The phrase "pay a one-off financial benefit after a separate decision of the board" in a dismissal order is not a deferral. It is an actual refusal stretched out over time, with no deadline at all. Courts systematically find such wording to violate the employee's right, and along with the benefit itself they award average earnings for the period of delayed settlement. In two of my cases, the courts recovered UAH 205,819.16 and UAH 457,826.11 from JSC "Ukrzaliznytsia" (Ukrainian Railways), and in the second case also UAH 25,000 in attorney costs. Below is how this works, how the amounts are calculated, and what to do if you were dismissed the same way.
In brief: 6 points
- A one-off financial benefit paid on first dismissal due to retirement is set out in the collective bargaining agreement. If the agreement is in force and has not been amended, paying it is the employer's obligation, not a favour.
- A clause in the order stating "payment to be made after a separate board decision" is not a lawful ground for withholding payment: an obligation cannot be made conditional on events with no deadline.
- Together with the benefit, the court awards average earnings for the period of delayed final settlement (Article 117 of the Labour Code of Ukraine) — capped at 6 months and adjusted for proportionality.
- Employees are exempt from the court fee for a claim to recover amounts owed on dismissal (clause 1, part 1, Article 5 of the Law of Ukraine "On Court Fee"). For the claim for average earnings for delayed settlement in my second case, the fee was paid and the court recovered it from the employer.
- The deadline to sue is 3 months from the day the employee receives written notice of the amounts accrued (Article 233 of the Labour Code). A missed deadline can be reinstated for a valid reason.
- In my first case, the court awarded UAH 111,181.25 in benefit plus UAH 94,637.91 in average earnings; in the second, UAH 295,400.77 in benefit (7 average monthly earnings) plus UAH 162,425.34 for a full six months of delay.
What an employee is owed on retirement dismissal
On dismissal at one's own request due to retirement by age (Article 38 of the Labour Code of Ukraine), the employer must complete the final settlement with the employee on the day of dismissal (Article 116 of the Labour Code) and notify them in writing of the amounts accrued.
The final settlement usually includes:
- compensation for unused vacation;
- time-based pay for the period worked;
- overtime pay;
- a long-service allowance;
- a bonus;
- a health-improvement financial benefit.
But there is a separate item — the one-off financial benefit paid to an employee on first dismissal due to retirement — which is often simply missing from the final pay slip. Its amount is set by the collective agreement; in the case I handled, it was 5 average monthly earnings under the relevant clause of the collective agreement. In other units' collective agreements the amount can differ and depend on length of service in the industry — in some cases it is as much as 8 average monthly earnings.
The first thing to do is take your final pay slip and check whether it has a line specifically for the one-off financial benefit paid on retirement. The health-improvement financial benefit is a different payment and does not replace this one.
The "after a separate board decision" scheme
A typical dismissal order reads as follows: the right to the benefit is acknowledged, its amount is tied to a clause of the collective agreement — and then it adds that "payment is to be made after a separate board decision." Formally, there is no refusal. In practice, the person retires with no money and with no deadline by which they will receive it.
The legal core of the problem is that the employer makes performance of its pecuniary obligation conditional on circumstances with no defined time limits: the end of martial law, an improvement in the company's financial position, or a decision of management. The court in my case classified this as a violation of the principle of legitimate expectations: an employee cannot wait indefinitely for the exercise of a right already acknowledged in an order.
In such cases the employer often stresses that the employee signed the order containing the reservation about a "separate decision". The court in my second case rejected this argument: a signature in the "Acquainted with the order" box only confirms that the employee has read it, not agreement to a change in the terms of pay and not a waiver of the right to the benefit. Terms that worsen the employee's position compared with the legislation are invalid (Article 9 of the Labour Code). And the condition "after a separate decision of management" sets neither a deadline nor an event to which the duty to pay is tied, and therefore contradicts Article 116 of the Labour Code.
A telling detail: in response to a written attorney inquiry, the branch replied that the collective agreement was in force and had not been amended as regards this payment — but it gave no calculation and did not state the exact amount owed to the employee. In other words, the person was not even told how much they were owed.
The martial-law argument and suspension of the collective agreement
This is the employer's main line of defence, and it is worth knowing in advance. The argument runs as follows:
- in March 2022 the board decided to suspend additional payments provided for by the industry-wide agreement and collective agreements;
- the ground cited is Article 11 of the Law of Ukraine "On the Organisation of Labour Relations under Martial Law", which allows an employer to suspend certain provisions of a collective agreement;
- the payments were then supposedly resumed and made in stages on a schedule, and then, from April 2025, suspended again — this time citing cost optimisation and financial stability;
- a separate claim is added that the company is suffering significant losses due to infrastructure destruction.
