This article is a part of Poland Unpacked. Weekly intelligence for decision-makers
Interactive chart 38.8 million people residing in Poland
Statistics Poland (GUS) presented new, experimental data today at a press briefing on people residing in Poland. The figures are preliminary and based on administrative data sources. The population in the study is determined using PESEL identification numbers, activity in databases maintained by the Ministry of Finance, the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS), the National Health Fund (NFZ), and the Agricultural Social Insurance Fund (KRUS), as well as confirmed place of residence in Poland as of December 31 of a given year.
As of that date in 2025, 38.8 million people were residing in Poland. That was about 40,000 more than in the corresponding period of 2024. Foreigners accounted for 2.3 million people (just under 6 percent). Had it not been for the increase in their number over the year (by around 215,000 people), the number of people residing in Poland would have declined.
Nearly 2.2 million people in Warsaw
Statistics Poland (GUS) also published data on people residing in provincial capitals. The figures are shown in the accompanying chart. At the end of 2025, nearly 2.1 million people were residing in Warsaw. It was followed by Kraków (around 900,000 people), Wrocław (around 790,000), Łódź (around 700,000), and Poznań, which closes the top five (around 590,000).
GUS also broke down the population of each city into Polish citizens and foreigners. In absolute terms, Warsaw hosts the largest number of foreign residents (around 300,000), followed by Wrocław (150,000) and Kraków (100,000). There is a strong overrepresentation of foreigners in provincial capitals. Although these cities account for around 20 percent of all people residing in Poland, they concentrate as much as 40 percent of all foreigners in the country.
Higher share of foreigners in wealthier cities
Cities differ significantly in the percentage share of foreign residents among all people residing in them. The highest share is recorded in Wrocław, where it reaches nearly 20 percent. It is also high in Warsaw (14.5 percent), Szczecin, Gorzów Wielkopolski, and Poznań (around 13 percent). The lowest shares are observed in Kielce and Olsztyn (4 percent), as well as across Poland’s so-called eastern wall (Lublin, Białystok, and Rzeszów).
Interactive chart The chart above aims to explain this migration pattern. First, the share of foreigners is higher in wealthier cities. Here, the cities’ economic potential is approximated using average income per taxpayer reported on the most commonly used PIT-37 tax form. This relationship is not driven solely by Warsaw – after removing the capital from the dataset, the positive correlation still holds. This appears broadly intuitive: since people often migrate over long distances anyway, they may as well choose a city where potential earnings are higher.
Interactive chart The distinctiveness of Wrocław and Szczecin
The second relationship visible in the chart is even more striking. The highest share of foreigners – relative to cities’ economic potential – is found in cities that became part of Poland after 1945 and did not previously belong to any of the historical partitions. This is not only the case of Wrocław, but also of Szczecin and Gorzów Wielkopolski. However, Wrocław stands out most clearly as an outlier.
Explainer
Ziemie Odzyskane ("Regained Territories")
Ziemie Odzyskane ("Regained Territories") is the term Poland's postwar communist authorities gave to the roughly one-third of German territory transferred to Polish administration after World War II — Silesia, Pomerania, and southern East Prussia (including cities like Wrocław, formerly Breslau, and Gdańsk/Danzig, plus Szczecin/Stettin).
The 1945 Potsdam Conference set the new German-Polish border at the Oder-Neisse (Odra/Nysa) line, compensating Poland territorially for the eastern lands it lost to the Soviet Union (today's western Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania). Nearly all of the pre-war German population was expelled westward, while the territories were resettled with Poles displaced from the east, migrants from central Poland, and repatriates from abroad.
The "Regained" framing was a deliberate propaganda choice: by casting these as ancient Piast-era Polish lands merely reclaimed after centuries of Germanization, the communist government built a legitimizing national myth around what was, in practice, a wholesale demographic and territorial transformation.
Explainer
Zabory (annexations)
Zabory (singular: zabór, "seizures" or "annexations") refers to the three partitions of Poland carried out between 1772 and 1795 by the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg (Austrian) Empire, which erased the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from the map of Europe for 123 years.
The three powers picked apart the weakened Commonwealth in stages — first in 1772, again in 1793, and finally in 1795 — until nothing remained.
Prussia took the north and west including Gdańsk and Warsaw (which later was taken over by Russians), Austria took the south including Kraków, and Russia absorbed the largest share in the east, including Lithuania and much of today's Belarus and Ukraine.
Each zabór imposed its own administration, legal system, and language policy, and Poles living under Prussian, Austrian, and Russian rule experienced sharply different conditions — Austrian Galicia eventually allowed a degree of Polish cultural and political autonomy, while Russian and Prussian rule involved much harsher Russification and Germanization campaigns, especially after failed uprisings like those of 1830 and 1863.
Regional differences in infrastructure, architecture, religiosity, and even voting patterns across Poland today are often be traced back to which zabór a given area belonged to — the old Austrian-Russian-Prussian boundaries are sometimes only half-jokingly cited by Poles explaining why, say, train lines don't quite connect or why one region votes differently from another.
There are potentially several reasons for this pattern, and they would require deeper analysis. The first migration wave (following the annexation of Crimea) coincided with a period of strong economic expansion in Wrocław and its surrounding region. These areas offered a large number of jobs that did not require perfect command of the Polish language, particularly in manufacturing, logistics, construction, and transport. The structure of the local economy was therefore more conducive to settlement than, for example, Warsaw, where administration and professional services play a relatively larger role.
After Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, a network effect in migration emerged. Migrants rarely choose their destination entirely at random. On the contrary, they rely on social networks that can facilitate a new start in a foreign country – job referrals, help with administrative procedures, or access to housing. As a result, the earlier and relatively large Ukrainian diaspora in Wrocław generated a snowball effect.
There are also potentially important cultural factors. The parents or grandparents of today’s residents of Wrocław or Szczecin often came from different parts of Poland (particularly the former eastern borderlands), meaning that migration and inflows of new residents were historically more “normal” than in regions with centuries-long settlement continuity. This may translate into greater openness toward newcomers among the local population. Geographic proximity to Germany (Szczecin) and Czechia (Wrocław) may also play a significant role.
New, improved data from 2028 onwards
Finally, it is worth returning to the main theme of Statistics Poland (GUS) conference. Data on the number of residents or people living in Poland remain a source of controversy. Different figures affect, among other things, Poland’s GDP per capita, as illustrated when comparing Eurostat and IMF data.
A regulation changing the rules for population statistics will come into force on 1 January 2028. These new standards will largely rely on administrative data sources. In preparation for implementing the new framework, GUS has presented partial results today. This suggests that, in the near future, we may have access to more reliable and higher-quality data on Poland’s population.