The article provides an overview of the peculiarities of functioning and analysis of performance indicators of machine-building enterprises in 22 countries of the European Union and Ukraine. The article studies profitability indicators of machine-building enterprises, with an emphasis on the peculiarities of approaches to pricing. A comparative analysis of the number of machine-building enterprises and the number of people employed in machine-building in each country was carried out. The indicators of imports of machinery and equipment for agriculture from Ukraine to the EU countries are analysed in terms of the main product groups. A comparative analysis of the activities of the machine-building industry of the EU and Ukraine per enterprise, with special attention to the indicators of costs and investments, was carried out. The volumes of investments in material assets, machinery and equipment, personnel, and energy costs were analysed. An evaluation of these indicators of the functioning of machine-building enterprises of the European Union and Ukraine has allowed to identify the key problems of domestic machine-building enterprises in the context of ensuring the competitiveness of their products in the EU market. In particular, the author has established the existence of fundamental differences between Ukrainian and European machine-building producers in terms of investment in personnel and renewal of fixed assets, which leads to a significant technological lag behind their European competitors and a lag in terms of individual productivity of personnel.