The Public Council at Kyiv City Hall has called for the fare increase to be cancelled
On 16 July, public hearings were held in Kyiv regarding the sharp increase in public transport fares from 8 to 30 hryvnias. At the same time, a protest against the new fares is taking place outside the Kyiv City State Administration building.
Following the hearings, the Public Council attached to the Kyiv City State Administration endorsed an appeal to the Mayor, Vitali Klitschko, demanding that he revoke the order to increase fares, revert fares to 8 UAH, and hold a new public consultation within a maximum of three months.
Vitaliy Dudin, an activist with the organisation ‘Social Movement’ who took part in the hearings, reported this to Socportal.
During his address to the Kyiv City State Administration, he noted that the current economic and security situation does not allow for an additional financial burden to be placed on the capital’s residents.
In the first week of July 2026 alone, more than fifty people were killed. This shows that the city is living from one shelling to the next. At such a time, it was unacceptable to break people’s last reserves of social resilience. “I call on everyone to adopt sensible decisions and tariffs that take into account not only economic indicators but also are socially justified. And I want to hear what the authorities are prepared to do to prevent conflicts and social tension, he said.
The activist also emphasised that the proposed tariff is excessive given Ukrainians’ income levels.
We are deeply concerned about the stark disparity between the cost of a monthly travel pass and the minimum wage. We have analysed the situation in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Moldova. In these countries, the cost of a monthly travel pass amounts to just 2–4 per cent of the minimum wage. In Ukraine, however, a monthly travel pass costing 72 euros will account for around 42 per cent of the minimum wage, noted Dudin.
Furthermore, he criticised the Kyiv City State Administration’s argument that the fare increase was linked to the rise in Kyiv's average wage to 50,000 hryvnias.
At ‘Kyivpastrans’ and the ‘Kyiv Metro’, wages are significantly lower than the 50,000 hryvnias stated on paper. Furthermore, Ministry of Infrastructure Order No. 940 on the setting of fares stipulates that the minimum wage must be taken into account, rather than some fictitious average wage in Kyiv. Please come back down to earth and listen to what is written in the legislation, he said.
During the hearings, Nataliia Zemlianska, Chair of the Board of the Ukrainian State Compulsory Social Insurance Fund for Unemployment, also spoke, outlining the situation facing the unemployed, as did a youth representative, who drew attention to the impact of the tariff increases on students and schoolchildren.
Instead, Iryna Boiko, a spokesperson for the Kyiv City State Administration’s Department of Economics, stated that the economically justified cost price of a journey is around 64 UAH, and that the fare of 30 UAH is too low. She also noted that the public consultation had lasted long enough.
According to the campaigners, they nevertheless managed to get their point across regarding the social unjustifiability of the new fare. They pointed out that the increase fails to take into account the low minimum wage in Ukraine, an unemployment rate of 11.6 per cent, and high levels of poverty, which they estimate at 30 per cent.
Following the discussion, members of the Public Council voted in favour of addressing the Mayor of Kyiv, demanding that the fare increase be cancelled and that fares be reduced back to 8 UAH.
Meanwhile, the heads of the municipal enterprises ‘Kyivpastrans’ and ‘Kyiv Metro’ did not take part in the discussion, and the Mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, was absent from the hearing.
As of the evening of 16 July, the protest against the fare increase outside the Kyiv City State Administration building is continuing.