The invisible market worth billions: why the state only sees half of passenger transport
28 January 19:45
The passenger transport market in Ukraine in 2024–2025 is functioning as critical infrastructure in wartime conditions, but at the same time remains partially invisible to the state from a financial point of view. This is stated in a study by the analytical platform YouControl.Market (YC.Market), published on January 28, 2026, reports "Komersant Ukrainian".
Analysts estimate the approximate annual volume of the passenger transport market to be at least UAH 63 billion, while the officially declared revenue of carriers is only UAH 29 billion — about 46% of the estimated scale.
A market with high business turnover
According to YC.Market, almost 79% of all carriers that have ever operated in the market have ceased operations. Of the approximately 157,000 registered entities , only about 32,600 remain active .
Analysts attribute this to the low entry threshold, but equally low “survival horizon” — especially for small operators.
Dominance of sole proprietors and weak stability
More than 84% of the passenger transport market in Ukraine consists of individual entrepreneurs. They are the most vulnerable:
- 81.6% of individual entrepreneurs have historically ceased operations;
- among legal entities, this figure is only 15.2%.
There are not many companies (16% of the market), but they have a higher margin of safety, which analysts attribute to the scale of the business, access to capital, and more sustainable management models.
The war has reshaped demand and geography
The full-scale invasion has dramatically changed the market structure. In frontline and temporarily occupied regions (in particular, Donetsk and Luhansk regions), there was a massive cessation of transport operators’ activities, while in the western regions, there was a partial outflow of business and new registrations of sole proprietorships.
Thus, the war accelerated the regional migration of the transport business and its gradual consolidation around more organized operators.
Passenger traffic: cars pull the market, railways lag behind
The most stable segment was road transport. After a sharp decline in 2022, bus and car transport recovered to 90–95% of pre-war levels.
Rail transport, on the other hand, remained about 30% below its peak levels of 2020–2021 in 2024. Researchers attribute this to infrastructure losses, route restrictions, and a shift in the nature of travel from long interregional trips to shorter and combined trips.
Financial “shadow” without direct evidence of shadowing
Analysts emphasize that the gap between the estimated and declared market volume does not necessarily mean mass shadowing. It is more about a fragmented financial picture caused by:
- the dominance of sole proprietorships;
- simplified accounting;
- the lack of complete analytical visibility of the sector.
As a result, the state does not have a clear idea of how much money is actually circulating in the industry, and investors do not know how attractive it is.
What this means for the future
Research shows that the passenger transport market in Ukraine operates as a hybrid system: it provides basic mobility for the population but remains poorly formalized.
In the post-war period, the key challenge will be to increase transparency without destroying flexibility, combining individual entrepreneur models with more structured corporate and municipal carriers.
