In Polish law, there are several dozens of acts regarding leases, though few relating to residential leases only. Some key acts are:
Regulation of the Minister of Infrastructure of 12 April 2002 on the technical conditions to be met for buildings and their locations (Polish: Rozporządzenie Ministra Infrastruktury z dnia 12 kwietnia 2002 r. w sprawie warunków technicznych, jakim powinny odpowiadać budynki i ich usytuowanie). The Regulation lays down the technical conditions for buildings and related installations, their location on a building plot and the development of plots designated for the construction of buildings.
Act of 20 July 2018 on the Transformation of the of Perpetual Usufruct Right to the Land Developed for Housing Purposes into the Ownership Right to This Land (Polish: Ustawa z dnia 20 lipca 2018 r. o przekształceniu prawa użytkowania wieczystego gruntów zabudowanych na cele mieszkaniowe w prawo własności tych gruntów).
The Act applies only to the land on which the buildings intended for housing purposes stand. The Act provides for the statutory transformation of the perpetual usufruct right into the ownership of land for owners of single-family houses and of independent premises located in multi-family buildings with commercial buildings, garages and other construction objects; and construction equipment that enable proper and rational use of residential buildings. Landowners are obliged to pay for the acquisition of property rights in the form of an annual payment for 20 years. The amount of the annual fee for the conversion will correspond to the annual fee for perpetual usufruct, valid on the day of transformation. A number of payment reductions may apply.
Regulation of the Minister of Infrastructure and Development of 27 February 2015 on the methodology of determining the energy performance of a building or part of a building and energy performance certificates (Polish: Rozporządzenie Ministra Infrastruktury i Rozwoju z dnia 27 lutego 2015 r. w sprawie metodologii wyznaczania charakterystyki energetycznej budynku lub części budynku oraz świadectw charakterystyki energetycznej).
The regulation specifies for a building or part of a building:
Act of 26 October 1995 on Social Forms of Housing Development (Polish: Ustawa z dnia 26 października 1995 r. o społecznych formach rozwoju mieszkalnictwa) – rules for collecting savings and financing by Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego of some investment and construction projects aimed at building residential premises along with the principles of operation of social housing associations.
Act of 20 July 2017 on the National Property Resource (Polish: Ustawa z dnia 20 lipca 2017 r. o Krajowym Zasobie Nieruchomości) – the creation and functioning of the National Property Resource; the rules for qualifying and transferring real estate, including building and housing properties, to the National Property Resource.
Act of 20 July 2018 on State Aid in Bearing Housing Expenses in the First Years of the Lease of a Flat (Polish: Ustawa z dnia 20 lipca 2018 r. o pomocy państwa w ponoszeniu wydatków mieszkaniowych w pierwszych latach najmu mieszkania) – rules for the use of subsidies covering part of the rent for the lease of a flat.
Regulation of the Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration of 8 July 2004 on the terms of lease of residential premises managed by organizational units of the Police (Polish: Rozporządzenie Ministra Spraw Wewnętrznych i Administracji z dnia 8 lipca 2004 r. w sprawie warunków najmu lokali mieszkalnych pozostających w zarządzie jednostek organizacyjnych Policji) – specifies the terms of lease of residential premises located in buildings owned by the State Treasury and managed by the Police units.
Act of 8 December 2006 on Financial Support for the Certain Housing Projects (Polish: Ustawa z dnia 8 grudnia 2006 r. o finansowym wsparciu niektórych przedsięwzięć mieszkaniowych) – concerns the provision of:
- financial support out of the Subsidy Fund, including for the purpose of creating:
- creating, supplementing, and sharing a database of architectural and construction projects and technical designs for the construction of buildings with residential units, as well as managing this database;
- and of managing residential premises for lease, created using financial support where such premises do not form part of a commune's housing resource.
Act of 21 June 2001 on Housing Allowances (Polish: Ustawa z dnia 21 czerwca 2001 r. o dodatkach mieszkaniowych) – lays down the rules and procedure for awarding and determining the amount and payment of housing allowances, and the competence of the authorities in these matters.
Act of 21 June 2001 on protection of tenants’ rights, the housing stock of the municipality and on amending the Civil Code (Polish: Ustawa z dnia 21 czerwca 2001 r. o ochronie praw lokatorów, mieszkaniowym zasobie gminy i o zmianie Kodeksu cywilnego) (Tenants' Rights Protection Act) – specifies the rights and obligations of tenants and landlords, describes the rules of the occasional lease and institutional lease and the principles of the housing stock of the municipality.
