Abstract
<jats:p>Economic instability has exacerbated fiscal risks and raised questions about the sustainability of local government revenue bases. In such conditions, the structure of local budget revenues and their share in Ukraine's consolidated budget revenues become indicative of the degree of centralization of public finances and changes in the channels of financing for the own and delegated powers of territorial communities. The methodological basis of the study is a systematic approach and methods of analysis and synthesis applied to structure local budget revenues by main components (tax and non-tax revenues, interbudgetary transfers, other revenues). Statistical and comparative methods were used to assess the nominal and real dynamics of revenues in 2018-2025. Real indicators were obtained by deflating nominal revenues by the cumulative consumer price index (base 2018), which made it possible to separate the inflationary and price effect from the actual change in the purchasing power of budget resources. The information base was formed on the basis of data from the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine. A trend has been identified towards a decrease in the share of local budget revenues in the consolidated budget of Ukraine – from 47.5% in 2018 to 17.3% in 2025, which is consistent with the increased concentration of resources at the central level, especially during the pandemic and after the start of the full-scale Russian-Ukrainian war. In nominal terms, the total revenues of local budgets increased by 33.7% (2018-2025), but after deflation, their real volume in 2025 is about 69.1% of the 2018 level (a real reduction of about 30.9%), with the deepest decline in 2022 and a partial recovery in 2023-2025. There has been a structural shift from a transfer-oriented model to a model dominated by own revenues: the share of tax and non-tax revenues in total local budget revenues increased to 72.8% in 2025, while the share of transfers decreased to 26.1%. Own revenues are clearly tax-oriented, with a predominance of personal income tax and its dynamics sensitive to military and institutional decisions; non-tax revenues are relatively small and more volatile. The transfer component has undergone a qualitative transformation: the role of subsidies as an instrument for equalizing and compensating for asymmetric territorial losses has increased, while the subsidy package has narrowed and become more targeted, with a predominance of educational subsidies and the emergence of programs related to the consequences of armed aggression. It has been proven that assessing local budget revenues without adjusting for inflation leads to an overestimation of the real strengthening of their resource capacity: nominal growth in 2018-2025 is accompanied by a significant decline in the purchasing power of revenues. The identified growth in the share of own revenues should not be interpreted as an unambiguous increase in the financial autonomy of communities, as it may reflect both the development of the tax base and the redistribution of resources and changes in the architecture of financing delegated functions in times of crisis.</jats:p>