Why this does not work. What matters is the actual status of the collective agreement:
- the collective agreement and the joint resolution of management and the trade union organisation remain in force;
- no amendments have been made to the collective agreement in respect of this payment;
- therefore, suspending the payment does not follow from a change in the agreement — it contradicts the agreement still in force;
- deferring performance indefinitely deprives the employee of the ability to effectively protect their labour rights.
This position is not unique to a single case: on 5 February 2025 the Supreme Court found a board decision suspending such payments to be unlawful, and it is this precedent that courts across the country now rely on.
In my second case the court added two more arguments worth knowing. The first is chronology: the board decision suspending the payments was adopted on 14.03.2022, while the Law of Ukraine "On the Organisation of Labour Relations under Martial Law" No. 2136-IX came into force only on 24.03.2022. Laws have no retroactive effect in time (Article 58 of the Constitution of Ukraine), so the board's decision could not have been based on Article 11 of that Law. The Supreme Court ruled the same way in its rulings of 05.02.2025 in case No. 211/7338/23 and of 18.03.2026 in case No. 333/9082/24. The second is the content of Article 11 itself: it allows certain provisions of a collective agreement to be suspended, but it does not cancel the duty to make the final settlement on the day of dismissal (Articles 47 and 116 of the Labour Code), and after the amendments made by Law No. 4582-IX of 21.08.2025, suspension is possible only for provisions that conflict with that Law. The one-off retirement benefit is not among them.
How the benefit is calculated: 5, 7 or 8 average monthly earnings
This is where a difference of tens of thousands of hryvnias hides, and this is where the parties most often diverge. The calculation is made under the Procedure for Calculating Average Wages (Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 100), and calculating "by eye" from the last two months' pay is a mistake.
The correct sequence:
- payments for the 12 calendar months preceding dismissal are taken;
- the sum is divided by the number of working days actually worked — this gives the average daily wage;
- the average monthly number of working days in the calculation period is determined;
- the average daily wage is multiplied by the average monthly number of working days — this gives the average monthly wage;
- the result is multiplied by the number of earnings set by the collective agreement.
How this looked in figures in my case:
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| Working days worked over 12 months | 285 |
| Average daily wage | UAH 849.79 |
| Average monthly number of working days | 26.17 |
| Average monthly wage | UAH 22,236.25 |
| Benefit: 5 average monthly earnings | UAH 111,181.25 |
For comparison: the claim calculated the amount more simply — using the average wage over two months — arriving at UAH 138,242.20. The employer, conversely, had calculated UAH 102,897.80. The court agreed with neither figure and made its own calculation over 12 months. This is the normal course of events in such disputes: the court checks both parties' arithmetic.
From the amount awarded, the employer withholds personal income tax and other mandatory payments — the amount received "in hand" will be less than the figure in the operative part of the judgment.
In the second case the collective agreement provided for 7 average monthly earnings, and the main dispute was not about the method but about the input data. In its calculation certificate the employer showed UAH 0.00 for September and October 2024 and arrived at an average monthly wage of UAH 37,545.97. We submitted pay slips and bank statements showing that UAH 81,772.57 and UAH 11,264.15 had been accrued for those months. The court found the employer's calculation erroneous and accepted ours:
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| Total income for 12 months (September 2024 — August 2025) | UAH 486,064.61 |
| Working days worked | 239 |
| Average daily wage | UAH 2,033.74 |
| Average monthly number of working days (249 ÷ 12) | 20.75 |
| Average monthly wage | UAH 42,200.11 |
| Benefit: 7 average monthly earnings | UAH 295,400.77 |
The difference from the employer's calculation is more than UAH 32,000 on the benefit alone. That is why pay slips for all 12 months are worth having in hand before filing the claim.
The second claim: average earnings under Article 117 of the Labour Code
This is something most dismissed employees do not know about — and as a result they lose significant money. If the employer failed to make the full final settlement on the day of dismissal, it must pay average earnings for the whole delay period, starting the day after dismissal, but for no more than six months (this cap has applied since 19 July 2022).
An important and recent detail: six months is a ceiling, not an automatic amount. The Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, in its ruling of 8 October 2025 in case No. 489/6074/23, clarified that this ceiling does not override the principles of reasonableness, fairness and proportionality, and the compensation retains its compensatory nature. The court assesses proportionality using the criteria set out in the Grand Chamber's ruling of 26 June 2019 in case No. 761/9584/15-ts: the amount of the overdue debt, its ratio to average earnings, and the parties' conduct.
