Bail in criminal proceedings: amount, who pays and when it is returned

Bail is one of the five preventive measures named in Article 176(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine (CPC). The person remains at liberty or is released from custody, and the money guarantees that they will perform their obligations. If they breach them, the bail may be forfeited to the state; if not, it is returned once the preventive measure ceases to apply, although the court may apply bail paid in by the suspect personally towards pecuniary recoveries under the judgment. The main rules are in Article 182 of the CPC.

How the court chooses among the five measures is explained in our article on preventive measures. Here we deal with bail only.

How much bail is

The amount of bail is determined by the investigating judge or the court. They take into account the circumstances of the criminal offence, the person’s property and family situation, other information about them, and the risks named in Article 177 of the CPC — for example, that the person will go into hiding or unlawfully influence a witness or a victim. Bail must be sufficient to guarantee that the obligations are performed and must not be manifestly unaffordable for the person (Article 182(4) of the CPC).

The limits depend on the gravity of the crime and are calculated in subsistence minimums for able-bodied persons (Article 182(5) of the CPC):

• minor crime — from 1 to 20 subsistence minimums;
• serious crime — from 20 to 80;
• particularly serious crime — from 80 to 300.

Gravity is determined by the punishment that the article of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (CC) provides for, not by the expected judgment. If the deprivation of liberty in the sanction is no more than five years, the crime is minor; no more than ten, serious; more than ten years or life imprisonment, particularly serious (Article 12(4)–(6) of the CC). If both a fine and deprivation of liberty are provided for, gravity is counted by the deprivation of liberty (Article 12(7) of the CC); the thresholds for crimes where the main punishment is only a fine are in our article on the classification of crimes by gravity.

In exceptional cases, for a serious or particularly serious crime, bail may be set above 80 or 300 subsistence minimums respectively — if the investigating judge or the court finds that bail within these limits is not capable of securing performance of the obligations (the fifth paragraph of Article 182(5) of the CPC).

Who can pay the bail

Bail may be paid by the suspect or the accused personally, or by another natural or legal person — the depositor. A legal entity of state or municipal ownership cannot be a depositor, nor can one that is funded from the budget, has a state or municipal share in its charter capital or belongs to a business entity of state or municipal ownership (Article 182(2) of the CPC).

The depositor is told what the person is suspected of, what punishment applies for it, what obligations the depositor has to ensure the person’s proper conduct and appearance when summoned, and what the consequences of failing to perform them are (Article 182(3) of the CPC). If you pay bail for someone close to you, you risk this money if they breach the conditions or you fail to perform your own obligations as the depositor (Article 182(8) of the CPC).

Where and by when to pay

Bail is paid in money only, in hryvnias, to a special account determined in accordance with the procedure established by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (Article 182(1) of the CPC). Check the account details with the court that chose the bail or with your defence counsel.

A person who is not in custody must, no later than five days from the day the bail is chosen, pay the money (or ensure that the depositor pays it) and hand the document confirming this to the investigator, prosecutor or court. Paying later is also possible, if by that time no decision to change the preventive measure has been made. But the obligations apply from the moment the bail is chosen, before payment (Article 182(6) of the CPC). So delay is risky: the prosecutor may apply to the court with a motion to change the preventive measure (Article 200(1) of the CPC), and for crimes carrying a large fine the consequences are even more serious.

If the crime is punishable by a large fine

If the main punishment for the crime is a fine exceeding three thousand non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens (NTMIC), the only preventive measure that may be applied is bail or detention in custody (Article 194(8) of the CPC). Such a person can be taken into custody only if the prosecutor, in addition to the grounds under Article 177 of the CPC, proves that the person failed to perform the obligations under a previously chosen preventive measure, or did not pay the bail in the established manner or did not provide the document confirming it (Article 183(2)(1) of the CPC). In the same cases the suspect may be detained without a ruling of the investigating judge or the court (Article 208(2) of the CPC).

If the person is in custody

When choosing detention in custody, the investigating judge or the court must also determine the amount of bail (Article 183(3) of the CPC), except in the cases provided for in Part 4 of that article — the main ones are described below. The suspect, the accused or the depositor may pay it at any time (Article 182(7) of the CPC). After payment the person is released, unless there is another court decision that has entered into legal force and provides for holding them in custody. Checking the payment document may not take longer than one working day, and from the moment of release the bail already applies (Article 202(4) of the CPC).

