My Biggest Mistake in Ukraine

During my 8+ years in Ukraine I've had plenty of time to make mistakes. What do I regret most of all? Helping my wife (U.S. citizen) get a work permit. Yes, this decision has been the greatest source of stress and negative emotions of anything I have done in Ukraine.

Since my wife doesn't speak Russian or Ukrainian fluently and doesn't understand the system, and because her employer took care of the work permit process only and we are too poor to afford costly legal services oriented towards foreigners working for transnational corporations, I had to take care of the rest of the processes myself.

The result: over 100 man-hours of work, costs (visa, fees, late fines, registration, covering costs for landlord) of upwards of $1000, and continual stress for nearly 9 months as all the steps of this impossibly complicated process played out. I would place a value of roughly $15 per hour of my time, so the total cost of this endeavor has been perhaps $2500. That is, I would not do it again unless you paid me over $2500 to do it.

A Ukrainian work permit is not a good choice for people who do not have the complete support of corporate legal specialists.

Each step of the process leads to another step, the details of which you only find out as you complete the previous step. Each step involving the OVIR or the ZHEK typically requires multiple visits as you first find out the working hours, then who to talk to, then what documents you are lacking, then which things you have done incorrectly, then finally to submit the document/s.

I believe I have been to the city OVIR nearly 10 times for this process, the local ZHEK 5 times, and the rayon OVIR half a dozen times — all for steps of the process that follow receipt of the work permit. That is, getting the work permit is just a fraction of the work involved. The real difficulties come when you get a temporary residency permit and then get the foreigner with the permit registered at a Ukrainian address.

So what do I recommend? Working illegally in Ukraine is a wiser choice for foreigners in the English teaching category than trying to go through the rigamarole of obtaining a work permit and temporary residency.

The fact is, Ukraine desperately needs native teachers of English and other languages (and all the politicians know this, if they have ever given thought to the subject), but absolutely no provisions have been made to allow this to happen. Compare this to Georgia, which now has an official government program to bring native teachers to the country, provide them with housing and a liveable salary, and take care of their organizational worries.

The work permit process — like other bureaucratic business procedures in Ukraine — is designed (whether intentionally or by default) in such a way that only large business structures with lots of capital and legal staff can adhere to them. Everyone else in Ukraine lives outside the law in webs of deceit that make them vulnerable to the whims of government officials, police, etc. Without a doubt, this is the worst part about living in Ukraine, whether you are a native or a foreigner. It's a great reason to emigrate.

The only way out of this web is to be part of a large business structure that provides you with all the appearances of complete legality while taking all the responsibility for deceit upon themselves. For this they have legal staff and government connections that allow them to "settle matters" more efficiently than small businesses or individuals could ever hope to.

Is Getting a Work Permit in Ukraine Worth It?

Sometimes my wife and I ask ourselves this. By the time we finally get her temporary residency permit in a few weeks, it will have been a full six months since we sat down with her employer and discussed the steps we would take to get her legally employed at their company. Mind you, work permits are only issued for a year, so I guess that means 6 months out of each year will be spent moving documents from place to place and wondering what the outcome will be.

Her employer took on most of the work, but some things we had to do ourselves. I can't imagine a foreigner who is not fluent in Russian/Ukrainian being able to complete the process without breaking down and paying a lawyer upwards of 500 Euro to take care of [much of] the work.

But receiving a work permit is just the first -- albeit most critical -- part of a three-stage process:

1. obtain work permit (no small feat)
2. obtain visa (take trip to Ukrainian consulate abroad)
3. obtain temporary residency in Ukraine

The third stage turned out to be surprisingly difficult. It's more than the usual visit to the ZHEK for an OVIR registration. You need to get statements from everyone registered at your address of registration, AIDS and tuberculosis medical tests, and a statement from the tax office on your employer that takes 10 working days to issue. I figure that by the time we get this all done I will have been to the Kiev OVIR 8 times.

Most landlords are understandably not interested in registering anyone at their apartment, even temporarily. It's more work for them, potential problems with the ZHEK, and increased utilities payments as well as taxes (there's a 15% income tax on rental income). Even if they agree to this, expect to foot the bill for taxes and utilities. This step can be so much of a problem that apartment rental agencies will take care of all this for you for a modest fee of... $1200 USD. That just goes to show how hard it is to get a landlord to go with you to the ZHEK.

Soon this process will finally be over... for the next 6 or 7 months, at least. I'm sure over 100 man hours will have been spent if you consider the time my wife's employer spent preparing and submitting documents, our trips to the Krakow consulate along with the innumerable trips here and there across Kiev to submit documents for police clearance certificates and then pick them up, getting a taxpayer's code, and all the rest.