Ukraine needs approximately $52 billion in external financing for 2026 to ensure the stability of the state budget and cover essential defense and social costs, Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko announced at the sixteenth meeting of the Steering Committee of the Ukraine Donor Platform in Kyiv on Thursday.
The $52 billion figure for 2026 is roughly equivalent to the amount of direct budget support received from Ukraine’s partners in 2025. The state budget remains under heavy pressure from ongoing defense and recovery costs.
“In 2025, Ukraine received $52.4 billion of direct budget support. These funds made it possible to fully provide for key social and humanitarian expenditures. I sincerely thank all partners for the effective cooperation,” Marchenko said in a press release. He emphasized that the government is working closely with donors to ensure that disbursements arrive on time.
Marchenko noted that the country has already raised $5.5 billion in the first months of 2026 through the Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration (ERA) mechanism – which utilizes profits from frozen Russian sovereign assets in G7 countries to provide loans for Ukraine – along with support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and Japan.
Most of the budget gap for 2026 is expected to be filled by the ERA initiative, EU instruments, bilateral support, and the World Bank.
Based on the latest IMF memorandum about the newly approved four-year Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program, which outlines the country’s long-term financial needs, the cumulative financing gap for Ukraine will reach $136.5 billion between 2026 and 2029.
The total funding of $52.4 billion received last year came from a diverse group of international partners. However, the majority of this support – $37.9 billion, or roughly 70 percent of total funding – was provided through ERA loans.
The European Union’s Ukraine Facility contributed $12.1 billion in 2025, including $11.5 billion in loans and $668 million in grants.
Other contributions included $912 million from the IMF and $733 million from the World Bank. Japan also provided $453 million, while $232 million came from the Council of Europe Development Bank.