Ukraine does not cap outbound transfers, it prohibits them. Point 14 of National Bank Resolution 18 forbids authorised institutions from making any cross-border transfer of currency values out of Ukraine, including on a customer instruction, other than in listed cases. Ordinary support for a relative abroad is not one of those cases.
Most countries that want less money leaving cap the amount. Ukraine did something different at the start of the full-scale invasion and has kept the shape ever since: it forbade cross-border transfers out of the country altogether, and then wrote down the cases in which one is allowed after all. Anybody in Australia waiting on money from Ukraine is waiting on a payment that has to be found somewhere on that list.
Key Takeaways
- Point 14 of National Bank of Ukraine Board Resolution No. 18 prohibits authorised institutions from making a cross-border transfer of currency values out of Ukraine, including one made on a customer's instruction, except in the listed cases.
- There is no listed case for ordinary support of a relative abroad.
- A transfer to another person is permitted under one sub-paragraph, up to the equivalent of UAH 100,000 a calendar month, and only where the recipient's card credentials are used.
- That sub-paragraph also covers quasi-cash operations, so the same monthly ceiling is shared with buying cryptocurrency and paying a bookmaker.
- Study money and alimony each have their own line, and study money is paid to the institution rather than to the student.
The rule that decides what can leave Ukraine
The instrument is Resolution No. 18 of the Board of the National Bank of Ukraine, made on 24 February 2022 and amended repeatedly since. Its consolidated text is published on the Verkhovna Rada's legislation portal, which records the current version as the one dated 11 August 2026, made on the basis of Board Resolution No. 90. That portal is where the operative wording can be read rather than summarised.
Point 14 is the sentence that decides the question. Authorised institutions are forbidden to carry out a cross-border transfer of currency values out of Ukraine, or to transfer money to correspondent accounts of non-resident banks in hryvnia or foreign currency opened at resident banks, including transfers carried out on the instruction of clients, other than in the cases the point then sets out.
That last clause is the one to notice. The prohibition is written against the bank, not against the customer, and it expressly covers the case where the customer has asked. So the question a person in Kyiv faces is not how much they may send. It is whether the payment they want to make is on a list.
What the list has for an individual
The list runs to more than sixty sub-paragraphs, and most of them are for companies: import contracts, dividends, external loans, insurance, state bodies, international organisations. A handful reach an ordinary person, and it is worth seeing them together.
| Sub-paragraph | What it permits |
|---|---|
| 5 | Treatment abroad, including rehabilitation, and the costs that go with it: consultations, tests, a hospital stay, meals, prostheses and their servicing, transporting a patient, and the transport and burial costs of a death abroad |
| 5-1 | Tuition and the services that accompany study abroad, paid to the institution's own accounts or to non-residents the institution has authorised to receive money |
| 5-2 | Payment of alimony |
| 8 | Payment for goods, works, services and residential rent abroad, up to the equivalent of UAH 200,000 in a calendar month from a customer's hryvnia accounts, with a separate ceiling of the same size from foreign-currency accounts without a card |
| 9 | Transfers to recipient individuals against their card credentials, and quasi-cash operations, together up to the equivalent of UAH 100,000 in a calendar month |
| 13 | Pensions payable under Ukrainian law and Ukraine's international treaties, subject to point 17 |
Read that as a whole and the omission stands out. There is a line for alimony and no line for a gift. There is a line for a university and no line for a family. For a person supporting a parent, a partner or an adult child in Australia, sub-paragraph 9 is the case that describes what they are doing, and the others are about study, treatment, alimony or a purchase.
The one line that covers a transfer to a person
Sub-paragraph 9 permits transfers to the accounts of recipient individuals, made using the recipient's electronic payment instrument credentials. The ceiling is the equivalent of UAH 100,000 in a calendar month, taken across all of an individual customer's foreign-currency accounts. In the same breath, and under that same ceiling, the sub-paragraph also permits settlements made with an electronic payment instrument to pay for operations in assets that convert directly into money, which international payment system rules class as quasi-cash.
The resolution then gives examples of quasi-cash: buying cryptocurrency, topping up electronic wallets, buying gift certificates and lotteries, transfers in favour of bookmakers, and paying for travellers cheques. It lists merchant category codes that may be used for them.
Nothing in the drafting says that sending money to a person is disreputable. What it says is that the National Bank has treated a card-to-card payment abroad as a leakage route to be metered rather than as a category of family finance, and has put one ceiling across both. For the person in Australia the practical consequence is arithmetic: whatever else the sender has spent that month through those channels comes out of the same allowance.
What the August 2026 easing changed
The ceilings above are current because they were raised. On 10 August 2026 the Board adopted Resolution No. 90, amending Resolution 18 with effect from 11 August, and the National Bank published what it did the evening before.
Three figures moved for households. The monthly limit on buying non-cash foreign currency went to the equivalent of UAH 200,000, from UAH 50,000. The daily cash-withdrawal ceiling from foreign-currency accounts, in Ukraine and abroad, went to UAH 200,000, from UAH 100,000. And the monthly limit on paying for goods, works and services abroad from hryvnia accounts went to UAH 200,000, from UAH 100,000, widened to cover renting a home abroad and to allow account-to-account transfers as well as card payments.
