Doing business in Poland in 2026: the market in numbers and how to enter it
Michał Woźniak
27.10.2026
9 min read
This article is also available in Čeština.
Contents
Poland is the largest economy in Central Europe and, by the count of registered businesses, one of the most entrepreneurial countries in the EU. This guide puts numbers on the market as it stands in October 2026: how many businesses there are, what legal forms they take, where they are, what they do, how many start and close each year, and how reachable they are. The figures come from the bazy.biz data warehouse, which mirrors the three public registers (CEIDG, KRS and REGON) and is refreshed daily. The last section covers the practical questions a foreign company asks before entering: which legal form to choose, what it costs and how long it takes.
How big is the market
| Measure | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Businesses registered as active | 4,448,000 | Entities with no closing date in CEIDG or KRS |
| Of which currently suspended | 476,000 | Sole traders may suspend activity for any period |
| Operating businesses | 3,972,000 | Registered minus suspended |
| New registrations, Oct 2025 to Sep 2026 | 331,000 | +4.3% on the previous twelve months |
| Closures in the same period | 174,000 | Deregistrations recorded in the registers |
| Records in the warehouse, including closed | 7,470,000 | Full history since the registers went digital |
Source: bazy.biz warehouse, October 2026. Public schools, kindergartens and other institutions are counted in the registers but excluded from the industry and legal form breakdowns below.
Roughly one business for every nine inhabitants is a high ratio by European standards. The reason is the sole proprietorship: four out of five Polish businesses are a natural person trading under their own name, and many of them are one-person service providers or contractors working for a single client. When you size a market in Poland, decide early whether those 3 million micro businesses are your customers or noise.
Legal forms: two of them cover 96% of the market
| Legal form | Operating businesses | Share | New in last 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sole proprietorship (JDG) | 2,978,000 | 82.0% | 263,500 |
| Limited liability company (sp. z o.o.) | 519,700 | 14.3% | 49,200 |
| Civil law partnership (s.c.) | 37,900 | 1.0% | 800 |
| General partnership (sp.j.) | 26,700 | 0.7% | 500 |
| Limited partnership (sp.k.) | 26,300 | 0.7% | 500 |
| Foundations and associations | 13,800 | 0.4% | 2,400 |
| Joint stock company (S.A.) | 7,600 | 0.2% | 60 |
Operating businesses with an activity code, excluding suspended ones. The limited liability company is where the growth is: it took 14.8% of new registrations in the last year against a 14.3% share of the stock, and in the third quarter of 2026 its share of new registrations reached 18%. We explain what each form means for liability, signing authority and public financial statements in a separate article on Polish legal forms.
Where the businesses are
Masovia, the region around Warsaw, holds one in five Polish businesses (703,000) and a higher than average share of companies: 23.8% of its businesses are limited liability companies against 13.5% in Silesia or Greater Poland. The next tier is four regions of roughly equal size, Silesia (Katowice), Greater Poland (Poznań), Lesser Poland (Kraków) and Lower Silesia (Wrocław), each with 290,000 to 370,000 businesses. Together with Pomerania (Gdańsk) these six regions hold 65% of the market.
By city, Warsaw has 380,000 businesses, Kraków 127,000, Wrocław 107,000, Poznań 92,000, Łódź 77,000 and Gdańsk 67,000. Szczecin, Katowice, Lublin and Bydgoszcz follow with 35,000 to 54,000 each. Katowice understates the Silesian conurbation, where a dozen adjoining cities (Gliwice, Sosnowiec, Zabrze, Tychy, Bytom and others) add another 120,000 businesses within a 30 km radius.
What they do
Retail (398,000) and specialised construction trades (396,000) are the two largest industries and are almost entirely made up of sole traders. Health (255,000) is large because most Polish doctors, dentists and physiotherapists contract with clinics as self-employed providers. IT (175,000) is the same story for software developers. The industries with the most new entrants in the last year were specialised construction (46,000 new businesses), retail (31,000), health (21,000), IT (20,000) and personal services such as hairdressing and beauty (18,000).
Manufacturing is smaller by count but larger by revenue: 308,000 manufacturing businesses are operating, with metal products (62,000), repair and installation of machinery (46,000), furniture (31,000), wood products (26,000) and food (26,000) as the largest divisions. Poland is a major EU manufacturer of furniture, household appliances, car parts, batteries and processed food, and most of that output comes from the companies in the KRS register rather than from the sole traders who dominate the count.
