A Ukrainian gas bill usually carries two lines: natural gas and natural gas distribution — the one everybody calls delivery. The first differs every month. The second does not: it is the same in January, in July, and in a month when no gas was burned at all.
Hence the question people arrive with: what is the second charge for, if the meter has not moved?
This article is about Ukraine — it cites Ukrainian gas market rules. Other countries structure and bill gas distribution differently.
Two lines means two different companies
Behind the two lines sit two contracts with two companies. The Law of Ukraine "On the natural gas market" (No. 329-VIII) defines them as separate licensed activities:
- supply — a licensed business activity consisting in selling natural gas directly to consumers under contracts concluded with them. That is your supplier, who sells you the gas itself;
- distribution — a licensed business activity of moving natural gas through the distribution system for its physical delivery to consumers, but not including the supply of natural gas. That is the distribution system operator, the former regional gas company that maintains the pipes in your town.
The supplier sells you the gas. The operator maintains the pipe it reaches you through. Different services, different tariffs, different billing logic — and it is the second one that behaves in a way nobody expects.
The first line counts cubic metres. The second does not
The settlement procedure is written into the standard gas distribution contract, and the wording leaves no room. Clause 6.1 states that payment for the operator's distribution service is made at the tariff set by the Regulator, and that it is paid as a charge for the annual ordered capacity.
Clause 6.3 gives the formula itself: the monthly cost of the distribution service is determined as the product of 1/12 of the annual ordered capacity of the consumer's premises and the tariff set by the Regulator for that operator, as the monthly cost of one cubic metre of ordered capacity.
Read the formula again and note what is absent from it: not a single cubic metre consumed this month. Meter readings do not enter this line — neither the readings themselves nor the difference between them.
The practical consequence, up front: nothing reduces the delivery line this month. Not saving gas, not going away, not switching the boiler off. It will respond — next year.
The trap: the tariff is printed "in UAH per cubic metre"
This is why the line is nearly impossible to work out on your own. Tariff websites publish the distribution rate as "UAH per 1 m³" — and anyone reads that as the price of delivering one consumed cubic metre. The rest follows: consume nothing, pay nothing.
The Regulator labels the very same rate differently. The header of the NEURC tariff table reads: "Tariffs for natural gas distribution services (UAH per 1 m3 per month, excluding VAT)". And the contract settles it: this is the monthly cost of one cubic metre of ordered capacity.
So it is not the price of a delivered cubic metre but the monthly price of one cubic metre of capacity — of the right to be able to draw it. Drop "per month" and "of ordered capacity" from the unit, and a capacity charge starts looking like a consumption charge. Same unit, same number, opposite meaning.
A worked example
The rate here is illustrative — UAH 1.50 per 1 m³ of ordered capacity per month. Tariffs differ by operator and are revised; use the one on your own bill. What matters is the structure, not this figure.
Say you consumed 1200 m³ during the previous gas year. Your monthly distribution charge is 1200 / 12 × 1.50 = UAH 150, and it stays that way every month of the calendar year:
| Month | Metered consumption, m³ | "Natural gas" line | "Distribution" line |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 300 | for 300 m³ | 150.00 |
| April | 60 | for 60 m³ | 150.00 |
| July | 0 | 0.00 | 150.00 |
The third row is the whole point. The meter did not move in July, the first line went to zero, the second one did not.
Where your ordered capacity comes from
The figure that gets divided by twelve is calculated neither by you nor by your supplier, but by the distribution operator. NEURC resolution No. 580 of 6 March 2020 puts the rule this way: the annual ordered capacity of the consumer's premises for the billing calendar year is determined by the operator on the basis of the actual volume of natural gas consumed by those premises during the gas year preceding the billing calendar year.
A gas year is not a calendar one. Under the Gas Distribution Systems Code it runs from 1 October to 30 September. Hence a consequence few people expect: your delivery charge for the whole of 2026 was fixed by what you burned between October 2024 and September 2025 — and was already knowable in December 2025. Saving gas this winter reaches this line in January, not sooner.
From below the figure rests on minimums, added by the same resolution No. 580 and in force since 1 January 2021:
- 39 m³ — for household premises where gas is used only for cooking;
- 126 m³ — for household premises where gas is used for water heating and cooking;
- 314 m³ — for household premises where gas is used comprehensively, including for heating.
Consume less than that over the gas year and the capacity is still raised to the minimum for your set of appliances. Which is why a flat with nothing but a cooker never pays zero for delivery, however little is cooked there.
Zero consumption does not zero the line — and there is no year-end top-up either
Both edges of this mechanic are worth stating plainly, because people usually expect both to exist.
