The article is devoted to the study of procedural rules, which should be followed while choosing the forms of administrative proceedings to hear and decide on administrative cases. It is determined that some of those rules are directly identified in the regulations of the Code of Administrative Proceedings of Ukraine, whereas others are not clearly enshrined that in practice causes different interpretation of the legal norms regulating the procedure of hearing administrative cases. The work presents systematization and generalization of the corresponding written and unwritten rules that will contribute to the appropriate and identical application of the legislation on administrative proceedings, as well as will simplify solving the problems related with the choice of the administrative proceedings forms. Basing on findings of the conducted research, one can conclude that while choosing between the general and simplified action procedure of hearing administrative cases it is necessary to consider that the CAP of Ukraine determines a list of administrative cases, which should be heard only in the form of general action procedure, as well as defines procedural cases for the court to mandatory change from the simplified to general action procedure. In general, any administrative case can be heard according to the rules of simplified action procedure, but for the cases, which are forbidden to be heard according to that form of action procedure. If a case does not belong to the category of minor complexity in terms of requirements of the CAP of Ukraine, it is not forbidden to hear the case according to the simplified action procedure, and it also does not mean the case hearing should be done exclusively following the rules of general action procedure, but for the cases which should be heard according to that procedure due to the imperative requirements of the law. Minor cases are heard according to the simplified action procedure unconditionally, whereas considering other administrative cases, which can be heard according to the simplified action procedure, application of the general or simplified form depends on the court decision, made with consideration of the criteria (factors), identified in the CAP of Ukraine. Key words: forms of administrative proceedings, general action procedure, simplified action procedure, minor administrative case.