Citizens registered in temporarily occupied territories cannot confirm their place of residence: the Parliament wants to change the law

A draft law No. 15420 has been registered in the Verkhovna Rada, proposing to introduce a temporary procedure for confirming the place of residence of citizens registered in temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. The document aims to resolve the problem that prevents thousands of Ukrainians from confirming their address and accessing a range of public services.

Why the problem arose

After the introduction of the new system of place of residence registration through territorial community registers, these registers became the only official source for address confirmation. However, such registers were not created in temporarily occupied territories, and the transfer of card files from the State Migration Service did not take place.

In temporarily occupied territories (TOT) of Ukraine, where at the time of the reform implementation state authorities and local self-government bodies did not exercise their powers, territorial communities and corresponding registers were not created, and the transfer of card files from the State Migration Service did not occur.

As a result, citizens holding valid Ukrainian passports with information in the Unified State Demographic Register (USDR) about their place of residence in TOT are effectively deprived of the ability to:

• confirm their place of residence;
• submit a declaration of place of residence through administrative service centers (CNAP) or the Diia portal;
• obtain an extract from the territorial community register.

This leads to significant restrictions on citizens' rights to access education (including cases of refusal to confirm residence in TOT for the purpose of preferential admission to educational institutions), social benefits, administrative services, inheritance registration, and also makes it impossible to register the place of residence of newborn children at the address of parents registered in TOT.

The existence of this problem is also confirmed by numerous appeals from regional military administrations (including the Luhansk Regional Military Administration) and is under the attention of the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets.

What the draft law proposes

Section VI "Final and transitional provisions" of the Law of Ukraine "On the provision of public (electronic public) services regarding declaration and registration of place of residence in Ukraine" is proposed to be supplemented with a new paragraph 10-4. The rules provide for the introduction of a temporary procedure for confirming the place of residence in temporarily occupied territories during the period of martial law and for one year after its termination or cancellation.

Confirmation of the place of residence is proposed to be carried out based on:

• information from the Unified State Demographic Register;
• a registration stamp in the passport booklet;
• electronic data recorded on the ID card;
• a certificate of entry of information into the Unified State Demographic Register.

If the necessary information is missing or contradictory (including due to the inability to access paper records or local registers of temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine), the State Migration Service or its territorial subdivisions must confirm the place of residence within three working days based on the analysis of other state information resources.

For this purpose, it is proposed to use data from:

• The State Voter Register;
• The State Register of Individuals — Taxpayers;
• The Register of Insured Persons of the Pension Fund of Ukraine;
• Information systems of the Ministry of Social Policy, including the Unified Information System of the Social Sphere regarding internally displaced persons.

Additionally, the draft law provides for the possibility to submit an application. Submission of an application for confirmation of place of residence under this procedure can be done by the person both in paper form (through administrative service centers or State Migration Service bodies) and in electronic form — via the Unified State Web Portal of Electronic Services (Diia Portal), including through the mobile application.

The extract formed under the new procedure will have the status of an official document confirming the person’s place of residence in the temporarily occupied territory. The draft law stipulates that such a document will be mandatory for acceptance by all state authorities, local self-government bodies, enterprises, institutions, and organizations regardless of ownership form.

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