This article is a part of Poland Unpacked. Weekly intelligence for decision-makers
The government had promised to bring order to the short-term rental market. Instead, it delivered a watered-down version stripped of nearly everything local authorities and some residents had been calling for. Minister Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz has submitted a dissenting opinion. She is the only one.
The Council of Ministers adopted a bill on Tuesday amending the Act on Hotel Services. The regulation is long overdue. Brussels has been pressing Poland to urgently implement EU rules on collecting data from this market. The document, which will now go to the Sejm, is nevertheless far less ambitious than the version discussed as recently as this spring.
The draft law no longer includes provisions granting local governments the power to designate zones where tourist rentals would be banned, nor does it contain fire-safety exemptions for small-scale landlords. Housing groups have been calling for broader measures for months, and similar proposals have long been put forward by Poland 2050 in its own parliamentary bill.
What is changing in the law
The bill amends regulations that date back nearly 30 years, attempting to catch up with a market that has long operated differently from what lawmakers envisioned in 1997.
“The bill amending the Act on Hotel Services (UC135) brings order to the short-term rental market. It clarifies the definition of a hotel service (up to 30 days). It also introduces mandatory registration of properties and an ID number that must be included in every listing. In addition, it creates a publicly accessible Central Register of Tourist Accommodation Facilities and introduces an obligation to have house rules in place (a minimum of eight hours of quiet hours, contact details, and safety requirements for underage guests),” says Aleksandra Grabarska, legal counsel, Luxembourg-qualified lawyer, partner at KBiW, and an expert in real estate law.
Failure to comply with these obligations will result in significant financial penalties.
“Failure to register a property or provide an ID number may result in fines of up to PLN 50,000 (EUR 11,600). This also applies to online platforms that fail to meet their obligations under EU Regulation 2024/1028,” Grabarska adds.
The scale of the problem is difficult to estimate because short-term rentals are not currently tracked systematically in Poland. According to data from Statistics Poland (GUS), 58.9 million tourists used tourist accommodation facilities in Poland in 2025 – 11.6% more than a year earlier. The new register is intended to show, for the first time, how much of this market operates outside the official records.
The row over self-amendments
The version adopted by the government differs from the original draft prepared by the Ministry of Sport and Tourism. In June and July, two self-amendments submitted by Minister Jakub Rutnicki were sent to the Government Legislation Centre, narrowing the scope of the proposed regulations.
The provision that would have made it easier for owners renting out up to six properties to comply with fire safety requirements was removed. So was the article granting municipal councils the power to create zones excluding short-term rentals. Cities such as Kraków and Sopot have been lobbying for such a provision for years.
“It is difficult, however, to view the draft as a response to the needs of all sides. Local governments are therefore losing a tool of control, while landlords, instead of a simpler route to fire safety compliance, are only receiving the removal of the obligation to attach an expert assessment. This merely shifts the risk to the inspection stage,” Aleksandra Grabarska says.
After the government meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz argued that the new rules would introduce clear rules of the game without overturning the hotel market.
Deputy Minister Ireneusz Raś offered a different explanation for removing the zoning provisions. The government wants to focus first on registration and safety, rather than on complex local restriction mechanisms. He pointed to Spain as an example, where some local governments abandoned such zones because rentals simply moved just beyond their borders.
Minister Pełczyńska-Nałęcz’s dissenting opinion
The government’s decision was not unanimous. Minister of Development Funds and Regional Policy Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz from Poland 2050 formally submitted a dissenting opinion on the bill. On the X platform, she sharply criticized the watered-down version of the legislation.
The head of the Ministry of Development Funds and Regional Policy argued that the Central Register alone would not materially strengthen tenants’ rights. In her view, the adopted shape of the regulations would preserve residents’ sense of helplessness and local governments’ lack of influence over what happens in their buildings.
She announced that the missing solutions – local rental zones, a distinction between occasional and professional rentals, and a greater role for housing associations – would return in a parliamentary bill submitted by Poland 2050, which is being processed in the Sejm alongside the government’s draft.
