The article is sanctified to research the conceptual principles of rural tourism clusters forming in Ukraine, their structure and functioning. At the modern stage the rural tourism of the country stands before the organizational and economic, marketing challenges of competitive tourist market. The introduction of the projects of innovative type, aimed at the improvement and advancement of its products and localities, including those related to the cluster structures forming is actual for rural tourism. The aim of the work is to submit the results of types characterization of existing rural tourism clusters by the nature of specialization and food orientation and worked out models of forming and optimal functioning of these clusters. The questions of formation and functioning of rural tourism clusters in Ukraine are considered. The formation of cluster structures in rural tourism is here at the initial stage. The analysis of existing clusters allowed them to be typed on the criterion of specialization into groups: lodging and gastronomic (farmsteads), agrotourism, and regional studies and excursions. The main research models for the creation and analysis of the functioning of rural tourism clusters have been analyzed. The analyzed models of clusters and cluster initiatives of RT in Ukraine are based on the structure of participants, specific types of their interaction, defined by smart-specialization. The organizational and functional disadvantages of these types of models include: the lack of differentiation of participants for their functions (leading, partners, auxiliary), insufficient emphasis on the resource and infrastructure base of clusters (tourist attractions and material base), as well as the lack of definition of the main vectors and specific participants in the interaction. A multi-level universal model of rural tourism cluster with basic structural levels (basic, partner and accompanying) is proposed for scientific-practical purposes. This model was used to form two cluster initiatives in the ethnographic region of the Ukrainian Carpathians – in the Boykivshchyna. It was emphasized the necessity for foreign experience using in rural tourism cluster research.