Last modified 13 Mar 2025
In Polish law there are a few categories of residential leases that are subject to specific laws such as: occasional lease, institutional quality lease, communal flat lease and premises for temporary purposes.
The right to occasional lease applies only to the premises used to satisfy housing needs. Only natural persons not conducting business activity in the scope of rental of premises can take advantage of this form of lease. An occasional lease is granted only to owners understood broadly and includes also holders of the cooperative ownership right to premises. Considering the above, the agreement for occasional lease cannot be used to sublease the premises, or a part thereof.
The term of an occasional lease cannot be longer than 10 years. Such a lease may involve the tenant paying a deposit to secure the payment of amounts due for the occasional lease of premises, which the tenant has to pay on the day of vacating the premises, and any possible costs of enforcement of the obligation to vacate the premises (the deposit is later returned if the owner's claims have been satisfied).
Additionally, after the expiry or termination of the occasional lease agreement, if the tenant has not voluntarily vacated the premises, the owner delivers to the tenant a request in writing to vacate the premises, with an officially certified signature of the owner. To execute the request, prior to concluding the agreement for an occasional lease, the tenant is obliged to deliver a statement in the form of a notarial deed in which he/she submits to enforcement and to vacate and deliver the premises used under the occasional lease agreement within the time limit indicated in the request. In the event of ineffective lapse of the time limit provided in the request, the owner files an application to the court to have an enforcement clause appended to the above-mentioned notarial deed.
Another specific obligation related to this type of lease is the obligation for a prospective tenant to have some other premises to stay in if the obligation to leave the premises is enforced.
The owner of the premises notifies the tax office competent for his/her place of residence of the conclusion of an occasional lease agreement within 14 days from the date of commencement of the lease.
The following documents must be attached to the occasional lease agreement:
In accordance with the Act of 12 March 2022 on assistance to citizens of Ukraine in connection with the armed conflict on the territory of the country, to the tenant who is a citizen of Ukraine shall not apply:
The institutional-quality lease is similar to the occasional lease:
However, the institutional quality lease agreement can be concluded by a natural person, a legal person or an organizational unit other than a legal person, conducting business activity in the scope of leasing premises, and it is concluded for a specified period of time.
There is also a specific kind of that lease – the institutional-quality lease with subsequent ownership. For details please see Registration and taxes.
Premises to be let for communal-flat lease must be suitable for habitation thanks to their equipment and technical condition; the room area per tenant cannot be less than 5 m2 and in the case of a single-person household, 10 m2.
The right to a communal flat is acquired by a court judgment by persons with low or no income who are forced to vacate occupied flat. The court decides whether the persons concerned have the right to conclude a communal flat lease agreement, or not, in a judgment ordering to vacate other premises. The obligation to ensure the communal flat lease of the premises is binding on the commune competent for the location of the premises that have to be vacated.
The court, when examining whether the person is entitled to conclude a communal-flat lease agreement takes into account the manner in which he/she has used the premises so far and the specific material and family situation.
There are some groups of people in respect of whom the court cannot declare the lack of right to conclude a communal flat lease agreement of premises, such as: pregnant women, minors, disabled persons, pensioners or disability pensioners fulfilling the criteria for receiving a social assistance benefit persons, those officially recognized as unemployed – unless they can reside in premises other than those used to date or their financial situation allows them to satisfy their housing needs on their own.
The communal-flat lease agreement is concluded for a fixed period of time and it can be terminated by a commune if the tenant has obtained a legal title to another property.
The lease of premises for temporary purposes may be concluded for the period of one to six months. Eligible persons are those against whom the enforcement proceedings have been commenced on the basis of an enforcement order regarding the duty to vacate the housing premises, without the right to lease communal flat (described above) or replacement premises.
The replacement premises are premises located in the same city as the existing premises, equipped with at least the same technical devices and having the same surface area of the rooms as the premises used to date; one household member may enjoy 10 m2 of the total surface area of the rooms, and in the case of a single household, 20 m2 of that surface. The commune ensures the delivery of replacement premises.
There are some specific cases when the right to lease premises for temporary purposes is not granted, such as: if the order to vacate the premises was made by reason of domestic violence or gross or persistent infractions against the domestic order, if the debtor is obliged to vacate the temporary premises or if the debtor was obliged to vacate the premises occupied under the institutional lease agreement with subsequent ownership.
Regulation of the Minister of Infrastructure of 12 April 2002 on the technical conditions to be met by buildings and their locations specifies some other categories of residential premises. The Regulation distinguishes and provides technical specifications, among others:
Public utility buildings: buildings intended for the needs of public administration, justice, culture, religious worship, education, higher education, science, education, health, social or social care, banking, commerce, gastronomy, services, including postal services or telecommunications, tourism, sport, passenger service in rail, road, air, sea or inland water transport, and another building designed to perform similar functions.
