The Polish Developer Act 2026: what it covers and who it protects

The “Polish developer act” (ustawa deweloperska) is the everyday name for the Act of 20 May 2021 on the protection of the rights of buyers of residential units and single-family homes and on the Developer Guarantee Fund. Since 1 July 2022 it dictates how developers may take and hold buyers’ money, what they must disclose about a project, and what a contract with a buyer has to contain. It is not a code of good practice: contract terms less favourable to the buyer than the act are void by operation of law (art. 42), and some breaches are criminal offences.

The act was published as Dz. U. 2021 poz. 1177. The current consolidated text is Dz. U. 2026 poz. 880 (announcement of the Marshal of the Sejm of 12 June 2026, legal status as at 9 June 2026) — newer than the Dz. U. 2024 poz. 695 version still circulating online, which predates five amendments. Below we break down the act itself: what it regulates, who it applies to, what it does not cover, and how it has changed. The document you actually sign at the notary is covered separately in our guide to the developer contract in Poland.

Disclaimer: this text is informational and does not constitute legal advice. Legal status described: August 2026. For a specific project, verify the wording of the act as at the date your contract is signed — it has been amended five times in three years.

What the act regulates

Article 1 lists eight areas: protection of buyer payments, rules for releasing funds from the housing escrow account, developer duties before contract, the reservation agreement, the content of the developer contract and other transfer-of-ownership contracts, the rights and duties of both parties, the handover procedure with liability for defects, and the operation of the guarantee fund.

In practice this comes down to three pillars:

Pillar	What it means	Articles
Money outside the developer’s estate	Payments go to a housing escrow account (open or closed), not to the developer’s own account; release is staged and bank-verified. On top sits the DFG, a mandatory non-refundable fund held at the UFG	art. 6, 8, 17, 46–49
Compulsory disclosure	An information prospectus on a statutory template, documents available for inspection (including two years of financial statements) and, since 2025, a mandatory website listing the price per m² of every unit	art. 19a, 20–21, 26
Cost-free exit	Twelve statutory grounds for withdrawal, the contract treated as never concluded, a ban on exit fees, refund within 30 days — and if the developer fails to refund, the DFG pays	art. 43–45, 48

A quieter fourth pillar is that the rules are mandatory law. Article 42 voids terms less favourable to the buyer and substitutes the statute in their place. Part of the contract therefore loses to the act automatically, even if you signed it.

Who the act binds and who it protects

On the seller’s side. The obligations are addressed to the developer — an entrepreneur who carries out a development project as part of their business (art. 5 pkt 1). Legal form and size are irrelevant: a single-purpose vehicle building one block is a developer just as much as a listed group. A separate category is an entrepreneur other than a developer (art. 4) — for example a company that bought a batch of units from the developer and resells them. Where rights are transferred for the first time, a narrower set of provisions applies (art. 29–32, art. 34 ust. 1 pkt 1 and 2, art. 41 ust. 1–3).

On the buyer’s side. Protection belongs only to a nabywca: a natural person entering the contract for a purpose not directly connected with their business or professional activity (art. 5 pkt 5). This is the most frequently misstated provision in the whole act:

• A company is not a nabywca — no protection at all, even when buying a single flat to rent out.
• A natural person buying “through the business”, for the needs of their own activity, also falls outside the act. What decides is the purpose of the purchase, not the mere fact of running a business.
• Nationality is irrelevant. A foreigner buying a flat for personal use is a nabywca on identical terms. A separate question is the MSWiA permit under the 1920 act, which is not required for a self-contained residential unit outside the border zone (strefa nadgraniczna) — see our guide on how a foreigner buys an apartment in Kraków.
• The number of flats does not by itself remove buyer status, but it limits assignment: art. 37a permits assignment only from a contract covering one unit, and only if you have made no other assignment in the preceding three years.

