Cabinet of Ministers approves procedure for recalculating utility bills during blackouts

Automatic adjustment of service costs

Ukraine has introduced a clear procedure for recalculating the cost of utility services for periods when their provision was disrupted due to emergencies during martial law. The relevant decision was adopted by Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 118. According to this document, service providers are obliged to independently account for periods of faulty or limited service provision and reflect this in the final amounts on bills.

Which services are subject to recalculation

The recalculation mechanism applies to a specific list of utility services. It includes:

• supply of thermal energy;
• supply of hot water;
• centralised water supply;
• centralised wastewater disposal;
• household waste management.

It is important to understand that a power outage itself is not an automatic ground for reducing all utility bills. The key factor is whether the power cut affected the quality of a specific service. For example, if a building was left without heating or water supply during a blackout, or if these services were provided with interruptions and deviations from standards, a recalculation is carried out. However, if heating and water systems continued to operate in normal mode despite the power cut, no automatic reduction in cost is provided for.

Electricity and application procedure

It should be noted separately that electricity is not included in the list of services for which this specific recalculation mechanism for emergencies has been established.

Another important detail enshrined in the Cabinet of Ministers resolution: citizens do not need to personally contact the provider to initiate a recalculation. Service providers must do this independently, taking into account periods of inadequate service provision.