The dollar tops 45 hryvnias for the first time: the NBU's official rate and the budget after nine months

A new psychological threshold

The National Bank of Ukraine set the official rate for Tuesday, 6 October, at UAH 45.0564 per US dollar. As Suspilne pointed out, this is the first time in history that the official dollar rate has reached 45 hryvnias. A day earlier, on 5 October, it stood at UAH 44.9857, meaning the dollar gained about 7 kopiykas in one day. As recently as 2 October, according to Ukrinform, the official rate was UAH 44.83.

The euro, by contrast, became slightly cheaper: for 6 October the NBU set UAH 50.48 per euro, compared with UAH 50.53 the day before. These moves in opposite directions mean the hryvnia is weakening mainly against the dollar rather than against all currencies at once.

What banks and exchange offices charge

The NBU’s official rate is a benchmark for accounting, customs payments and state settlements; in bank branches and apps people buy currency at each bank’s own rate. According to minfin.com.ua data cited by Ukrinform, on 5 October the average bank rate was UAH 44.76 to buy and UAH 45.28 to sell a dollar. At exchange offices the average cash rate was UAH 44.80–44.99.

Card rates at major banks were also already close to 45 that day: UAH 44.75–45.25 per dollar at PrivatBank and UAH 44.80–45.20 at monobank. So for most people “45” appeared in their banking app even before the official rate crossed that mark.

The budget: partner money and borrowing

On the same day the Finance Ministry published the results of the state budget for January–September 2026. Over this period the general and special funds received UAH 4.12 trillion in taxes, levies and other payments, while cash expenditure amounted to UAH 4.78 trillion, including UAH 3.27 trillion from the general fund.

Important sources of general-fund revenue, according to the ministry, were UAH 604 billion in international grant aid and UAH 146.1 billion of the National Bank’s profit transferred in April and May.

State borrowing into the general fund over the nine months amounted to UAH 717.2 billion, or 58.3% of what was planned for the period. Sales of domestic government bonds (OVDP) brought in UAH 362.1 billion, of which UAH 130.9 billion came from military bonds. External sources provided UAH 355.07 billion (about $8 billion), including UAH 126.13 billion from the EU under the Ukraine Facility and UAH 96.1 billion from the IMF. A large part of the rest came from World Bank (IBRD) loans under several programmes – the largest, UAH 44.6 billion ($1 billion), under a project to support jobs and private-sector growth (DPO). Over the same period UAH 438.8 billion went on repaying public debt (96% of plan) and UAH 275.7 billion on servicing it (98.5% of plan).

Why it matters

For households, a rate above 45 hryvnias per dollar is first of all a question of prices for imported goods, currency savings and payments pegged to the dollar. For the state it is part of a wider picture: budget spending exceeds revenue, and the gap is covered by grants, partner loans and domestic borrowing. As Ukrinform noted, the government’s budget calculations assume an average annual rate of UAH 45.6 per dollar, so the current official rate is still below that benchmark.