How this worked in my case — the court's reasoning step by step:
| Step | Calculation |
|---|---|
| Total owed on dismissal | UAH 171,726.53 |
| Of which paid (vacation pay, time-based pay, allowances, bonus) | UAH 60,545.28 — 35.26% |
| Not paid (one-off benefit) | UAH 111,181.25 — 64.74% |
| Average earnings for 6 months — full amount | UAH 146,181.51 |
| Awarded proportionally to the unpaid share | UAH 94,637.91 (64.74% of 146,181.51) |
Practical takeaway: the larger the share of the final settlement the employer failed to pay, the larger the share of compensation the court will award. If nothing was paid at all, it is reasonable to claim the full six months.
In the second case the outcome was different: the court awarded the full six months — UAH 162,425.34 (average daily earnings of UAH 1,289.09 × 126 working days of delay from 10.09.2025 to 09.03.2026). The employer asked for the amount to be reduced, but the court, applying the same Grand Chamber criteria, found no grounds for a reduction: the debt is substantial, the compensation is about 55% of it, the delay is still continuing, the employer has not paid even the part it acknowledged, and at the time of dismissal it already knew the Supreme Court's position in case No. 211/7338/23. The court rejected the references to the company's losses, defence needs and force majeure: no evidence of force majeure or of its link specifically to the non-payment of the benefit was provided.
The 3-month deadline to sue, and how to save it
Under part two of Article 233 of the Labour Code, in cases concerning payment of all amounts owed to an employee on dismissal, a claim may be filed within three months of the day the employee receives written notice of the amounts accrued and paid on dismissal.
The problem is obvious: a person receives the final pay slip on the day of dismissal, sees other payments listed there, believes the promise of "a separate board decision to come" — and three months pass while they wait.
Under Article 234 of the Labour Code, a court may reinstate a missed deadline for a valid reason if no more than a year has passed. In my case the court reinstated the deadline, and the following facts were decisive:
- the order stated that payment would be made after a separate board decision, but no one explained to the employee the timeframe or conditions for such a decision — this created a state of uncertainty;
- the employee was not passive: he sought legal assistance, and a written attorney inquiry was sent asking for the amount owed;
- in its reply, the branch gave no calculation and did not state the amount — in effect it did not answer on the merits;
- as of the time the claim was filed, the employee still had not been informed of the amount owed to him.
The practical takeaway is this: a written attorney inquiry is not a formality. It is both an attempt to resolve the matter without going to court, and evidence of your good faith if the deadline has to be reinstated.
In the second case there was no need to reinstate the deadline. Part 2 of Article 233 of the Labour Code counts three months from the day of receiving written notice of the amounts accrued, and the employer did not prove that it delivered such notice on the day of dismissal. The employee received the calculation certificate only in May 2026, in reply to an attorney inquiry, and filed the claim on 22.05.2026. The court also noted that in any event less than a year had passed since dismissal (Article 234 of the Labour Code).
My case No. 641/9437/25: figures and outcome
I represented a passenger-carriage attendant who worked for the railway from 1994 to February 2025 and was dismissed at his own request due to retirement by age. The dismissal order provided for a one-off financial benefit of 5 average monthly earnings — with a note that it would be paid after a separate board decision. This amount was missing from the final settlement made on dismissal.
What was claimed and what the court decided:
| Claim | Claimed | Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| One-off financial benefit | UAH 138,242.20 | UAH 111,181.25 |
| Average earnings for delayed settlement | UAH 165,890.64 | UAH 94,637.91 |
| Total | UAH 304,132.84 | UAH 205,819.16 |
| Court fee in the claimant's favour | — | UAH 757.11 |
The claim was granted in part. The judgment was issued by the Slobidskyi District Court of Kharkiv on 3 April 2026, case No. 641/9437/25, proceedings No. 2/641/1074/2026. The case was heard under simplified claim proceedings, and I took part in the hearing by video conference.
This is a first-instance court decision that, as of the publication date, has not entered into legal force. This material will be updated once a higher court reviews the case. The text of the judgment is public and available in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions under the case number.
Why in part, not in full. I will say this plainly, because it is more useful than advertising: the court did not accept the calculation of the benefit using the average wage for two months and recalculated it over 12 months — the resulting figure was lower. And it reduced the compensation under Article 117 of the Labour Code proportionally to the unpaid share. This is the typical outcome in this category of cases, and these are the figures worth using as a benchmark — not the largest headline amounts from the news.
This is the outcome of one specific case with a specific collective agreement and specific earnings. It is not a promise of the same outcome in your situation.
