Does your sign need a permit?
A sign carrying your business name by your own entrance is not advertising under Ukrainian law — article 9 § 6 of the Law “On Advertising” says so outright. Kyiv issues no permit for one either: it runs a notification regime, where you file a notice through an administrative service centre and the city's working body issues an order within 10 working days finding the placement compliant or not. A billboard or banner promoting goods away from your entrance falls under article 16 instead: its own permit, its own procedure and a fee for the spot.
“Do I need a permit” almost always means a different question: which regime your structure falls under. Everything else follows — the documents, and what happens if you file none.
The checklist below asks four questions a business owner can answer without a lawyer: what you are hanging, where, how large, and in which city. Size is not a formality here: three square metres is where a sign stops being a sign. Nothing is sent anywhere — it all runs in your browser.
Check your case
Four steps. The answer updates instantly and matches the tables below exactly: the widget picks out your row of them.
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The full tables: structure × place, and size
The same logic in full, for Kyiv. The first table is what goes where, the second is what size changes. An empty cell means the pairing does not occur in practice.
| Structure | Your own or leased facade | Shop window, inside the glass | Roof of the building | Listed heritage building | Shopping centre or leased space |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name sign above the entrance | A sign, not advertisingNotification regime | A sign, not advertisingUsually not required | — | A sign, not advertisingNotification regime | A sign, not advertisingNotification regime |
| Illuminated sign or dimensional letters | A sign, not advertisingNotification regime | A sign, not advertisingUsually not required | — | A sign, not advertisingNotification regime | A sign, not advertisingNotification regime |
| Bracket sign (projecting) | A sign, not advertisingNotification regime | — | — | A sign, not advertisingNotification regime | A sign, not advertisingNotification regime |
| Rooftop installation | — | — | Depends on the content and the heightNotification regime | — | — |
| Banner | Depends on the content and the heightNotification regime | Depends on the content and the heightUsually not required | — | Depends on the content and the heightNotification regime | Depends on the content and the heightNotification regime |
| Outdoor advertising: billboard, board, wall mural | Outdoor advertisingRequired | — | Outdoor advertisingRequired | Outdoor advertisingRequired | Outdoor advertisingRequired |
| Area | Kyiv | Other cities |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 0.3 m² — a plate | Usually not requiredA sign, not advertising | Most likely requiredA sign, not advertising |
| Up to 2 m² | Notification regimeA sign, not advertising | Most likely requiredA sign, not advertising |
| Between 2 and 3 m² | Notification regimeA sign, not advertising | Most likely requiredA sign, not advertising |
| Over 3 m² | Notification regimeA sign, not advertising | Most likely requiredDepends on the content and the height |
How we handle the permit
Establish the regime
Walk the four steps: structure, place, area, city. The output is whether this is a sign or outdoor advertising, and what exactly to file.
Check the area and the zone
Up to 3 m² (2 m² in Kyiv's zone 0), and a construction type allowed in your format zone. Cheaper to check now than to rebuild later.
Collect your half of the documents
Ownership or a lease for the premises, your business details, and the trademark document if the mark goes on the sign.
Order the drawing and file the notice
The drawing with dimensions, fixings, illumination and materials is ours. In Kyiv the package goes through an administrative service centre, and the working body answers with an order within 10 working days.
Manufacture and installation
We build the structure to exactly the parameters that went into the documents, and install it with our own crew.
Where the line between a sign and advertising runs
The law states the exemption precisely. A sign or plaque is not advertising when it, all at once:
- carries the registered name, trademark, type of activity and opening hours
- sits on premises you own or lease
- is no higher than the first floor — or on the floor those premises are on
- stands by the entrance to those very premises
Drop any one of those conditions and the structure leaves the exemption. That is why a rooftop installation or a banner promoting a sale is treated differently from a name above the door: one is above the first floor, the other is about a product rather than about you.
Three square metres — the line nobody warns you about
The national law says nothing about area. City rules do, and they agree on the number: 3 m². Go past it and the structure changes regime.
