Countries · Poland
What to check in Poland before you sign.
Housing is scarce and cramped. Buyers often buy into stock whose condition and occupancy cannot be read from the listing at all.
What costs the most money in Poland
33.7 percent of the population lived in overcrowded homes in 2024. The EU average is 16.9 percent, so half as much.
Purchase costs
0.7 to 2.8%
of the purchase price, on top of the price in the listing.
- Transfer tax on a purchase from a private seller2%
- First-time buyer with no previous home ownershipexempt
- Sixth flat in the same development6 %
- Land register entry, ownership200 PLN
- Notary fee, example PLN 500,000around 0.7%
Source: Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Justice, 2025. On a purchase from a developer, VAT applies instead of transfer tax. There is no official rule for agents' commissions, so they are not included in the range.
The trap for tenants
Under the so-called occasional tenancy, the tenant has to go to a notary in person and submit to enforcement. They must also name a replacement home together with its owner's consent. Lose that replacement address and you lose the protection. The deposit there may run to six months' rent, and under an ordinary tenancy even to twelve.
Energy and the duty to renovate
The energy certificate has to be handed over at the notary appointment when selling, and as a copy when letting. Since 28 April 2023 energy figures and CO2 emissions have had to appear in the listing itself. The certificate is valid for ten years.
Source: Ustawa o charakterystyce energetycznej budynków, Ministerstwo Rozwoju i Technologii
Certificate validity: 10 years
What to watch for in Poland in particular
The deception is mostly about floor area. The competition and consumer protection authority UOKiK imposed fines totalling over 1.6 million złoty on six developers. They had simply counted in the area under non-load-bearing partition walls, without telling buyers about it. In Poland you pay by the square metre, so every square metre counted in is hard cash.
Source: UOKiK, decisions 2024 and 2025
Official maps in Poland
4 map layers lie directly over your property.
Not as an average for the district, but at your exact address, with a legend and a visible source. Every layer can be switched on separately.
Check it yourself
The official bodies in Poland.
These bodies are grouped by category: property and encumbrances, energy, natural hazards and more. The report on your property names the responsible bodies, with the date checked and a link. A figure you cannot verify is not a figure, it is a claim.
over 100
official data sources
3
categories
What this costs
15.4%
below the listing price is what is actually paid at the notary in Warsaw. In Gdańsk it is 17.2 percent. A listing price there is what the seller hopes for, not the market price.
Source: Figures of the Polish central bank NBP taken from notarial deeds, first quarter of 2026, existing flats, analysed by money.pl on 25 May 2026
12 monthly rents
is the largest deposit allowed under an ordinary tenancy. Under an occasional tenancy it is six, but then the tenant has to go to a notary.
Source: Polish tenant protection act, articles 6 and 19a
These numbers arise after the signature. The report does the maths before it.
The market in Poland
545,800 notarial purchase deeds for property in 2024, up 6.8 percent on the year before.
A real dossier from this country
See what the analysis found on an actual listing in Poland — every figure with its source.
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