Individual recreation buildings – a building intended for periodic recreation.
Commercial buildings – buildings intended for the non-standard performance of workshop works and for storage of materials, tools, equipment and agricultural produce for residents of a residential building, a collective residence, an individual recreation building, and their surroundings, and for farm storage in agricultural buildings, equipment and agricultural produce.
The regulation covers:
Last modified 13 Mar 2025
Lease of residential premises may be concluded for a defined or undefined period of time. Lease agreement concluded for a term exceeding 10 years is deemed to be concluded for unlimited term. In the case of agreements concluded with entrepreneurs, the lease is deemed to be concluded for an unlimited period of time after a 30-years’ period. Such distinction is essential in terms of establishing termination period which are different by law in these two categories.
Defined lease periods relate to specific types of leases such as occasional leases, premises for temporary purposes or communal-flat leases. Generally establishing duration of residential leases should be approached on a case-by-case basis. For example, operation of apartment hotels is closer to hotels which are booked for short periods of time. Whereas residential leases are intended for satisfying housing needs which assumes a long-term lease.
Last modified 13 Mar 2025
In the premises which constitute the public housing stock, the owner sets rent rates per 1 m2 of usable floor area of the premises, taking into account factors increasing or decreasing their usable value, and in particular:
If the owner is a local government unit, the rent rates are set by the executive body of that unit. Those owners may, at the request of the tenant, apply specific reductions in the rent for low-income tenants.
Generally, the owner (both the local government unit and natural person, a legal person or an organizational unit other than a legal person) of the premises (leased for the housing purposes) may increase the rent or other fees for the use of the property, by giving notice of its current amount, at the end of the calendar month at the latest, while observing three-month notice periods (or longer, if agreed).
An increase in the amount of rent or other fees for the use of the premises during the year may not exceed 3% of the replacement value of the premises. The replacement value of the premises is the product of its usable area and the average cost of construction of 1 m2 of usable area of residential buildings.
Such an increase can be higher only in the following cases specified in law:
Within two months from the day of the notice regarding the increase in the rent, the tenant may:
The amount of rent or other fees may be increased not more often than once per six months.
Security deposit
As a general rule, the landlord may set a security deposit. According to the Tenants' Rights Protection Act, the security deposit may not exceed twelve times the monthly rent for the premises in question.
Last modified 13 Mar 2025
With regard to residential lease the indexation of the rent is not common. However, it is allowed if it does not exceed the average annual growth rate of total prices of consumer goods and services in the previous calendar year (please see Rent freely determined).
Last modified 13 Mar 2025
The cases of the termination of lease agreements by the landlord are specified in detail in law. The tenant is entitled to terminate the agreement at any time without giving any reason. The length of the notice period and the beginning of its period of notice result from the special provisions, the notice periods are indicated in question 7.
The owner's limitations on the possibility of termination apply to both fixed-term and indefinite-term contracts. However, termination of a lease agreement concluded for a definite period by any of the parties is permitted only in the cases specified in the agreement. The lack of contractual provisions specifying the reasons for termination means that a lease agreement for a residential premises concluded for a definite period of time cannot be effectively terminated.
The below examples relate to residential leases only.
No later than one month in advance, at the end of a calendar month, the landlord may terminate the lease if the tenant:
The owner of the premises may terminate the lease agreement with:
No later than six months in advance, at the end of a calendar month, the owner may terminate the legal relationship if he/she intends to live in the leased premises – only if the tenant has a title to another premises in which he/she may live in similar conditions as if he/she had received a replacement premises, or if the owner provides him with replacement premises.
No later than three years in advance, at the end of a calendar month, the owner may terminate the legal relationship with a tenant if he/she intends to live in the leased premises, and does not provide the tenant with replacement premises and the tenant does not have the right to the premises with similar conditions as if he had received a replacement premises.
The landlord may terminate the lease agreement with the six-month notice period in the cases specified in details in law:
Last modified 13 Mar 2025
Generally, if the duration of the lease is specified the tenant may terminate the lease in the cases specified in the agreement or in law.
If the period of the lease is not fixed the tenant may terminate the lease in accordance with contractual notice periods or in accordance with statutory notice periods (whereas the contractual term may not be less beneficial to the residents that the statutory once).
The statutory notice periods are as follows: if the rent is payable at less frequency than one month, the lease may be terminated no later than three months in advance at the end of a relevant calendar quarter; if the rent is payable monthly, one month in advance at the end of a relevant calendar month; if the rent is payable at shorter periods, three days in advance; if the rent is payable daily, one day in advance.