Industry view: speed is what matters
Not all participants in the debate believe that further expanding the bill would be the right move at this stage. The rental industry is looking at the dispute primarily through the lens of the risk of missing deadlines.
“From the industry’s perspective, what matters most is not who drafted the bill, but the swift and sensible implementation of EU regulations. Prolonged disputes within the coalition, as well as adding rules that go beyond EU requirements – so-called gold-plating – increase the risk that no legislation will be adopted at all. This, in turn, would entrench the grey market and could expose Poland to consequences from the European Commission,” says Ewa Wielgórska, CEO of Fairy Flats.
Not all of the contested proposals therefore have genuine support today.
“Excessive powers for housing associations and cooperatives to decide whom an owner may rent a property to are highly controversial from a social perspective. A more reasonable solution would be to allow local governments to designate zones where short-term rentals would be subject to additional rules. Such a provision was included in the original government draft but was removed amid disputes and accusations of gold-plating,” Wielgórska adds.
The issue is not about rejecting the need for further, more complex regulation. It is about the process of developing it.
“Smart regulations are needed to bring order to this market. However, more complex mechanisms should be prepared carefully and following broad consultations. Today, the priority should be the urgent implementation of EU rules and the establishment of a specific plan for refining the remaining regulations, which would be introduced at a later stage,” Ewa Wielgórska concludes.
Experts: this is only the beginning
The short-term rental market remains a black box today – no one knows its true scale or the number of properties operating in the grey market.
“The government’s bill takes a necessary first step because it introduces a register, data from platforms, inspections and penalties. As a result, a market whose size we do not even know precisely today should become more transparent,” says Aleksandra Krugły.
The register, however, addresses only half of the problem, as it does not resolve what happens to the rights of residents and neighbors.
“The bill primarily answers the question of who provides the service and where. But it is much less effective in addressing the challenge of what should happen when, in a particular district, the scale of short-term rentals begins to conflict with residential functions and the everyday lives of permanent residents. Unfortunately, even the possibility for municipalities to designate restriction zones was removed from the version adopted by the government,” Krugły notes.
The expert points out which elements of Poland 2050’s parliamentary bill could still be transferred into the government legislation, although she stresses that some of them would require very careful refinement.
“That is why it is worth considering a number of proposals from the parliamentary bill — local limits and a clear distinction between the occasional sharing of one’s own home and professional operations conducted year-round, often across multiple properties. I would also not rule out requiring the consent of a housing association or cooperative, although such a solution would require very precise criteria and an appeals procedure. The experience of other countries shows that it can be done,” says Krugły.
As the expert reminds us, a home’s primary purpose is to provide shelter.
“Good regulation should combine an effective register with tools allowing local governments to respond to the local effects of this market, because the fundamental function of housing is, above all, to provide people with a roof over their heads. The current bill organizes accommodation services, but it certainly does not close the debate about their impact on housing,” adds Aleksandra Krugły, housing expert at the Institute of Urban and Regional Development.
The overall assessment of the regulation can be summed up in a single sentence.
“The law provides solid protection for guests and EU statistical data, but does less for the interests of local governments and small-scale landlords,” assesses Aleksandra Grabarska.
What happens next?
The bill will now move to the Sejm, where Poland 2050’s parliamentary proposal – containing most of the solutions removed from the government version – is also expected to be considered in parallel. It will be there that lawmakers decide whether tourist rental restriction zones and a broader role for housing associations will return to the legislation during the current parliamentary term, or whether they will become another casualty of the coalition dispute.
Most of the new obligations are expected to enter into force 14 days after the law is published.
Key Takeaways
- EU deadlines prevailed over regulatory ambitions – the government chose to adopt a narrower but more certain bill rather than risk further delays caused by coalition disputes.
- The battle over short-term rentals does not end at the Council of Ministers – the real fight over rental restriction zones and local government powers will now move to the Sejm alongside Poland 2050’s parliamentary bill.
- The law does more to protect guests and meet EU statistical requirements than to safeguard the interests of residents and local governments – a point acknowledged even by experts who support the broader idea of regulation.