What is covered and what is not

This determines whether the DFG and statutory withdrawal stand behind you, or only the Civil Code. The boundaries are set by articles 2, 3 and 4:

Situation	Scope of protection
Flat under construction bought from a developer	Full — art. 2 ust. 1 pkt 1
Completed flat from a developer’s offer, building already in use	Full — art. 2 ust. 1 pkt 2 and 3 (an innovation of the 2021 act; a completed house falls under pkt 5)
House from a developer — under construction or finished, with the plot or a share in it	Full — art. 2 ust. 1 pkt 4 and 5
Garage, parking space or storage room as a commercial unit bought together with the flat in the same project	Full — art. 2 ust. 2
Plain sale of a finished unit, with no preceding undertaking	Partial — art. 3: only document inspection, reservation and handover rules; no DFG, no statutory withdrawal
Sale by an entrepreneur other than a developer, on first transfer of rights	Partial — art. 4
A standalone commercial unit — office, service unit, aparthotel “investment apartment”	None. Art. 5 pkt 2 excludes units designated for non-residential purposes
Secondary market — buying from a private individual	None. The act governs only buyer-to-entrepreneur relations
Assignment of rights between buyers	The act does not protect the assignee the way it protects the original buyer, but it does restrict assignment (art. 37a) and require a notarial deed

The practical takeaway for Kraków: an “investment apartment” in an aparthotel sold as a commercial unit has no DFG, no escrow account and no statutory right of withdrawal — however residential it looks and feels. The unit type appears in the certificate of self-containment and in the draft contract; check it before you pay a reservation fee.

Developer obligations and buyer rights

Developer obligation	Corresponding buyer right
Provide an open or closed housing escrow account (art. 6) and bear the cost of running it (art. 14)	Pay only into that account, and only in line with construction progress (art. 8)
Pay contributions to the DFG (art. 49)	Payout from the DFG on insolvency, trustee’s withdrawal, or no refund within 30 days (art. 48)
Draw up a prospectus on the statutory template (art. 20) and deliver it free of charge before the contract (art. 21)	Withdrawal within 30 days if the prospectus was not delivered, is incomplete, or does not match reality (art. 43)
Run a website with the price per m² of every unit (art. 19a) and report that data daily to the minister (art. 19b)	Demand the more favourable price where the advertised and contract prices differ (art. 19a ust. 6)
Make available for inspection the land register, KRS extract, building permit, design and two years of financial statements (art. 26)	Assess the developer’s solidity before signing
Hold the mortgage creditor’s consent to unencumbered separation of the unit (art. 25)	Withdrawal within 60 days if it is missing
Run the handover, accept or reject defects within 14 days, remedy within 30 (art. 41); answer for defects under the Civil Code as well (art. 41a)	Refuse handover for a material defect, have defects remedied at the developer’s cost, obtain a surveyor’s opinion
Conclude the contract as a notarial deed and split the costs equally (art. 40)	Half the notarial fee and court charges fall on the developer by statute

The detail behind each line — including the 20 mandatory contract elements and the actual cost figures — is in our guide to the developer contract. The full list of taxes and fees is in taxes and notary costs, and you can price your own case in the property purchase costs calculator.

“Developer standard” — the thing the act does not define

There is no statutory definition of stan deweloperski, the shell-and-core finish standard. What binds the developer is solely the description of the scope and standard of finishing works in the contract and prospectus (art. 35 ust. 1 pkt 6). That is why two flats sold “in developer standard” can differ by tens of thousands of złoty in real outlay. Read the finishing-standard annex line by line rather than trusting the label.

The technical minimum comes from somewhere else: the regulation on technical conditions for buildings (consolidated text Dz. U. 2022 poz. 1225, as amended). Key thresholds, including the “anti-pathodeveloper” package from the regulation of 27 October 2023 (Dz. U. 2023 poz. 2442) — whose entry into force was pushed from 1 April to 1 August 2024 by the regulation of 27 March 2024 (Dz. U. 2024 poz. 474, § 1 pkt 2): a flat of at least 25 m² (§ 94); 25% of the plot as biologically active area in multi-family developments (§ 39); a playground and recreation area for projects above 20 flats (§ 40); a partition between adjoining balconies at least 2.2 m high and 2 m wide (§ 95a); a room for bicycles and prams of at least 15 m² (§ 98a); and an apartment entrance door with acoustic insulation of at least 37 dB (§ 326). The package’s general transitional rule (§ 2 of poz. 2442) keeps the old requirements where, before it took effect, a permit application had been filed or a permit issued. Many buildings going up in Kraków today lawfully follow the older rules — the permit date is in the prospectus and in the contract.

