Марія Бровінська Money 23 March 2025, 11:42

"It hurts. Why can't I withdraw foreign currency from my individual entrepreneur accounts?" Aityvets suggests creating a petition so that individual entrepreneurs are allowed to withdraw foreign currency from their accounts without converting it into hryvnia at the NBU rate. Under his post, there is a discussion with almost 200 comments.

Bohdan Boyko, Strong Middle DevOps Engineer, is unhappy that it is not possible to withdraw currency in cash in Ukraine. His post is being commented on by IT professionals with almost 200 comments under the post.

Dissatisfied

Kateryna Meleshenko, Data Scientist, adds that it’s not just the currency conversion into hryvnia that «hurts». «Yes, it’s been hurting for a long time too. And the limit for withdrawing money from a card abroad. UAH 12,500. It was nothing when the zloty was UAH 7, and now it’s almost UAH 11. You can withdraw four times a month, which comes to $1,200. It’s barely enough to pay for rent and a doctor (for everything else, thankfully, I can pay with a card),» she says. Kateryna adds that she pays a 5 euro commission in Poland and another 2% commission in Ukrainian. «Total is already 10 euros, 40 euros per month. And I’m not talking about the exchange rate. And that’s only if you have one card…», the IT specialist notes.

Senior Project & Product Manager Maksym Nazarenko believes that the topic is worthy of discussion, but «as always, there are nuances.» «If the law on restrictions is repealed, then from the point of view of B2B and physicists it will be an improvement, and they will not pay more. But from the point of view of the country, it will increase the outflow of money in foreign currency and weaken the economy. During a war, no one will do this, because it will have a direct impact on the course of the war. On the contrary, they can make stricter rules. Any president or government would introduce this law from a logical point of view of micro and macroeconomics,» he notes. In his opinion, all money transactions and reports are not transparent, both for the authorities and for ordinary people. «And this leads to fraud and misappropriation of funds. In general, you can create a petition to gain a large number of votes and weaken the restrictions
For example, do not conduct double conversion for transactions up to 1,000 euros, etc.,» suggests the IT expert.

Why can’t I withdraw currency?

Oleksa Mashchyts, QA evangelist, explains that it is impossible to withdraw currency without converting it into hryvnia because the dollar is not officially used in Ukraine. «We only have the hryvnia as our currency. Therefore, internal transfers are only in hryvnia. It is possible to accept payments from outside Ukraine in dollars, this is within the framework of foreign economic activity. This is normal practice and not only for Ukraine. But you can keep dollars in your individual entrepreneur account, as far as I remember, there are currently no restrictions on the sale of currency,» he notes.

Vasyl Savka, AI/ML Data Scientist Engineer, explains: «Because we have to pay taxes from our foreign currency income. Taxes are paid in hryvnias. And according to our laws, all currency is subject to mandatory conversion. Because then where will the state get the currency to buy oil and gas? This is not a technical difficulty. This was done intentionally so that the state would take the currency for itself, and print hryvnias for people instead) And it’s not just individual entrepreneurs. You can’t even withdraw money from Paypal in foreign currency.»

«Before the war, this was possible, but it was due to a temporary restriction. What was a withdrawal of dollars was actually a sale of dollars in hryvnia and an automatic purchase of dollars at the same rate. It turned out that you would transfer money 1 to 1 from an individual entrepreneur to a dollar card. Now mono claims that it is unable to maintain a 1 to 1 rate plus restrictions on the purchase of currency by individuals. That is, in theory, such an operation could be allowed for 50,000 UAH per month, and the rest — how the restrictions will be relaxed,» suggests Vitaliy Omelchenko, a WordPress specialist .

Vasily Borisova, Project Manager, explains: «Removing restrictions on withdrawing currency from individual entrepreneur accounts will lead to an increase in demand for dollars/euro, which will increase pressure on the hryvnia exchange rate and may cause its devaluation. Imagine if people were allowed to keep money in cash en masse. This will also reduce the liquidity of banks and increase the burden on Ukraine’s gold and foreign exchange reserves. Such restrictions are standard practice in countries with crisis economies, and now they are necessary for financial stability. For example, Turkey or Argentina have a similar situation due to the crisis.
«The situation can change for the better only when the economy is stabilized and at least the war ends. Unfortunately, now, lifting these restrictions is economically dangerous.»

What about the petition?

Regarding the initiative to create a petition, opinions among AIT members are divided. Some are ironic about the effectiveness of such an initiative, some are skeptical, and some find it quite rational.

«A petition won’t help, in banks the account will always be in a certain currency, if you need to withdraw in another, you have to convert and transfer the money to another account,» begins Angular/NodeJs Developer Andriy Kapinos .

Oleksiy Shevchenko, a resident of Aityte, believes that the petition proposal is a kindergarten. «Nobody needs these petitions. Selling currency is big business, and many people in power get their kickbacks here. No one will let you ruin it. It’s better to look at things more globally and demand not just to make the stick a little longer, but to get rid of the collar altogether. The question must be asked: why can’t we pay in currency, import and export our earned money without restrictions, allow foreign banks to give loans to Ukrainians at their rates (3-5%). And also — why do we pay income taxes, and then at the gas station also VAT, excise duties and much more, which makes gasoline, in particular, more expensive by 100%. And why do we have to pay for customs clearance of cars when we have not had any domestic manufacturers for a long time, which they used to hide behind when introducing these rules,» he notes.

According to Maksym Nazarenko, Senior Project & Product Manager, a petition is logical. «And a very good idea is to create some kind of fixed tax — as one of the options or the main solution for the petition. Because in fact, only the bank is making money now. I see it this way — if you project it on IT — the financial regulator or the NBU with its manager is responsible for this task. And so he, or a group of people, like typical middle managers, instead of an effective solution, slips beautiful reports to the bosses, in which everything looks perfect and maybe even receives kickbacks from the banks for making such a „Bug“ on which you can make money, instead of root cause analysis and the introduction of a fixed tax. And the bosses — deputies or the president simply do not engage in micromanagement and are banally unaware of the pain of users — individual entrepreneurs. So the next step: Create a petition so that everyone understands the problem.»

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