Only the third of those is a change to point 14's exception list. The other two are a limit on buying foreign currency and a limit on taking cash out, which are separate restrictions in the same resolution rather than permissions to send money abroad. What matters for this corridor is that no new case was added and the transfer-to-a-person line was not among the numbers that moved. A regime that eases by raising ceilings inside its own carve-outs stays the shape it was.
Why the easing strategy and the resolution do not match
The National Bank publishes a strategy for easing its currency restrictions in three stages, and household transfers abroad sit in the third stage, described as still to come, with no dates attached. That is what the strategy says. The resolution has meanwhile been amended for households repeatedly, most recently in August 2026.
Both are true, and the difference is what each document is for. The strategy describes the order in which whole classes of restriction are meant to fall away, and full liberalisation of household transfers has not happened. The resolution is the operative text, and what it currently permits is more than a reader of the strategy alone would expect. Point 14, not the roadmap, is what tells a person what can be sent this month.
One restriction that cuts across the whole list
Point 17 forbids an authorised institution from carrying out any currency operation using Russian or Belarusian roubles, involving a legal or natural person located or permanently residing in Russia or Belarus, or to discharge an obligation to such a person. It is cited inside the pension line, and it applies on its own terms to the rest of them. A payment that finds its case on the list still fails if the person at either end is in one of those two countries.
Where to look next
- Receiving money from Ukraine - the live hryvnia to Australian dollar rate page for this corridor, which is what an arriving payment converts at on the day.
- How international transfers work - the sequence a payment moves through before any national rule reaches it, and where a correspondent bank sits in it.
- Understanding transfer fees - what it costs to move a payment, and the margin inside a rate that a headline fee does not show.
- AUD to UAH - the convert page for the pair, with the hryvnia's own 1996 introduction behind it.
- What has to exist for a currency to cross a border - the infrastructure a payment needs before a rulebook is even reached.
Sources
- Resolution of the Board of the National Bank of Ukraine No. 18 of 24 February 2022, consolidated text - point 14's prohibition on cross-border transfers of currency values out of Ukraine including transfers on clients' instructions; sub-paragraph 5 on treatment abroad and death abroad; 5-1 on study and the accounts it may be paid to; 5-2 on the payment of alimony; 8 on goods, works, services and residential rent and its UAH 200,000 monthly ceilings; 9 on transfers to recipient individuals against card credentials and on quasi-cash, with its UAH 100,000 monthly ceiling and its examples; 13 on pensions; and point 17 on Russia and Belarus. The portal's own status line for the document, recording it as in force with the current version dated 11 August 2026 on the basis of Resolution No. 90, is the check that the text read here is not superseded. Text in Ukrainian.
- NBU Implements Package of Measures to Ease FX Controls, with Main Focus on Supporting Households, National Bank of Ukraine, 10 August 2026 - the increases effective 11 August 2026 in the household foreign-currency purchase limit, the cash-withdrawal ceiling and the limit on paying for goods, works and services abroad, the extension to rent and to account-to-account transfers, and the identification of Board Resolution No. 90 of 10 August 2026 as the instrument.
- NBU Eases Some FX Restrictions, National Bank of Ukraine, 24 April 2026 - an earlier amendment to the same resolution, Board Resolution No. 43 of 23 April 2026, and the pattern of easing by naming further cases rather than by lifting the prohibition.
General information about Ukraine's currency restrictions on money leaving the country, as they stand in September 2026. This is a wartime regime that has been amended repeatedly and the figures are thresholds set by the instrument, not rates. Not financial advice, not legal advice, and not a recommendation of any product or institution. Reviewed by the Tradergy editorial team, September 2026.
Common questions
Can a person in Ukraine simply send money to a relative in Australia?
Not as a general permission. Point 14 of the National Bank of Ukraine resolution prohibits an authorised institution from making a cross-border transfer of currency values out of Ukraine, including a transfer made on a customer instruction, except in the cases the point then lists. Ordinary support of a relative abroad, given as a gift, is not one of the listed cases, so what is available is whichever listed case a particular payment happens to fit.
What is the monthly ceiling on a transfer to another person abroad?
Sub-paragraph 9 permits transfers of up to the equivalent of UAH 100,000 in a calendar month, taken across all of an individual customer's foreign-currency accounts, to the accounts of recipient individuals where the recipient's card credentials are used. The same sub-paragraph and the same ceiling also cover what international card scheme rules class as quasi-cash operations.
What counts as a quasi-cash operation in that provision?
The resolution gives examples rather than a closed list: buying cryptocurrency, topping up electronic wallets, buying gift certificates and lottery tickets, transfers in favour of bookmakers, and paying for travellers cheques. It then names merchant category codes that may be used for them. The point of the definition is that these are payments that convert directly into money.
Is money for university fees treated differently?
Yes, and the difference is where it goes. Sub-paragraph 5-1 permits transfers for tuition and for the services that accompany study abroad, including accommodation, the visa for the period of study, transfers between residence and teaching sites, meals, insurance and emergency medical care. Those transfers may be made to the accounts of the foreign educational institution, or to non-resident entities the institution has authorised to receive money.
Can a Ukrainian pension be paid to an account in Australia?
The resolution permits a transfer abroad of foreign currency to pay pensions under Ukrainian law and Ukraine's international treaties, subject to the restrictions in point 17. Point 17 forbids an authorised institution from carrying out any currency operation using Russian or Belarusian roubles, involving a person located in Russia or Belarus, or to discharge an obligation to such a person.