Applications for "Winter Support" (Zymova pidtrymka), a one-off payment of UAH 19,400 for the 2026/27 heating season, close on Friday 30 October 2026. The money goes to vulnerable households in designated frontline communities of eight regions, and it can only be claimed in person, not in Diia. As of early October, residents of Chernihiv alone had filed about 15,500 applications, and local officials expect roughly as many again before the deadline.
The rules are set by Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 1084 of 3 September 2026 and explained by the Ministry of Social Policy and the Pension Fund of Ukraine.
What was decided and who pays
The payment is UAH 19,400 per household, once for the whole heating season. It is not per person: a pensioner living alone and a family of five each receive one payment of UAH 19,400. At the National Bank of Ukraine's official rate of 44.95 hryvnias per dollar for 13 October, that is about $432.
More than 380,000 households, home to about 1 million people, can qualify, and the programme is budgeted at more than UAH 7.4 billion. The money comes not from the state budget but from humanitarian organisations, under two procedures:
- Procedure 1: UNICEF and the Ukrainian Red Cross Society, through the ministry's humanitarian account at the National Bank. The resolution allocates UAH 2.24 billion from that account, enough for about 115,600 payments. The Pension Fund decides and pays.
- Procedure 2: the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and other humanitarian organisations, which pay directly "within available funding".
The eligible communities in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson and Chernihiv regions are named in two lists: 0–20 km from the front line for the first and 20–50 km for the second. Territories occupied on the date of the application are excluded.
Who is eligible
Living in a listed community is not enough. A household member must receive one of these payments:
- a disability pension;
- a housing subsidy for utilities, or for liquefied gas and solid or liquid stove fuel;
- child assistance for single mothers, birth assistance or assistance for children in large families;
- state social assistance for people disabled since childhood, for children with disabilities, for people without pension rights, or the care allowance;
- the care supplement for people with group I disability and certain single pensioners;
- the IDP living allowance;
- payments for orphans in family-type children's homes, foster families and patronage families.
People with a disability, single non-working people of pension age and large families who receive none of these payments can also apply, with proof: a medical commission certificate issued before 1 January 2025, a medical conclusion for a child under 18, a large-family certificate, or an inspection report confirming that the person lives alone.
Eligibility follows actual residence on the application date, not property ownership. A household is one or more people registered or declared in the same dwelling; for internally displaced persons, the address in the IDP certificate counts. Evacuation after applying does not cancel the right.
How to apply
One adult member of the household, or a legal representative, applies in person. Which office depends on the list:
- First list (0–20 km): a Pension Fund service centre, a CNAP administrative services centre, or the executive body of the local council or military administration. Payment goes to a bank account (IBAN) or in cash through Ukrposhta.
- Second list (20–50 km): only the local council or military administration, on a paper form. Payment goes to an IBAN account or by Western Union transfer.
Bring a passport or ID card and the taxpayer number for the applicant and every household member living there, any benefit certificates, proof of residence and, if relevant, the disability or large-family documents. Where security requires it, applications may be taken in shelters or through housing associations, and social services help people with limited mobility. One application per household is enough.
The Pension Fund hotline for the programme is 0 800 503 753, option "8". The minister has asked people not to give personal or bank details to third parties.
The three dates: 30 October, 4 November, 30 November
- 30 October 2026: last day to apply. The application window opened on 1 September.
- 4 November 2026: under procedure 1, the latest date by which the Pension Fund must tell an applicant that registry data errors block the payment. The applicant then has five working days to bring supporting documents.
- 30 November 2026: the deadline for procedure 1 payments by the Pension Fund.
Procedure 2 has no fixed payment date, and an application does not guarantee money: households whose members fall into the most categories are paid first, the rest only if funding allows. In Chernihiv, on the second list, the head of the city's social policy department told Suspilne that people will learn the result when the money arrives, by SMS or email from the international organisations, and that payments may continue throughout the heating season.
On 30 September the ministry reported the first UAH 27.6 million sent to 1,424 households in the 0–20 km zone. The payment is not taxable income and, according to the ministry, is not counted as household income when a housing subsidy is calculated.
How it compares with last winter
Last winter's state package was built differently. In 2025/26 the government paid UAH 6,500 per eligible child or person: children in low-income families, under guardianship or in foster care, IDP children, IDPs with group I disability and single pensioners receiving a care supplement. Applications ran until 17 December 2025 through Diia or the Pension Fund, the money landed on a special-purpose account, and it had to be spent within 180 days on items such as clothing, footwear and medicine. A separate UAH 1,000 went to all citizens who applied by 24 December 2025.
The 2026/27 payment is the mirror image: higher, per household, limited to frontline communities, unrestricted, funded by donors and available only in person. A low-income family with two children received 2 × UAH 6,500 = UAH 13,000 of restricted funds last winter; a qualifying frontline household of any size receives UAH 19,400 of unrestricted cash this season.
What UAH 19,400 buys at October 2026 prices
The ministry names fuel, warm clothing, blankets, power banks and utility bills as uses. At current prices:
- Gas: Naftogaz's household price is UAH 7.96 per cubic metre, so the payment covers 2,437 cubic metres of gas before distribution charges. A house that burns 250 cubic metres in a cold month pays UAH 1,990 for the gas itself, so the payment covers almost ten such months.
- Electricity: at the household tariff of UAH 4.32 per kWh, it buys 4,491 kWh. Homes with registered electric heating pay UAH 2.64 per kWh for up to 2,000 kWh a month from October to April, which stretches it to 7,348 kWh.
- Motor fuel: A-95 averaged UAH 89.36 a litre and diesel UAH 98.68 on 12 October, according to the A-95 Consulting Group via Minfin: 217 and 197 litres.
- Backup power: on Rozetka on 13 October a 245 Wh EcoFlow River 3 UPS station cost UAH 15,999, leaving UAH 3,401. An 858 Wh River 3 Max Plus cost UAH 29,149, so the payment covers about two-thirds of it.
In analyst Ruslan Averin's view, the useful order for a frontline household is to file before 30 October, check that the IBAN and phone number on the form are correct, and only then decide how to spend it. A small battery that keeps a router, phones and lights running through a power outage usually does more than a slightly lower gas bill, but in a gas-heated house a full winter of the commodity costs less than one mid-size station. Last winter's own bills are the best guide.
Related: power outage schedules and the cost of a generator or battery, the average pension in Ukraine in October 2026 and the 2026/27 heating season.