The article is devoted to the minimal state in Ukraine as a progressive ideal of the historical criterion of the legal approach to the typology of the state. The main attention, at the same time, is paid to features of its functioning. It is this type of state that must overcome the shortcomings of the state of the modern bureaucratic type. It seems that the need for its introduction in Ukraine is influenced by two factors: globalization and a significant increase in the role of civil society. At the same time, despite COVID-19, the processes of globalization have not decreased and the significant narrowing of state influence on economic processes, which is characteristic of globalization, is still continuing. As for civil society, in Ukraine it has gradually begun to realize itself as an important "player" within the country, which not only becomes more independent of the state, but also, to some extent, begins to influence it. Thus, the combination of globalization processes in the world and a powerful "burst" of selfconsciousness of domestic civil society necessitates the introduction in Ukraine of the concept of "minimal state", that is a state whose activities are aimed at implementing as few functions as possible. However, this type of state does not imply an anarchic ideal with its abolition at all. It seems that within the framework of a minimal state, the latter should be deprived of the functions it has assumed for a long historical period, leaving only the fiscal, the function of ensuring the safety of citizens from internal and external threats and the function of organizing work. At the same time, in the conditions of the minimal state the organization of works is transformed into the organization of realization of national and state projects when the state acts only as the coordinator and the financier of work which is carried out by numerous enterprises and corporations. As for the fiscal function, in our opinion, it should be somewhat transformed: the tax system should be enshrined in the principle of one tax, and the budget system should consist of three parts: "expenditure budget", "development budget" and "reserve budget". Regarding the security of citizens, society and the state from external and internal threats and dangers, such activities should take two forms: justice and law enforcement (security within the country) and war and peace (security outside the country). Thus, in the conditions of a minimal state, only the organization of national and state projects, budgetary and financial function, as well as ensuring the security of citizens, society and the state from external and internal threats and dangers should remain behind the latter.