Swiss Money for Ukraine Goes Back to Switzerland: What the New Reconstruction Agreement Means for Ukrainian Business

Law News Digest: Reconstruction & Investment · Longread

On 9 October 2026, a treaty quietly changed the way Switzerland spends money on Ukraine’s recovery. The bilateral agreement between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the Swiss Federal Council on cooperation in Ukraine’s recovery is now in force. Its logic is simple: Ukraine says what it needs, Switzerland buys it — from Swiss companies, under Swiss procurement law, with foreign suppliers excluded. Ukrainian firms included.

For Swiss industry, this is the long-awaited “route to market”. For development organisations, it is the return of a practice Switzerland had largely abandoned decades ago. For Ukrainian businesses and communities, it is a new set of rules that decides who gets contracts, who gets subcontracts — and who is left out. This analysis explains how the mechanism works, why it is so contested in Switzerland, and how Ukrainian companies can still position themselves inside it.

Key takeaways

In force since 9 October 2026, after ratification by the Verkhovna Rada (March 2026) and the Swiss Parliament (June 2026), with no referendum called.
Ukraine decides, Switzerland procures. Kyiv defines the goods and services; the Swiss Confederation buys them through public tenders open only to Swiss suppliers.
The money stays in the Swiss system. Payments go to Swiss companies, not to Ukrainian state bodies.
Any Swiss company can bid. Until now, Swiss private-sector programmes in Ukraine were limited to firms with a Ukrainian subsidiary. That restriction falls away.
The budget behind it is large: CHF 5 billion for 2025–2036, with CHF 1.5 billion in the 2025–2028 phase and CHF 500 million earmarked for Swiss private-sector participation.
Ukrainian companies cannot bid directly — but the projects still have to be delivered, installed and operated in Ukraine. That is where the opportunity sits.

From signature to entry into force

The agreement took more than a year to move through both political systems. The timeline shows how contested it was in Switzerland — and how quickly Ukraine moved.

Date	Milestone
10 July 2025	Agreement signed in Rome at the Ukraine Recovery Conference
Nov 2025	Consultation in Switzerland: business backs it, development NGOs warn of a return to tied aid
6 March 2026	Federal Council sends the dispatch to Parliament
26 March 2026	Verkhovna Rada ratifies the agreement (287 votes in favour)
1–2 June 2026	Swiss National Council and Council of States approve it
8 October 2026	Referendum deadline passes without a referendum
9 October 2026	Agreement enters into force
31 Dec 2036	Agreement runs until the end of Switzerland’s 12-year Ukraine programme

The Swiss vote is telling. In the Council of States, the agreement passed with 24 votes in favour, one against and 17 abstentions. Even in the committee that prepared the decision, only four members voted yes, while four abstained. Parliament approved the deal — but with visible reluctance.

How the mechanism works

The agreement is not a fund that Ukraine can spend freely. It is a procurement channel. In practice, a project moves through four stages:

Ukraine identifies the need. Ukrainian authorities define which goods and services are required — for example, grid equipment, water pumping stations, rolling stock components or construction systems.
Switzerland tenders. The Swiss Confederation launches public tenders under Swiss procurement law. Only Swiss suppliers can participate; foreign bidders are excluded.
A Swiss company wins and delivers. The winning supplier is paid directly by Switzerland and delivers to Ukraine.
The project is implemented on the ground. Installation, logistics, commissioning, maintenance and training take place in Ukraine.

Sectors named by both governments include energy supply and networks, transport and mobility, machinery for manufacturing, construction, water supply, and disaster prevention and response — with the option to add others depending on Ukraine’s needs. The amount of assistance is set each budget year, which means every tranche depends on annual approval by the Swiss Parliament.

Ukraine writes the shopping list. Switzerland chooses the shop — and the shop is Swiss.

The money behind the agreement

Switzerland has committed CHF 5 billion to Ukraine’s recovery over twelve years, from 2025 to 2036. The first phase, the Ukraine Country Programme 2025–2028, provides more than CHF 1.5 billion for reconstruction, reforms and sustainable development. Roughly one third of that — CHF 500 million — is reserved for measures that strengthen the involvement of the Swiss private sector.

Until now, that private-sector money flowed mainly through SECO’s calls for proposals. In the first call (2025), twelve projects received CHF 93 million. In October 2026, the Federal Council approved eight more projects worth CHF 135 million. All of these were limited to Swiss companies with an established entity in Ukraine. The new agreement adds a second, broader channel: direct procurement from any Swiss company, driven by Ukrainian requests.

In parallel, Switzerland continues emergency deliveries. In February 2026, the Federal Council approved a package of urgently needed energy goods; around 70 diesel generators were handed over to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service in March 2026. The new agreement turns this kind of ad-hoc delivery into a permanent legal framework.

Why Switzerland calls it a special case

The Swiss government argues that Ukraine is not a typical development-aid recipient. It is an industrialised economy with an enormous reconstruction need — the joint assessment by the World Bank, the EU, the UN and the Ukrainian government puts it at USD 588 billion over ten years. Bern frames its programme as an economic partnership, comparable to the Marshall Plan, and insists that untied aid remains the general rule of Swiss development cooperation: well over 90% of Swiss aid is untied.

Swiss business associations add two arguments. First, quality: Swiss engineering, energy and transport technology is among the best in the world, and Ukraine benefits from receiving it. Second, realism: other donors, they argue, also structure their programmes in ways that favour their own industries — Switzerland is simply doing it openly. Some voices from the Ukrainian–Swiss business community share this view, describing the programme as economic rather than humanitarian reconstruction.

