality wage test	€1,200 average, six-month history
Startup income proof	€20,000 over three months
Criteria to meet	At least 3 (2 mandatory)
Default reservation quota	Up to 50% of military-liable workers
Critical-enterprise status validity	About 12 months
Booking term	Up to 12 months
Overrun cure window	10 business days
Re-obtain ban after cancellation	6 months
Renewal filing window	Up to 45 days before expiry
Re-review deadline	1 September 2026 (auto-extended to 15 October if expiring before 15 July)

What to do now — the checklist

1. Audit headcount against the quota. Confirm reserved workers are at or below 50% of all military-liable staff. If resignations pushed you over, cure within ten business days.
2. Mind the right wage figure. As a Diia.City resident you are exempt from the ₴25,941 reserved-worker floor; your binding test is the €1,200 average remuneration. Non-Diia.City staff must reach ₴25,941 by 1 September 2026 (frontline operations may stay at ₴21,618).
3. Prove the €1,200 Diia.City wage test across the last six months of payroll reporting. If you run a discount-regime startup below €1,200, you have likely lost the Diia.City criticality route until you fix wages and build the history.
4. Move key people from gig to employment before filing. Gig-specialists and FOPs cannot be reserved; UBOs can.
5. Re-confirm criticality under the new criteria before your decision lapses — treat 1 September 2026 as the deadline, not your printed expiry date.
6. Clean military-registration data before booking. Ordinary IT companies get no 45-day grace.
7. Map concurrent-job and other-deferral holders. From 1 September 2026 they count once; recompute your quota base.
8. Stand up continuous monitoring. The director is personally liable: quarterly reservation reporting, a 45-day renewal calendar, and a standing watch on payroll and headcount.

What we help with

At Harha, we run this as a single project spanning legal, finance, and accounting, since it touches all three. The work covers confirming which criteria you can actually meet, modeling the payroll cost of holding the €1,200 average and the ₴25,941 floor, restructuring engagement types so your key people are reservable without breaking your tax position, filing the criticality application with the Ministry of Digital Transformation, and setting up the monitoring that keeps the status from lapsing.

If you need to keep your people, start with a short call. We map your current structure against the criteria and tell you what stands between you and a confirmed reservation, and how long it will take to get there.

This guide reflects the law as of June 2026, immediately after Resolution No. 692 took effect. The reservation regime is changing quickly; confirm the current rules before acting on any specific decision.