At the bottom. NEURC puts it without softening: termination or limitation of gas distribution (consumption) does not release the consumer from the obligation to pay for services under the distribution contract. Operators say the same in their own words — regardless of the season, the monthly cost of the service is the same in winter and in summer, spread evenly across the year.
At the top. If you burn twice as much this year as last, no difference is invoiced at year end. The contract does contain an obligation to pay for exceeding the annual ordered capacity — but clause 6.5 addresses it to a consumer who is not a household consumer. It does not apply to households: the overshoot simply feeds into next year's base.
So the delivery line is not a prepayment and not a package you have to "use up". It is an annual subscription whose size was set from last year's actual figure (but not below the minimum) and split into twelve equal payments. It is never reconciled against actual consumption — not at the end of the month, not at the end of the year. What gets recalculated is the capacity itself, and only from 1 January.
The mirror image of water
The interesting part shows when you put gas next to water. The reader's question is identical — what is the second line on the bill for — and the answers are opposite.
| Water: disposal | Gas: distribution | |
|---|---|---|
| What the second line depends on | Strictly equals the first line's volume | Does not depend on the first line at all |
| Does it respond to saving | Yes, the same month | No; the next calendar year |
| If nothing is consumed | 0 | The same amount |
Water has no second device, so wastewater is equated to the water consumed — we covered that separately in why one reading turns into two lines on the bill. Gas needs no second device either, but for the opposite reason: the second line measures not the flow but the network's readiness to deliver it.
How it used to be billed
The "I pay for the cubic metres actually delivered" model is neither invented nor a misunderstanding. That is how it was billed, and the rule is still sitting in the standard contract as a transitional one, clause 6.2: until tariffs based on annual ordered capacity are set, services are paid at the tariffs set by the Regulator for the operator, per physical volume of natural gas distributed.
Capacity-denominated tariffs have been set, so 6.3 applies and 6.2 does not. The transition, briefly:
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| before 2020 | Payment per physical volume of gas distributed |
| 07.10.2019 | NEURC resolution No. 2080: the standard contract gains the annual ordered capacity charge and the 1/12 formula |
| 01.01.2020 | Households start being billed on capacity: the 2018/2019 gas year volume, divided by twelve |
| 01.01.2021 | Resolution No. 580 adds the 39 / 126 / 314 m³ minimums — there was no floor before that |
What changed in 2026
Two dated changes, both about this line.
From 1 October 2026, NEURC resolution No. 541 of 14 April 2026 applies: it approves a unified invoice form for household distribution services, sets a definite list of information the payment document must carry, permits billing supply and distribution on a single document on equal terms for all suppliers, and lets the consumer choose a paper or an electronic invoice. The amount does not change — what changes is how it is presented.
From 15 July 2026, NEURC resolution No. 1150 of 14 July 2026 applies: the distribution charge is not levied on household consumers whose housing was destroyed or damaged by the armed aggression and cannot be used in line with safe-operation requirements. The period runs from the day gas supply stopped to the day it resumes on the consumer's written application after repairs; the operator notifies the consumer within five working days. The same resolution frees those consumers from the monthly obligation to submit meter readings and from charges for maintaining in-building gas systems.
That is the only case where the line disappears. For an ordinary household that simply does not use gas — moved out, switched to electricity, turned the boiler off — these resolutions provide no way to zero the charge.
What to do about it
- Find your ordered capacity. It is a figure in cubic metres, and it — not the tariff — is what makes your amount what it is. It appears on the distribution invoice and in the operator's online account.
- Check which set of appliances you were counted under. Whether the minimum is 39, 126 or 314 m³ depends on whether the operator believes you have only a cooker, a cooker with a water heater, or heating. If the boiler has been out of use for years while the capacity is counted as heating, that is the thing to ask about.
- Reconcile once a year, not every month. The monthly figure should not move before January. If it moves mid-year, that is either a new tariff or a change in your capacity — both worth a question.
- Remember the one-year lag. The gas year closes on 30 September and the new amount arrives on 1 January. How you heat this winter shows up in this line not this year.
How this looks in Платіжка
The app ships two ready-made services — "Gas" and "Gas — delivery" — and they are exactly those two lines.
"Gas" takes an ordinary metered tariff: enter the readings and the app works out consumption and the amount. "Gas — delivery" should not, and cannot, be billed from readings: the tariff type for it is "Fixed monthly cost". Enter your monthly amount once and it is applied every month — exactly how the line itself behaves. That type asks for no readings.
When the operator recalculates your capacity on 1 January and the amount changes, just update the tariff value. And if delivery on your bill is somehow not the same every month, there is the "Manual amount" type for such lines — it computes nothing and takes the figure you type in.