Zaporizhzhia states it literally: a sign or plaque with a total area over 3 m² “is also considered an advertising structure” (rules on outdoor advertising, executive committee decision No. 45 of 22.02.2013, § 14.4). Kyiv does not re-classify it, but has its own limit (3 m² generally, 2 m² in format zone 0), and an oversized sign there is a breach of the rules, which ends in a dismantling order.
Practically that means one thing: work out the area of a full-facade name before anything is built.
Kyiv: a notification, not a permit
The Kyiv sign-placement rules were approved by city council decision No. 224/2446 of 20.04.2017 and have been in a new wording since 14.12.2023 (decision No. 7572/7613). The commonest mistake is to assume a permit is issued there. It is not.
- you file a notification with documents through an administrative service centre
- the working body (a subdivision of the city administration) issues an order finding the placement compliant or not
- it has 10 working days from receiving the documents
- site inspections and dismantling sit with the municipal enterprise Kyivreklama
The list of attachments in the rules is exhaustive and short: a copy of the ownership or lease document for the premises, a copy of the document permitting use of the trademark if it appears on the sign, and a drawing of the sign stating type, dimensions, offsets from the fixings, illumination and materials.
And one case where nothing at all is filed: a plate carrying the full registered name, opening hours and phone number.
Format zones: in Kyiv the address decides the construction
The 2023 wording split the city into format zones 0–3, and the zone governs not only size but what may be hung at all:
- dimensional letters without a solid backing — every zone
- bracket signs — every zone
- letters on a solid base — zones 2 and 3 only, base up to 20 mm thick, unlit
- a lightbox (a box with an illuminated face) — zone 3 only
Separately banned outright: illuminated display boards, monitors, running-text lines and dynamic illumination. Lighting must not dazzle drivers or shine into windows, and cables are boxed in and painted the colour of the facade.
The zone boundaries live in an annex to the rules, and we do not guess them on this page. We check the zone for your address before anything is built — it decides whether a lightbox design is worth drawing at all.
Outside Kyiv
We work across Ukraine, and each city approves its own sign-placement procedure. The Law “On Advertising” applies identically everywhere, which is why the general part of this checklist is universal. The procedure itself, the name of the document and the offices involved differ from city to city. In one it is an approval, in another the registration of a technical passport, in a third a letter from the architecture department.
So for other cities the checklist says “approval is likely” and invents nothing further. We confirm the specifics for your address before filing, and that check costs nothing on its own.
Which documents we prepare and which only you can
Our half is everything that needs the manufacturer: a drawing with dimensions, fixings, illumination and materials, photographs of the facade and a photomontage on a picture of your building. In Kyiv that drawing is the document the rules ask for. The city never asks for the photographs or the montage; those are our own working material.
Your half is proof of your right to the premises (ownership or a lease), plus your business details. If someone else's trademark appears on the sign, the document permitting its use is needed too. In a shopping centre the landlord's approval and its brand book are added on top.
What this checklist is not
We are a manufacturer, not a law firm. The checklist shows the usual regime for a typical case; it does not replace a decision by the city commission and does not know the local restrictions of one particular street or building.
If your case is one of the harder ones — a facade in the centre, a listed building, a structure overhanging the pavement, or a sign already hanging without paperwork — we come out, look at it on site and tell you plainly what will have to be done.
Sources
The numbers and rules on this page come from here. If a source has changed and this page has not, tell us.
- Law of Ukraine “On Advertising” No. 270/96-VR, art. 9 § 6 (a sign or plaque is not advertising) and art. 16 (outdoor advertising)
- Rules for placing signs in Kyiv, approved by city council decision No. 224/2446 of 20.04.2017, as restated by decision No. 7572/7613 of 14.12.2023 — the source of the notification regime, the 10 working days, the document list and the format zones
- The official publication of decision No. 224/2446 on the Kyiv city portal (a scan)
- Rules on outdoor advertising in Zaporizhzhia, executive committee decision No. 45 of 22.02.2013 (as amended by No. 724 of 22.10.2024), § 14.4 — a sign over 3 m² counts as an advertising structure
Checked against the sources on 19/08/2026
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