Cabinet approves pricing liberalization to compensate Ukrzaliznytsia for 3,000 free travel program

The Ministry of Communities and Territories Development, in order to implement Ukrzaliznytsia’s program of free transportation of up to 3,000 km per person in 2026, may review tariffs for paid travel — including raising prices for luxury sleeper and first-class cars and making them dependent on the terms of sale and demand.

These changes are set out in Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 1555, "Some Issues of Supporting the Mobility of Ukrainian Citizens Within the Framework of the 3,000 Kilometers Through Ukraine Initiative," dated December 2 and published on the government portal.

The Chairman of the Board of Ukrzaliznytsia, Oleksandr Pertsovsky, told reporters that thanks to these changes, the company expects to introduce dynamic pricing for luxury sleeper and first-class tickets starting from mid-January 2026 — pricing that will depend on when the ticket is purchased and how popular the route is.

According to Pertsovsky, this would allow the company to receive additional "hundreds of millions" of hryvnias.

"The compensator is not billions; it is hundreds of millions of hryvnias," Pertsovsky said.

He added that he could not provide an exact date for the transition to the new pricing model due to the ongoing regulatory process. "All the relevant developments and amendments to certain orders and rules are being prepared as a package. There is a one-month regulatory process during which they must undergo approval and be adopted accordingly," the Chairman of the Board noted.

At the same time, the resolution provides a broader set of compensation mechanisms for the 3,000 program. These include, among other measures, adjustments to tariffs for the transportation of passengers, baggage, and cargo by rail in both international and domestic traffic; the introduction of new passenger-related services; and changes to the conditions for returning travel and transportation documents and the associated fees.

In addition, the resolution grants the Ministry of Development the authority to liberalize the comfort-class coefficients of railcars for determining the cost of reserved-seat tickets in the specified cars; to set ticket and reserved-seat coefficients depending on the time of purchase; and to set occupancy-based coefficients depending on the availability of unsold seats prior to the train’s departure.