Why critics call it a step backwards

The model has a name in development policy: tied aid — assistance that must be spent on suppliers from the donor country. Switzerland had largely moved away from it since the 1980s. Its return has triggered criticism on several fronts:

It costs more. Studies cited in the Swiss debate estimate that tied aid is 15–30% more expensive than untied aid. Every franc buys less reconstruction.
It narrows Ukraine’s choice. Ukraine can only buy from Swiss suppliers, even where cheaper or locally produced alternatives exist.
It can crowd out Ukrainian companies. By design, foreign bidders — including Ukrainian ones — are excluded from the tenders.
The OECD disagrees. In its 2025 peer review of Swiss development cooperation, the OECD Development Assistance Committee recommended that Switzerland keep its aid untied, explicitly including in Ukraine.
The money comes from somewhere. The Ukraine programme is financed from the international cooperation budget, which Parliament cut in December 2024. Development NGOs such as Alliance Sud argue that Ukraine’s share is being paid for by poorer countries, and call for separate, new funding instead.
Corruption concerns cut both ways. Swiss MPs pointed to recent corruption cases in Ukraine to justify paying Swiss suppliers directly. Critics answer that this protects Swiss budgets but does nothing to build Ukrainian capacity.

What this means for Ukrainian business

The headline is uncomfortable: Ukrainian companies cannot win these Swiss tenders. But the conclusion that Ukraine’s private sector is left out would be wrong. Swiss money spent on Swiss equipment still has to become a working power line, a water station or a rebuilt school in Ukraine. Each delivery creates work that a Swiss supplier cannot — or does not want to — do alone.

The agreement also changes who the Swiss suppliers are. Until now, Swiss programmes were limited to around 60 Swiss companies already present in Ukraine. Now any Swiss company can bid — including firms that have never worked in Ukraine, have no team there and no local network. These newcomers will need Ukrainian partners more than anyone.

Experience from the first SECO call shows how much local content is possible: in one housing project, 95% of the components were sourced in Ukraine. Swiss projects are not built in a vacuum — they are built by Ukrainian hands.

Where the opportunities are

Installation and engineering: assembly, connection to grids and networks, commissioning, testing.
Logistics and customs: transport, warehousing, customs clearance, last-mile delivery to regions and hromadas.
Operation and maintenance: service contracts, spare parts, repair, technical support over the equipment’s lifetime.
Training: Swiss programmes in Ukraine have consistently required vocational training — Ukrainian training centres and specialists are natural partners.
Local manufacturing and components: construction materials, metal structures, cables and other components that Swiss suppliers can source locally.
Legal, compliance and representation: Swiss newcomers will need contracts, permits, tax structuring and local representation.

The role of hromadas and public bodies

Every project starts with a Ukrainian request. That gives Ukrainian ministries, regional administrations, municipalities and utilities real influence: those who prepare clear, technically documented and realistic needs are the ones whose projects get on the list. For hromadas, this means having project documentation, land and permit status, and operating plans ready before the request is made — not after.

Practical checklist for Ukrainian companies

Map the Swiss suppliers in your sector. Start with Swiss firms already active in Ukraine, then watch for new names winning Swiss tenders in energy, transport, water and construction.
Build a partner profile in English. References, capacities, certifications, insurance and key staff — in a format a Swiss procurement manager can read in five minutes.
Be audit-ready. Transparent ownership, beneficial owners disclosed, clean contracts and accounting. Swiss contractors carry the compliance risk and will choose partners who reduce it.
Align with Swiss and EU standards. Technical standards, safety rules and documentation practices that match what Swiss suppliers are used to shorten every negotiation.
Offer what Switzerland cannot do from Switzerland. Speed, local presence, knowledge of Ukrainian regulation and access to regions are your strongest arguments.
Work with the requesting side. If you serve a hromada or a utility, help them formulate needs that are concrete and fundable — that is where projects are born.

What to watch next

The first tenders. Which goods and services appear first — and which Swiss companies win them — will show how the mechanism works in practice.
Annual budget decisions. The volume of assistance is set each budget year by the Swiss Parliament. Pressure on the cooperation budget could shrink or expand the channel.
The OECD and EU reaction. Critics warn that excluding foreign bidders may affect reciprocity in public procurement with the EU. Any reaction from Brussels will matter for Swiss–EU relations.
Local-content practice. Whether Swiss suppliers rely on Ukrainian subcontractors — or deliver turnkey from Switzerland — will decide how much of the money effectively stays in Ukraine.

The bottom line

Switzerland is not hiding what it is doing: it is financing Ukraine’s reconstruction and Swiss industry at the same time. For Ukraine, this is still non-repayable support in critical sectors. But the rules are clear — the contracts go to Swiss companies. The Ukrainian businesses that will benefit are those who understand the mechanism early, become the trusted local partner of Swiss suppliers, and help Ukrainian public bodies turn needs into fundable projects.

Lighthouse: your Swiss desk

Lighthouse follows how Swiss public money for Ukraine is structured and spent — and explains it for Ukrainian businesses and communities. We help Ukrainian companies understand Swiss procurement logic, prepare for partnerships with Swiss suppliers, and structure cross-border cooperation with the right legal framework.

Want to become a partner of Swiss suppliers in Ukraine? Contact us: info@lighthouse-legal.eu

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