The State of Child Support Enforcement in 2025
Ukrainian courts handled a substantial number of child support enforcement cases in 2025, with a total of 33,447 applications under review. The majority of these, 31,827, were filed in the previous year. However, the number of new applications filed in 2025 fell by 5% compared to 2024, continuing a decade-long trend where new case filings have more than halved over the last ten years.
Judges processed 31,587 proceedings, directly resolving 28,544 cases. Notably, 86% of these claims were granted, indicating a high success rate for claimants. The total amount of child support awarded in 2025 reached 60 million hryvnias, a 22% increase from the previous year. The average award per case was 2,500 hryvnias, up from 1,900 hryvnias in 2024. For context, the average award was just 1,200 hryvnias per case back in 2021.
Persistent Problems with Child Support Debt
Beyond new awards, the system currently faces over 208,000 outstanding child support debts. The Debtor Registry saw an increase of 1,172 enforcement proceedings against debtors in the past year. It is significant that men constitute 91% of these debtors, and a single individual can be subject to multiple proceedings.
Petro Tyshkun points out that most child support is collected via court orders, where the claimant has two options: to claim a fixed monetary amount equal to 50% of the subsistence minimum for a child of a specific age, or to claim a share of the debtor's income, which can be one-quarter, one-third, or one-half.
However, because many payers report only minimal official incomes, the actual payment amounts often remain very low. Therefore, the 2025 statistics present a mixed picture: while awarded sums are rising, the significant and growing number of debtors highlights systemic issues that require further analysis and improvement of the enforcement mechanism. Child support remains a critical social issue in Ukraine, directly impacting the welfare of children.
The ongoing decline in new applications could reflect broader socio-economic shifts or indicate that potential debtors are seeking to avoid court proceedings, possibly due to fear of legal consequences. Addressing this complex situation will likely require new state-level initiatives to ensure child support obligations are met and children's rights are protected.