Reforming land valuation and taxation in Ukraine: A path towards greater sustainability, fairness, and transparency

The shift from administrative to market-based property valuation is critical for effective decentralization and local revenue collection in Ukraine. To demonstrate the viability of such a shift, this paper uses prices for more than 175,000 agricultural land sale transactions in 2021–24 together with parcel attributes from public data to estimate a hedonic model and predict prices for all of Ukraine’s 7.5 million commercial agricultural land parcels. Despite the war, mean predicted prices are significantly above current ‘normative monetary’ valuations (NMVs). Inter-regional differences are pronounced. Steps to extend mass appraisal to residential urban properties and legislative changes needed to replace NMVs with a market-based approach are discussed, noting that a shift to market-based valuation will have far-reaching implications for the volume of public and private investment that can be attracted to support reconstruction; the likely effectiveness of such investment; and local governments’ ability to benefit from any land value appreciation that may result from it.