Work in the “shadow”: State Tax Service identified almost 400 cases of unofficial work in the restaurant sector last year alone
Press service of the State Tax Service of Ukraine , published 25 February 2026 at 15:25 Chapter: News
State Tax Service identified almost 400 cases of unofficial work in the restaurant sector last year alone. Informal employment is one of the biggest systemic problems of the labor market. And it’s not just about legislative violations, but also about lost social guarantees for employees and unequal conditions for business.
Honest labor relations, proper payment of taxes – these are the questions that were raised by acting Head of the State Tax Service Lesya Karnaukh during the meeting with representatives of the restaurant business.
The most often, administrators, waiters and bartenders are officially employed. At the same time, very often non-public personnel – cleaners, loaders or security guards work without registration or serve several employers at the same time.
Another common scheme is when registered employee simultaneously performs work for another business entity in the same establishment.
For example, the waiter sells alcohol on behalf of one individual-entrepreneur and dishes – on behalf of another.
“Another problem is difference between the official and real salaries, which are often offered on the Internet. Our monitoring has shown that the actual salary in the “envelopes” is sometimes significantly different from those presented in the reports” –Lesya Karnaukh said.
State Tax Service analyzed salary offers in the catering sector and compared them with the actually declared ones.
Employer offers based on information from open vacancies on the website work.ua:
- waiters: 30 – 50 thousand UAH,
- cooks: 20 – 52 thousand UAH,
- sous chef: about 36.5 thousand UAH,
- delivery restaurant manager: 33 thousand UAH,
- system administrator in the restaurant chain: 25 – 55 thousand UAH.
On paper, they show 13 – 19 thousand UAH. So there are a lot of questions.
At the same time, we also have a positive tendency due to the constant work with entrepreneurs.
According to the State Tax Service, in December 2025, the average salary of catering workers in Ukraine was just more than 12 thousand UAH, which is almost 3 thousand more than in the previous year. Number of employees is 149.9 thousand people, which is practically at the level of 2024. At the same time, amount of accrued income increased by 300 million UAH and amounted to 1.9 billion UAH.
“Work on the market “un-shadowing” continues. Because for the state, these are uncollected taxes, which go primarily to our security and defense. Therefore, we want business itself to be interested in coming out of the “shadow”. This is primarily about the responsibility of each employer, fair competition and transparent working conditions” – Lesya Karnaukh added.