With each passing year, refugees transfer decreasing amounts of money to Ukraine and spend more in Europe

Ukrainians spend around 32 million euros per day abroad using their bank cards, according to statistics revealed by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). Deputy Chairman of the NBU, Sergey Nikolaychuk, reported that the consistent outflow of funds from Ukraine for “travel” reached 19 billion euros in 2022 and 17 billion euros in 2023.

The NBU specified that from April 2023 to the present, approximately 32 million euros are spent daily abroad using Ukrainian bank cards. This figure significantly increased after the full-scale invasion, attributed to the mass departure of Ukrainian refugees, who often use their Ukrainian cards abroad (considered by the NBU as an outflow of funds from Ukraine under the category of “travel”).

Simultaneously, the reverse flow—transfers from Ukrainians abroad to Ukraine, previously a significant source of currency inflow to the country—is decreasing. In 2021, this indicator amounted to 13 billion euros, reduced to 11.5 billion euros in 2022, and further declined to 9.8 billion euros for the first 11 months of 2023. Therefore, currently, Ukrainians are withdrawing more money from Ukraine than they are sending to the country.