Formulation of the problem. The regulatory and legal principles of the competence of state authorities and local self-government in Ukraine formation have been studied. The contents of the Ukraine key laws regarding local self-government bodies and modern concepts of their activities are disclosed. It was found that there is no unified conceptual vision of the local self-government bodies status, competencies, and responsibilities in Ukraine. It has been established that the legal framework for the functioning and development of local self-government bodies in Ukraine is formed from regulatory acts of different levels. Analysis of recent research and publications. Research on this issue can be divided into two directions. First of all, these are the works of specialists in constitutional and municipal law who investigated the issue of the essence and nature of local self-go- vernment (professors M. O. Baimuratov, O. V. Batanov, B. V. Kalynovskyi, P. M. Lyub- chenko, N. V. Mishina and etc.). Secondly, these are the works of representatives of administrative and legal science who analyze the problems of administrative regulation of local self-government in Ukraine, here it is worth mentioning the monograph of Y. V. Zhuravlya, A. A. Manjuli, I. I. Lytvynova, T. O. Karbina. Formulation of the article goals. The purpose of the specified scientific research is to analyze the state of regulatory and legal support for optimizing the competences of local self-government bodies. It is noted that the regulatory and legal support for the activities of local self- government bodies needs improvement, in particular by finding effective and rational means of managerial influence on their functioning. These include the improvement of the competent regulatory and legal framework for the activities of local self-government entities, which will contribute to the satisfaction of the economic, political, and social people needs, and the creation for their harmonious development conditions. Сonclusions. That the dynamic development of local self-government can only be ensured by the organization and activity of local self-government entities and their regulation by improving the relevant competent legal framework. Further development of local self-government in Ukraine should depend on finding sufficiently effective means of influencing national law on its functioning. At the legislative level, a new model of local self-government has been formed in Ukraine, which provides for the decentralization of state administration and the optimization of the competence of central authorities at the regional level. However, the practical implementation of the specified legislative provisions should ensure the deprivation of the central bodies of the state executive power of functions that do not belong to them, by maximally delegating them from the center to the regions and from the state to the private sector. We see the prospects for further research on the topic in the coverage of a number of derivative aspects of the mentioned topic, first of all, a detailed analysis of international legal acts, an outline of the prospects for optimizing the powers of local self-government bodies.