How to Restore a Ukrainian Pension While Living in Malta

Restoring a Ukrainian Pension Abroad: The Malta Case and Common Mistakes Made by Applicants

The issue of restoring Ukrainian pension payments for individuals living abroad, particularly in Malta, remains highly relevant in current court practice. This is especially true for Ukrainian citizens who have been granted temporary protection and seek to exercise their social security rights remotely by submitting applications through the web portal of the Pension Fund of Ukraine (PFU). An analysis of the court decision in case No. 122711550 highlights the key challenges in dealing with the PFU and the most common mistakes made by applicants.

The decision of the Rivne District Administrative Court in case No. 460/7926/24 is a clear example of how procedural mistakes can deprive Ukrainians living abroad of their pension payments for a significant period. The claimant, who resides in Malta under temporary protection status, lost the case—not because she was not entitled to a pension, but because of improperly prepared documents and a failure to challenge the PFU's decisions in a timely manner.

What were the claimant's key mistakes? First, documents confirming her place of residence were submitted too late and were not properly certified.

According to Procedure No. 22-1 of the Pension Fund of Ukraine, individuals who are temporarily residing abroad must submit, together with their application, copies of documents confirming their temporary protection status and registration of their place of residence. These documents must be translated into Ukrainian and certified either by a notary or by a Ukrainian consulate. The claimant submitted these documents only with her second application, in March 2024. As a result, her pension was restored not from the date when the entitlement arose (22 September 2023), but only from the date of her repeated application (2 March 2024).

Second, the previous refusal decisions were never appealed. Over several months, four different regional offices of the Pension Fund issued decisions refusing to restore her pension. None of these decisions was challenged within the statutory time limit. By the time the dispute reached court, those decisions had already become legally effective, and the authorities that had issued them were not even included as defendants. Consequently, the court had no legal grounds to review them.

Third, the claimant identified the wrong subject matter of the lawsuit. She sought payment of pension arrears without first seeking to annul the unlawful refusal decisions. The court relied on the legal position of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court (case No. 510/1286/16-a), which states that pension arrears may be recovered without any limitation period only where the Pension Fund had already accrued the payments but failed to pay them due to the state's fault. In this case, no pension had been accrued for the disputed period at all, meaning there were no unpaid accrued benefits to recover.

For Ukrainians living in Malta under temporary protection, the recommended procedure is as follows:

1. Obtain a Temporary Protection Certificate issued by the Maltese International Protection Agency and a document confirming your registered place of residence (residence permit issued by Identity Malta).
2. Arrange for these documents to be translated into Ukrainian and certified by a notary or by a Ukrainian consulate.
3. Obtain an affidavit—a sworn statement confirming that you are alive—signed before a local notary.
4. Submit your application through the Pension Fund of Ukraine's online portal together with the complete set of supporting documents from the very beginning, rather than after receiving a refusal.
5. If your application is refused, appeal the decision immediately. Every unchallenged refusal becomes legally binding and may prevent you from recovering pension payments for the relevant period.

This case clearly demonstrates that ignoring refusal decisions issued by the Pension Fund of Ukraine and repeatedly submitting new applications without challenging those decisions is not a neutral strategy—it effectively results in the loss of the right to receive pension payments for the relevant period. Documents confirming residence in Malta and temporary protection status should be properly prepared before the first application is submitted, not after another refusal has already been issued.