When there may be no bail

In certain proceedings, when choosing detention in custody, the investigating judge or the court has the right not to determine the amount of bail (Article 183(4) of the CPC). These are proceedings:

• concerning a crime committed with the use of violence or a threat of its use;
• concerning a crime that caused a person’s death;
• concerning a person who has already breached bail in the same proceedings;
• concerning crimes connected with a criminal community or organisation or with criminal influence (Articles 255–255-3 of the CC);
• concerning a particularly serious crime involving the circulation of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, their analogues or precursors.

During martial law, suspects and accused persons in the crimes listed in Article 176(6) of the CPC — among them treason (Article 111 of the CC) and a terrorist act (Article 258 of the CC) — are, where the risks under Article 177 of the CPC exist, subject to detention in custody, so bail is not chosen as an independent preventive measure (more in our article on preventive measures). But the court is not obliged to determine bail as an alternative to custody in these proceedings: during martial law the list of cases where it has the right not to determine it is wider (the eighth paragraph of Article 183(4) of the CPC).

And for a person declared internationally wanted, or who has left for or is in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine or the territory of the aggressor state, the amount of bail is not determined when detention in custody is chosen (the seventh paragraph of Article 183(4) of the CPC).

What obligations are imposed together with bail

Having chosen bail, the investigating judge or the court obliges the person to appear on every demand before the court or another designated state authority, and also to perform those obligations from the list in Article 194(5) of the CPC whose necessity the prosecutor has proved — for example, not to leave the locality without the permission of the investigator, prosecutor or court, to hand over a passport for travelling abroad for safekeeping, or to wear an electronic monitoring device.

These obligations are imposed for no more than two months; the period may be extended on the prosecutor’s motion. When the period expires, the ruling ceases to apply only in this part: the obligations are cancelled, while the bail itself continues to apply (Article 194(7) of the CPC). Failure to appear when summoned without good reason, or without notice of the reasons, even after the period has expired, may cost you the bail (Article 182(8) of the CPC).

When bail is forfeited to the state

Under Article 182(8) of the CPC, bail is forfeited to the state if:

• the suspect or the accused, duly notified, failed without good reason to appear when summoned by the investigator, prosecutor, investigating judge or court, or did not give notice of the reasons for non-appearance;
• they breached other obligations imposed on them when the preventive measure was applied;
• the depositor failed to perform their obligations.

This is decided by the investigating judge or the court — on the prosecutor’s motion or on their own initiative — at a hearing with the participation of the suspect, the accused and the depositor. If they were duly notified of the place and time but did not come, this does not prevent the hearing from being held (Article 182(9) of the CPC). Having forfeited the bail to the state, the court decides whether to apply bail in a larger amount or another preventive measure (Article 182(10) of the CPC).

The law obliges a suspect or accused who cannot come when summoned by the appointed time to notify the investigator, prosecutor, investigating judge or court of this in advance (Article 42(7)(1) of the CPC). The reason for non-appearance must be valid. The list of valid reasons is in Article 138 of the CPC: in particular, serious illness, force majeure, late receipt of the summons, and other circumstances that objectively make it impossible to appear. Keep the documents that confirm the reason.

When and to whom bail is returned

Bail that has not been forfeited to the state is returned after the preventive measure ceases to apply — to the suspect, the accused or the depositor (Article 182(11) of the CPC). A ruling on a preventive measure ceases to apply when its term expires, an acquittal is delivered, the proceedings are closed or the preventive measure is revoked (Article 203(1) of the CPC). Expiry of the period of obligations under Article 194(7) of the CPC is not among these grounds, so bail is not returned because of it.

If the judgment provides for pecuniary recoveries, the court may apply bail paid in by the suspect or the accused personally, in whole or in part, towards their enforcement. Bail paid in by the depositor — only with the depositor’s consent (Article 182(11) of the CPC).

Under the rules of Section IX-1 of the CPC on the special regime under martial law, the investigating judge or the court, on the motion of the suspect or the accused, may replace bail with a personal undertaking if the bail funds are to be paid in, in whole or in part, to the special accounts of the National Bank of Ukraine for defence purposes (Article 616(5) of the CPC).

Keep the payment document (it confirms who paid and how much) and a copy of the ruling on bail.

How to change or appeal a preventive measure, read in our article on preventive measures. We have covered the general procedure for appealing court decisions separately.

If bail is being chosen for you or someone close to you, or the prosecutor is asking for detention in custody, contact an attorney before the hearing. How a criminal attorney at the Strategic Advocacy law firm helps, read on the service page.

The provisions are cited as currently in force as of 13 October 2026.