Picture a new apartment building with two hundred units — underground parking, a playground, and not a single place to shelter during an air raid. A week ago, that was perfectly legal. Today, shelters in new residential buildings are a mandatory condition, without which no commission will sign off on the building at all.
On September 8, 2026, Law No. 4778-IX entered into force in Ukraine, and from that date on, safety stopped being a wish or an act of goodwill on a developer’s part — it became a condition without which a facility simply cannot be commissioned. For an industry that’s already used to working under new rules every year, this is probably the most fundamental change in a long time.
The news affects literally everyone involved in construction: public procurers, local communities, private developers, architects — and, of course, future residents. What’s more, the law doesn’t just cover housing: schools, hospitals and other facilities that people visit every day fall under it too.
What the Law on Shelters in New Buildings Actually Requires
The Verkhovna Rada passed the law back on February 10, 2026, the President signed it on March 6, and a six-month transition period gave builders time to prepare. Now that it’s over, the key provisions have taken effect:
- new residential buildings, schools, hospitals and a number of other facilities cannot be commissioned without shelters or dual-purpose structures;
- civil protection shelters must now be built into urban planning documentation at every level — from a community’s master plan down to the design of an individual building;
- simple mobile shelters must appear in places where people gather en masse — at transport stops, in parks, at industrial sites;
- all new shelters must be designed with accessibility for people with disabilities and other people with limited mobility in mind.
Liability for the Absence of Shelters
The law didn’t stop at design requirements — it also spelled out the price of negligence right away. Denying people access to a shelter during an air-raid alert carries a fine of UAH 1,700 to 3,400. Violating the rules for maintaining protective structures carries a fine of UAH 2,550 to 5,100, rising to UAH 5,100–8,500 for a repeat violation within a year. For owners and operating organizations, this means shelters will now have to be not just built, but kept permanently in working condition.
What This Changes for the Construction Industry
The law’s main effect isn’t in the fine amounts, but in the fact that safety stops being an option in a technical brief and becomes as mandatory a part of a project as the foundation or the roof. Developers will have to budget for shelters from the very start, rather than “bringing a facility up to code” after the fact. For public procurers and communities, it’s an additional but entirely predictable line in capital construction plans — and, ultimately, a guarantee that new schools or hospitals won’t repeat the sad experience of facilities built with no protection at all.
The country keeps building even during the war — and Law No. 4778-IX makes that process a bit more honest: now people’s safety is built into a project from the very first drawing, rather than added to it as a compromise.
Read also
- Mobile Shelters for Schoolchildren: 840 Facilities on the Road to School
- Shelter Modernization in Kyiv: Over UAH 1.1 Billion Allocated to Improve Civil Protection
- Kindergarten Reconstruction in Poltava Region: The Story of “Romashka” in Kotelva
SpecServis expertise on this topic: Construction and Maintenance of Civil Protection Shelters
Source: Minfin