Second case No. 202/4869/26: 7 earnings and a full six months
My second client is a rolling-stock repair fitter at a railway-carriage repair plant with more than 39 years of service on the railway. By an order of 09.09.2025 he was dismissed at his own request due to retirement by age for the first time. The order provided for a one-off benefit of 7 average monthly earnings — "after a separate decision of management". No settlement was made, and no written notice of the amounts was provided.
| Claim | Awarded |
|---|---|
| One-off financial benefit (7 average monthly earnings) | UAH 295,400.77 |
| Average earnings for delayed settlement (6 months) | UAH 162,425.34 |
| Total | UAH 457,826.11 |
| Court fee in the claimant's favour | UAH 1,299.40 |
| Legal assistance costs | UAH 25,000 |
The claim was granted in full. The judgment was issued by the Industrialnyi District Court of Dnipro on 02.10.2026, case No. 202/4869/26. Neither the claimant nor I travelled to the hearing — the case was heard at our request without the claimant's side taking part. The court allowed immediate enforcement of the judgment as regards the one-off benefit, up to the amount for one month.
No appeal was filed against the judgment in case No. 202/4869/26, so it entered into legal force once the appeal period expired. The text of the judgment is available in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions.
Attorney costs. The employer objected to the UAH 25,000: the case file has no annex to the agreement stating the amount of the fee, the attorney's certificate does not prove payment, and the case is not complex. The court rejected all three arguments. The amount of the fee was agreed in an additional agreement concluded on the day the contract was signed. Under clause 1, part 2, Article 137 of the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine, costs are allocated regardless of whether they have already been paid or are only payable. And it is for the party that invokes disproportion to prove it; for a fixed fee a detailed description of the work is not required (Supreme Court resolution of 28.12.2020 in case No. 640/18402/19).
Other case law: how much is being awarded
This category of disputes has already become widespread, and courts across the country are ruling in employees' favour. A few benchmarks from public sources:
- on 5 February 2025 the Supreme Court found a board decision suspending such payments to be unlawful — this is the baseline position that lower courts now rely on; on 18 March 2026, in case No. 333/9082/24, it confirmed that position;
- over UAH 404,000 was awarded to an employee who was not paid the retirement benefit;
- UAH 113,247.68 was awarded to a senior station operator with 37 years of service — there the collective agreement provided for 8 average monthly earnings.
The spread in amounts is easy to explain: different collective agreements (5 or 8 earnings), different wage levels, and a different share of the unpaid amount, on which the compensation under Article 117 of the Labour Code depends.
Documents: what to get, where, and why
| Document | Where to get it | Why it is needed |
|---|---|---|
| Order terminating the employment contract | The unit's HR department | Key evidence: it acknowledges the right to the benefit |
| Calculation of amounts accrued and paid on dismissal | Accounting department | Shows the benefit is missing from the settlement; the deadline runs from its date |
| The unit's collective agreement (current version) | Trade union, HR department | Determines the amount of the benefit: 5, 8, or another number of earnings |
| Certificate of wages for the 12 months before dismissal | Accounting department | The basis for the calculation under Procedure No. 100 |
| Data on working days actually worked | Accounting department, timesheets | Without it the average daily wage cannot be calculated |
| Employment record book | Held by the employee | Confirms length of service in the industry and that this is the first retirement dismissal |
| Written attorney inquiry and the reply to it | Prepared by the attorney | An attempt at pre-trial settlement and evidence of a valid reason for a missed deadline |
Action plan
- Check your final pay slip: does it include the one-off financial benefit paid on retirement (not to be confused with the health-improvement benefit)?
- Get a copy of the dismissal order and check whether it includes a clause on this benefit and the "separate board decision" proviso.
- Obtain the current version of the collective agreement and determine the number of earnings owed.
- Request a certificate of wages for the 12 months before dismissal and data on days worked.
- Send a written attorney inquiry demanding the amount owed be stated.
- Calculate both claims: the benefit itself and the average earnings under Article 117 of the Labour Code.
- File the claim at your place of residence or at the defendant's location. Employees do not pay the court fee.
Were you dismissed on retirement without being paid the benefit? Send me your dismissal order and the final settlement calculation — these two documents are enough for me to tell you what amount you are owed, whether you are within the deadline, and whether there are grounds to reinstate it. Consultations are held in Ukrainian or Russian; written communication in English is available. Write or call.
Mistakes that cost money
- Waiting for a "separate board decision". This is the most costly mistake: the deadline runs out while the decision may never come.
- Claiming only the benefit. The second claim — average earnings for delayed settlement — added almost UAH 95,000 in my first case and more than UAH 162,000 in the second.
- Calculating average pay from two months. The calculation must be made over 12 months under Procedure No. 100. An inflated claim does not bring more money; it only lowers the percentage of the claim the court grants.
