Kyiv ranks first among Ukraine’s regions by the number of individuals registered as owners or beneficial owners of at least 50 companies. As of October 2026, the capital had 131 such owners out of 478 nationwide, according to an Opendatabot study published on 26 October.
Kyiv therefore accounts for more than a quarter of all such owners of large numbers of companies recorded in the Unified State Register.
Kyiv region ranks second, with 34 individuals each linked to at least 50 enterprises.
Dnipropetrovsk region ranks third, with 27 such owners.
Next are Donetsk region, with 24 owners of large numbers of companies, and Kharkiv region, with 18 records.
In total, Kyiv city and Kyiv region have 165 such registered owners, accounting for more than a third of the national total.
The owners linked to the largest numbers of companies are also predominantly based in the capital.
Vitalii Ilnytskyi of Kyiv tops the Ukrainian ranking with 5,889 companies. Another Kyiv resident, Vladyslav Melekhin, ranks third with 858 enterprises.
Kateryna Doroshenko of the capital ranks fifth with 674 registered companies.
The largest such owner outside Kyiv is Ruslan Merzliakov of Donetsk, who is listed as the owner or beneficial owner of 2,221 companies.
Under the study’s methodology, this category includes individuals with registered links to at least 50 legal entities.
However, an owner’s address in the register does not necessarily coincide with the actual location of the companies’ operations.
The concentration of these owners in Kyiv therefore does not mean that the corresponding share of enterprises operates directly in the capital.
The ownership structure of large numbers of legal entities deserves particular attention. Myroslav Laba, a tax and regulatory policy expert at the Economic Expert Platform, notes that registering hundreds of companies to one individual may indicate nominee ownership.
He emphasises that owning or managing a large number of companies does not in itself violate the law.
In the expert’s view, identifying the actual managers and individuals making business decisions is important for ensuring transparency in business activity.
Overall, according to Opendatabot, 478 individuals were registered in Ukraine as of October 2026, each linked to 50 or more companies.
Source: Opendatabot, study dated 26 October 2026.