Registrations month by month
The market adds 25,000 to 33,000 businesses a month and loses about half that number. Timing matters for anyone selling to new businesses: accounting, banking, insurance, software and equipment vendors see the strongest demand in the first quarter, when registrations peak and the new businesses need suppliers. We publish a quarterly analysis of new registrations; the latest covers the third quarter of 2026.
Foreigners already in the market
Of the 269,000 sole proprietorships registered in the last twelve months, 36,000 (13.4%) were founded by citizens of other countries, most of them Ukrainian. In Warsaw and Wrocław more than one in five new sole traders is a foreign citizen. Construction, IT, personal services, retail and transport are their main industries. We look at the nationalities, regions and industries in a separate article on foreign founders in Poland.
How reachable Polish businesses are
| Legal form | Public e-mail | Public phone | Website |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sole proprietorship | 27.0% | 18.9% | 6.8% |
| Limited liability company | 42.5% | 36.5% | 30.2% |
| Civil law partnership | 44.9% | 69.9% | 23.7% |
| General partnership | 51.6% | 64.5% | 37.4% |
| Joint stock company | 72.1% | 68.0% | 81.7% |
| All operating businesses | 28.4% | 22.0% | 10.8% |
Share of operating businesses with a contact detail in the public registers or on a verified company website, bazy.biz warehouse, October 2026. A sole trader is not obliged to publish an e-mail address in CEIDG, and most do not, which is why a list of Polish sole traders with contact data is always a subset of the register. Companies are far more reachable, and partnerships, which are usually established professional firms, the most reachable of all.
Reachable is not the same as contactable. Since November 2024 Polish law requires prior consent for marketing e-mail and calls to businesses, and the contact details of a sole trader are personal data under GDPR. The practical two step model that Polish B2B sellers use is described in our article on B2B outreach to Polish companies.
Starting a business in Poland as a foreigner
The choice comes down to two forms.
- Sole proprietorship (JDG). Open to Polish citizens, citizens of EU and EEA countries, and non-EU citizens who hold a residence permit that allows business activity (a permanent residence permit, long-term EU resident status, or a temporary permit issued for that purpose; citizens of Ukraine benefit from a special act). Registration in CEIDG is free, online, and the entry is usually live the next working day. The owner is liable with all personal assets.
- Limited liability company (sp. z o.o.). Open to anyone, of any nationality, as shareholder or board member, with no residence requirement. Minimum share capital is 5,000 PLN (about 1,200 EUR). Registration through the S24 online portal with a standard articles template takes a few days and costs 350 PLN in court and announcement fees; a notarial deed with custom articles takes a few weeks. The company is liable, the shareholders are not.
Most foreign companies entering Poland use the sp. z o.o., because it needs no residence permit, can be set up remotely through a Polish lawyer with a power of attorney, and is the form Polish customers and banks expect from a foreign-owned business. Corporate income tax is 9% for small taxpayers (revenue up to 2 million EUR) and 19% above that; VAT is 23% standard, with reduced rates for food, books and some services. A Polish bank account, a registered office address and a bookkeeping firm are the three things to arrange before registration; the bank account is the step that most often takes longer than expected for non-resident directors.
A JDG makes sense for an individual who lives in Poland and sells services. It can choose between progressive income tax (12% and 32%), a 19% flat rate, or a lump sum on revenue with rates from 2% to 17% depending on the activity, and it pays social insurance contributions (ZUS) that are reduced during the first 30 months of activity. A JDG cannot have co-owners and cannot be sold as a business, which is why growing sole traders convert to an sp. z o.o.
Finding customers and partners once you are in
The registers are public, and every Polish business can be looked up free by its NIP, REGON or KRS number; we describe the registers and what to read in them in the guide to verifying a Polish company. For building a customer, distributor or supplier list the registers are the starting point rather than the answer, because they hold no contact data for most sole traders and no sales information for anyone. That is what the bazy.biz warehouse adds: identifiers, activity codes, founding dates, legal form, region, contact data from registers and verified websites, and, for companies, revenue and profit from filed financial statements. If you are entering Poland and need a list of a specific target group, describe it and we will reply with the number of matching businesses and a price.
Figures are from the bazy.biz warehouse as of October 2026. The section on starting a business is a general overview as of the same date and not legal or tax advice; rules for non-EU citizens depend on the type of residence permit.
Founder of bazy.biz. Over 20 years in data processing, marketing and business process automation.