- Confusing the health-improvement benefit with the one-off retirement benefit. A health-improvement payment may appear in the settlement — that is no reason to consider the matter closed.
- Staying silent and not documenting your inquiries. Without a written attorney inquiry and a reply, it is harder to prove a valid reason for a missed deadline.
- Assuming court proceedings are expensive. Employees are exempt from the court fee in disputes over amounts owed on dismissal.
Frequently asked questions
Can the benefit be recovered if the order says "after a separate board decision"?
Yes. That exact wording was the subject of both of my cases against JSC "Ukrzaliznytsia", and both courts sided with the employee. In the first case, the court held that making a pecuniary obligation conditional on circumstances with no defined deadline violates legitimate expectations. In the second, No. 202/4869/26, the court was even more specific: the condition "after a separate decision of management" sets neither a deadline nor an event to which the duty to pay is tied, so it contradicts Article 116 of the Labour Code, which requires settlement on the day of dismissal. The court did not treat the employee's signature in the "Acquainted with the order" box as consent to such a condition: it only confirms that the employee has read the order, and terms that worsen the employee's position compared with the law are invalid (Article 9 of the Labour Code).
How much time is there to file a claim?
Three months from the day the employee receives written notice of the amounts accrued and paid on dismissal (part 2 of Article 233 of the Labour Code). The key words are "written notice". In case No. 202/4869/26 the employer did not prove that it delivered such notice on the day of dismissal; the employee received the calculation certificate only in May 2026, in reply to an attorney inquiry, filed the claim on 22.05.2026, and the deadline did not need to be reinstated. If the deadline has been missed, a court can reinstate it for a valid reason where no more than a year has passed (Article 234 of the Labour Code): in my first case the deadline was reinstated because no one had explained to the employee when and how the "separate board decision" would be made.
Is a court fee payable?
For a claim to recover the benefit itself and other amounts owed on dismissal, employees are exempt from the court fee under clause 1, part 1, Article 5 of the Law of Ukraine "On Court Fee". In case No. 202/4869/26 the court applied this exemption in just that way, and the fee for that claim — UAH 2,363.21 — was recovered from the employer in favour of the State. For the claim for average earnings for delayed settlement, the claimant in that case paid UAH 1,299.40 in court fee (1% of the amount with a coefficient of 0.8 for filing through the E-Court, the Electronic Court system), and after granting the claim the court recovered it from the employer. As a general rule under Part 1 of Article 141 of the Civil Procedure Code, court costs are borne by the defendant when the claim is granted.
Does citing martial law help the employer?
By itself, no — if the collective agreement is in force and has not been amended as regards this payment. The Supreme Court found unlawful the decision of the board of JSC "Ukrzaliznytsia" of 14.03.2022 suspending such payments (rulings of 05.02.2025 in case No. 211/7338/23 and of 18.03.2026 in case No. 333/9082/24). In case No. 202/4869/26 the court explained why: the board's decision was adopted before Law No. 2136-IX came into force on 24.03.2022, and laws have no retroactive effect. In addition, Article 11 of that Law does not cancel the duty to settle on the day of dismissal, and after the 2025 amendments it allows suspension only of provisions that conflict with the Law. The court also rejected the references to losses, defence needs and force majeure, since there was no evidence of a link to the non-payment.
How much will the average earnings for delayed settlement amount to?
At most six months' worth (Article 117 of the Labour Code), and the court assesses proportionality using the criteria of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court: the amount of the debt, its ratio to average earnings, the duration and reasons for the delay, and the parties' conduct. My two cases show both possible outcomes. In the first, the compensation was awarded proportionally to the unpaid share — 64.74% of the full six-month amount, i.e. UAH 94,637.91. In the second, No. 202/4869/26, the court awarded the full six months — UAH 162,425.34 — because the employer had not paid even the part it acknowledged, the delay was still continuing, and the compensation was only about 55% of the debt. A full six months cannot be guaranteed: the result depends on the circumstances of the specific case.
Does this only apply to railway workers?
No. The logic applies to any employer with a collective agreement providing for a similar payment on dismissal due to retirement. The binding force of a collective agreement for the employer follows directly from Article 18 of the Labour Code and Article 9 of the Law of Ukraine "On Collective Agreements and Accords", and the amounts of such payments are set precisely by the collective agreement (Article 97 of the Labour Code). Its terms may be changed during its term only by mutual consent of the parties (Article 14 of the same Law), so a unilateral management decision to "postpone" payment does not replace an amendment to the agreement. Only the agreement's wording and the amount of the benefit differ: in my cases these are 5 and 7 average monthly earnings.