For decades, Ukrainians independently proved their own work record: running around archives, searching for liquidated enterprises, suing over a single incorrectly placed stamp. On April 9, the Verkhovna Rada passed a law that officially reverses this logic.
What exactly changed
Bill No. 13705-d was supported by 242 deputies — not a single vote against. The law obligates the Pension Fund of Ukraine to independently request information about a person from state electronic registries. If data is missing — the PFU must notify the citizen about this and explain how to confirm work record, including through court.
Until this point, the situation was the opposite: the fund could silently refuse or calculate a minimum pension without explaining which data was missing. A telling example — a displaced person from Kherson region who in 2025 received a minimum pension instead of a full one: the PFU credited only work record from 2000, "losing" over 10 years of work in a collective farm due to a technical violation in the labor book.
Why now
The full-scale war has exacerbated a problem that existed before 2022. Occupation and military operations destroyed archives and personnel records across a significant part of the territory. But even without the war, work record acquired before 2004 mostly existed only on paper — electronic records did not exist then.
"We are essentially obligating the Pension Fund to help people, rather than stand in the way of receiving pension benefits"
— People's Deputy Tarasenko during the vote
The law also allows crediting to insurance record periods of work for which the employer did not pay unified social tax. In other words, a person will not be punished for another's bad faith.
What remains unresolved
The labor book legally remains the primary document for confirming work record before 2004. If it doesn't exist — you need either archive certificates, or witnesses (at least two, with their own supporting documents), or court. The law does not cancel these requirements — it only obligates the PFU to tell a person which document is missing, instead of remaining silent.
- Access to registries — only to those that exist in state systems. Data from occupied territories does not enter there.
- The law does not legalize work record in "gray" employment schemes.
- The mechanism for monitoring how quickly the PFU will actually respond is not prescribed in the law.
You can already check your work record in the PFU registry through the portal pfu.gov.ua or the "Pension Fund" application. Specialists recommend doing this a few years before retirement — so there is time to fill in gaps through archives or court, while witnesses are still available, and successor enterprises still exist.
The main practical question: will the law receive a real enforcement mechanism — if the PFU does not notify a person in time about which work record is missing, what rule will force it to do so?
