The article examines the development of legal regulation of consumer rights in the basic legislation of the USSR and modern Ukraine. This was achieved through the definition of basic consumer rights in the global sense given to Consumer International and acts of International Law, as well as in the Constitution of Ukraine. The list of basic acts in this area in the modern period was supplemented by the Economic Code of Ukraine. In the context of consumer protection, this is justified by the fact that in contrast to the rules of Civil Law aimed at legal regulation of the general rights of consumers without taking into account the individual characteristics of consumers in the market, economic legislation aims to take into account such features. Possible violation of consumer rights and settlement of issues not regulated by private law. There are four main periods of development of law in this area. The period of origin of legal regulation (from 1922 to 1963) can be described as a period in which the rules of law were mainly aimed at protecting the interests of the seller, his counterparty was actually determined by the buyer-enterprise, the consumer in such legal relations was almost not taken into account. In contracts of sale performed functions uncharacteristic of it of the act of the economic legislation. The period of improvement of legal regulation (from 1963 to 1991) is characterized as economic-civil. During this period, there are legal norms for buyers (organizations) and buyers (individuals). Consumer rights and mechanisms for their implementation in this period are expanded, improved and concretized (with some rules and definitions were better than modern counterparts). The period of legitimization and development of legal regulation (from 1991 to 2014) can be defined as the period in which the formation of the main basic regulations in the field of consumer protection of Ukraine. But in the legal field the boundaries and the order of their legal application and interaction were not properly regulated. The current period of legal regulation (since 2014) is characterized by the proclaimed European integration aspirations of Ukraine. Despite the incompleteness of the period, its main trends show that these aspirations in the field of consumer protection remain declarations. Much more often under the "mask" of adaptation to the norms of European Law there are directly opposite processes. Basically, it can be described as a period of stagnation. Also in the article, the shortcomings and advantages of regulating the basic rights of consumers in the basic acts of law at each historical stage were analyzed and the dynamics of transformation of certain legal norms was studied. In addition, the possibilities of im proving the definition of rights enshrined in the Constitution of Ukraine were considered, the need to disclose the potential of the Economic Code of Ukraine in regulating consumer rights and their protection, as well as limited opportunities for regulation only within the Civil Code of Ukraine.