President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the draft law No. 11396, which decriminalizes petty theft in the amount of up to 3 000 hryvnias and replaces responsibility for it with fines.
This is stated in the card of the draft law.
Before the signing of the law, theft was considered petty if the value of the property at the time of the crime did not exceed 0.2 of the tax-free minimum income of citizens (302.8 hryvnias as of 2024). Now the threshold of criminal liability for theft has been raised to two tax-free minimum incomes of citizens — 3 028 hryvnias.
Administrative responsibility for petty theft is also being strengthened. The fines are as follows:
- for theft up to 757 hryvnias — from 850 to 1 700 hryvnias;
- for theft from 758 to 3 028 hryvnias — from 1 700 to 5 100 hryvnias;
- for repeated petty theft — from 8 500 to 17 000 hryvnias.
The law will entail changes in a number of articles of the Criminal Code regarding petty theft.
Since Ukraine is under martial law, petty theft is automatically qualified under Part 4 of Art. 185 of the Criminal Code, which is punishable by 5 to 8 years of imprisonment. This leads to the courts being overburdened with cases and people being convicted of stealing, for example, bottles of whiskey. So the law is designed to solve this.