How to get paid for downtime not caused by the employee

When this guide applies

Use this guide when an em­ploy­er has stopped all or part of the work, the em­ploy­ee did not cause the stop­page, and payment is missing or unclear. For an office, service company, ware­house, or re­gion­al branch in Kyiv, first es­tab­lish which unit stopped working, who issued the in­struc­tion, and whether the em­ploy­ee re­mained ready to perform their duties.

Do not begin with arith­metic if the doc­u­ments de­scribe the event as sus­pen­sion of an em­ploy­ment con­tract, unpaid leave, absence, or down­time caused by the em­ploy­ee. These are not syn­onyms. Sep­a­rate­ly iden­ti­fy a haz­ardous work­place sit­u­a­tion not caused by the em­ploy­ee: Article 113 of the Labour Code pro­vides for average earn­ings in that case, so the 2/3 tariff cal­cu­la­tor does not apply.

Applicable rule and procedure

Under Ar­ti­cles 34 and 113 of the Labour Code, or­di­nary down­time not caused by an em­ploy­ee must be paid at no less than two-thirds of the tariff rate for the em­ploy­ee’s grade or salary. An hourly or daily cal­cu­la­tion re­quires a con­firmed rate and in­cludes only hours or days sched­uled as working time. A col­lec­tive agree­ment, pay policy, em­ploy­ment agree­ment, or order may provide a higher guar­an­tee.

An em­ploy­ee must notify the em­ploy­er when down­time begins, except where a struc­tur­al unit or the entire busi­ness is idle. In prac­tice, record the date, reason, readi­ness to work, and re­cip­i­ent of the notice. An act, order, and time sheet form a strong ev­i­den­tiary chain, but their absence should not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be treated as a uni­ver­sal formal bar to a claim.

As a general rule, wages are paid within the time limits in Article 115 of the Labour Code. During martial law, Article 10 of Law No. 2136-IX allows a proven in­abil­i­ty to pay on time due to hos­til­i­ties to be as­sessed, but it does not cancel the debt. Sus­pen­sion under Article 13 of that Law is a sep­a­rate regime and, under the current rules, gen­er­al­ly does not require the em­ploy­er to accrue wages for the period of a lawful sus­pen­sion.

Steps to take

1. Ask in writing which arrange­ment applies. Ask whether the event was for­mal­ly clas­si­fied as down­time, why, which unit it af­fect­ed, and for what period. If em­ploy­ees at the Kyiv branch re­ceived only an oral notice from a local manager, send the request to the em­ploy­ing legal entity as well.

2. Check your work sched­ule. Mark only the hours or days that were sched­uled as work. Week­ends and other non-working time within a cal­en­dar period are not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly in­clud­ed in the cal­cu­la­tion.

3. Obtain a con­firmed rate. Do not enter a monthly salary into an hourly formula. Ask for the tariff scale or payroll cal­cu­la­tion of the hourly or daily rate, in­clud­ing the time norm used.

4. Cal­cu­late the amount due and the dif­fer­ence. Use the down­time pay cal­cu­la­tor. It applies exactly 2/3 for the statu­to­ry arrange­ment and a higher per­cent­age only when sup­port­ed by a doc­u­ment. Deduct only ac­cru­als for the same down­time from the gross amount due.

5. Submit a claim with a table. State the period, rate unit, sched­uled work units, payment rule, amount due, amount already accrued, and dif­fer­ence. Attach copies of records and keep proof of de­liv­ery. If payment is still missing, sep­a­rate­ly check the time limit for filing a salary claim in court.

What to check before filing

The em­ploy­er’s name and legal-entity code in the claim should match your em­ploy­ment records. A re­gion­al unit or office may handle com­mu­ni­ca­tions but may not itself be the debtor. If the central office issued the order and the Kyiv unit kept the time sheet, gather both sets of records and explain how they relate.

Make sure the rate and quan­ti­ty use match­ing units: mul­ti­ply an hourly rate by hours and a daily rate by days. Do not replace the frac­tion 2/3 with re­peat­ed round­ing when cal­cu­lat­ing the statu­to­ry minimum. If the em­ploy­er used a higher per­cent­age, attach the doc­u­ment that sets it for your po­si­tion and period.

Compare gross with gross. A bank deposit after tax cannot be di­rect­ly sub­tract­ed from an accrual before tax. For broader wage arrears, see the guide to re­cov­er­ing unpaid wages; if the em­ploy­er ended the em­ploy­ment re­la­tion­ship, sep­a­rate­ly check the law­ful­ness of the order.

When to consult a lawyer

Legal review is ap­pro­pri­ate if the em­ploy­er retroac­tive­ly labels the period unpaid leave, em­ploy­ee fault, or sus­pen­sion; refuses to provide the time sheet or rate cal­cu­la­tion; cites a haz­ardous sit­u­a­tion but pays only 2/3; or con­flates down­time with absence from work. If you were dis­missed after a dispute about down­time, do not delay re­view­ing how to chal­lenge un­law­ful dis­missal, since that claim has sep­a­rate time limits and ev­i­dence re­quire­ments.

For a matter in Kyiv or the region, a lawyer can rec­on­cile records from the local unit and legal entity, check the legal clas­si­fi­ca­tion of the event and the rate, prepare a month-by-month cal­cu­la­tion, and frame a claim without mixing dis­tinct legal regimes. The prac­ti­cal result is a table of con­firmed inputs, source doc­u­ments for each line, and a clear remedy.