Legislation News: Linguistic Standardization

On July 16, 2022, parts 2 and 6 of Article 27 of the Law of Ukraine "On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as a State Language" are entering into force.

According to Part 6 of Article 27, all business entities registered in Ukraine must ensure that all of their web resources have their default version in Ukrainian. That is, companies that have not yet done so must install Ukrainian as the default language on their website, as well as use it as the default language on their social media pages. Meanwhile, there can be as many different language versions as possible, provided that a) the version in Ukrainian is not shorter and contains not less information than the other versions; b) the Ukrainian version is shown to users from Ukraine by default.

Besides, according to part 2 of Article 27, any product on which a computer program is installed must have a Ukrainian language interface, which must be not shorter and contain not less information than the other language versions.

Businesses will have to pay fines from UAH 3,400 to UAH 8,500 for the first violation of the Law, and from UAH 8,500 to UAH 11,900 for repeated violation. However, the goal is not to punish companies for negligence, but to standardize content on web resources and to support Ukrainian business culture.