The tenant can terminate the lease agreement in the following cases:
Last modified 13 Mar 2025
In the event of the conclusion of an occasional lease after the expiry or termination of the occasional lease agreement, if the tenant has not voluntarily vacated the premises, the owner delivers to the tenant a request in writing to vacate the premises, with an officially certified signature of the owner. To execute the request, prior to concluding the agreement for occasional lease, the tenant is obliged to deliver a statement in the form of a notarial deed in which he/she submits to enforcement and to vacate and deliver the premises used under the occasional lease agreement within the time limit indicated in the request. In the event of ineffective lapse of the time limit provided in the request, the owner files an application to the court to have an enforcement clause appended to the above-mentioned notarial deed.
Another specific obligation related to this type of lease is the obligation for a prospective tenant to have some other premises to stay in if the obligation to leave the premises is enforced
In other cases the landlord may terminate the lease agreement – if the tenant is in default of payment of the rent for at least three full payment periods – and despite written notice of the intention to terminate the legal relationship and if he/she has set an additional one-month period for payment of overdue and current receivables. In such a situation, the termination may take place not later than one month in advance, at the end of a calendar month.
If the tenant does not vacate the premises the landlord may file an eviction lawsuit with the court. Then, after issuing a judgment ordering the tenant to vacate the premises, the court decides whether or not the persons concerned are entitled to receive a communal flat. If the court decides that the tenant has the right to receive a communal flat, it will also order the suspension of the vacancy until the commune makes an offer to conclude a communal flat lease agreement. If, according to the court order, the tenant has not such right the landlord may enforce the eviction after the judgment became legally binding. With such judgement the owner may commence the enforcement proceedings
The duration of the process depends on the length of the court proceedings and on the time that the commune needs to find an appropriate flat. It can last from several months to two years.
Additionally, the court judgments ordering that premises be vacated are not enforced in the period from 1 November to 31 March, if no premises have been offered to the evicted person to which he/she is to be transferred.
Last modified 13 Mar 2025
The owner is entitled to receive the payments of the fees that are not due to it such as fees for the delivery to the premises of energy, gas, water and sewage, waste and liquid waste collection. Those fees are usually included in the rent. Triple net rent is possible under Polish Law.
Charges for water, heating or rubbish collection that are re-invoiced to tenants should not constitute income in the meaning of tax law therefore such fees collected by the private landlords cannot be the subject to taxation.
Last modified 13 Mar 2025
The private Landlord should notify the Tax Office about the conclusion of anoccasional lease agreement within 14 days from its conclusion. For lease agreements, the tax may be settled only in one form: a lump sum (8.5% or 12.5% of the income – if the annual income exceeds PLN100,000), however the declaration must be filed to the Tax Office by the 20th day of the month following the month in which the income arose. Rental of residential property as a dwelling is exempt from VAT.
Last modified 13 Mar 2025
The tenant and landlord may conclude an institutional lease agreement with the subsequent acquisition of ownership, pursuant to which the tenant is obliged to purchase the leased premises not later than by the end of the lease term after paying the price for the premises. The agreement is concluded for a definite period of time in the form of a notarial deed and the tenant's claim for the transfer of ownership of the premises together with the rights necessary to use the premises is entered in the land and mortgage register. The agreement contains a statement in which the tenant submits itself to enforcement and undertakes to vacate and deliver the premises.
The landlord has the right to terminate an institutional lease agreement with the subsequent acquisition of ownership not later than one month in advance at the end of a calendar month, if the tenant:
The right of pre-emption may also be expressly reserved in the lease agreement. If the leased premises are being sold, the entitled tenant should be immediately notified of the contents of the sales agreement concluded with a third party and may exercise the pre-emption right within one month.
Last modified 13 Mar 2025
Is there a minimum duration for residential leases?
Lease of residential premises may be concluded for a defined or undefined period of time. Lease agreement concluded for a term exceeding 10 years is deemed to be concluded for unlimited term. In the case of agreements concluded with entrepreneurs, the lease is deemed to be concluded for an unlimited period of time after a 30-years’ period. Such distinction is essential in terms of establishing termination period which are different by law in these two categories.
Defined lease periods relate to specific types of leases such as occasional leases, premises for temporary purposes or communal-flat leases. Generally establishing duration of residential leases should be approached on a case-by-case basis. For example, operation of apartment hotels is closer to hotels which are booked for short periods of time. Whereas residential leases are intended for satisfying housing needs which assumes a long-term lease.
Last modified 13 Mar 2025