§ 56a — the minimum size of a commercial unit — deserves separate treatment. This is the rule that closed the loophole of micro-studios sold as service units, but it carries three carve-outs of its own and its own date mechanism (§ 56a ust. 2 and 3). The 25 m² floor does not apply to: units on the first or second above-ground storey with direct access from outside (ust. 2); units in collective residence buildings (hotel, motel, guesthouse, holiday home — the usual classification of an aparthotel) and in single-family houses with a commercial unit carved out (ust. 3 pkt 1), an exclusion with no end date; and buildings for which a building permit was issued before 1 August 2024, or a construction notification was made without objection (ust. 3 pkt 2). Note the trigger in the third case: what counts is the permit being issued, not the application being filed.

How the act has changed

2011 → 2021

Its predecessor — the act of 16 September 2011 (Dz. U. 2011 nr 232 poz. 1377, in force from 29 April 2012) — was repealed by article 80 of the 2021 act.

Issue	2011 act	2021 act
Payment protection	Four options, including a bare open escrow account with no further security	Open or closed escrow account — always plus the DFG
Guarantee fund	Did not exist	DFG held at the UFG (art. 46–49)
Completed flat from a developer’s offer	Outside the act	Covered (art. 2 ust. 1 pkt 2 and 3; a completed house under pkt 5)
Garage or storage room bought with the flat	Outside the act	Covered (art. 2 ust. 2)
Reservation agreement	Unregulated	Chapter 5: written form, fee capped at 1% of the price, refunds including double the fee
Handover and defects	Protocol, 14 and 30 days (art. 27)	Extended procedure in art. 41: silence counts as acceptance of a defect, material defect, refusal of handover, surveyor
Civil Code warranty (rękojmia)	Express cross-reference (art. 27 ust. 6)	The cross-reference was missing at first — restored only by art. 41a on 9 September 2025
Assignment	Unrestricted	Limits under art. 37a from 16 July 2023
Price transparency	None	Mandatory website with price per m² from 11 July 2025

Two points from that table are worth remembering. The old act allowed a bare open escrow account: if the developer went insolvent, the buyer lost the instalments already released — precisely the gap the DFG closed. And for three years it was disputed whether Civil Code warranty rules applied to defects at all, because the 2021 act, unlike the 2011 one, contained no cross-reference. Article 41a settled it.

Amendments 2023–2027

In force from	Instrument	What it introduced
16.07.2023	Dz. U. 2023 poz. 1114	Art. 37a — assignment limits; assignment of a reservation agreement void outside close family
11.07.2025	Dz. U. 2025 poz. 758	Art. 19a and 19b — website with price per m², daily data reporting; projects already selling had until 11.09.2025 to comply
22.08.2025	Dz. U. 2025 poz. 1077	Art. 76 ust. 1a — for “transitional” projects the DFG contribution is calculated at the rate in force on 1 July 2022
09.09.2025	Dz. U. 2025 poz. 1167	Art. 41a — cross-reference to Civil Code warranty rules
02.12.2025	Dz. U. 2025 poz. 1669	Launch of Portal DOM, run by the UFG (art. 56a ust. 1)
13.02.2026	Dz. U. 2026 poz. 27	Art. 5a — price as floor area × rate per 1 m², measured under the Polish Standard in force on the permit application date
02.10.2026	Dz. U. 2025 poz. 1669	Expanded data set in the DFG register
11.11.2026	Dz. U. 2026 poz. 1077	Art. 19b reporting in a standardised electronic format, with template documents on the open data portal
02.04.2027	Dz. U. 2025 poz. 1669	Public disclosure of data on Portal DOM (art. 56f) — actual transaction prices for new-build flats

The last three rows are future dates as at August 2026. The direction is unmistakable: the legislator keeps shifting emphasis from protecting money to publishing prices. From 2027, comparing a developer’s asking price with real transactions should stop being guesswork.

When the old act still applies

Contrary to common belief, the 2011 act did not vanish on 1 July 2022. Chapter 11 of the new act set up a transition:

• Art. 76 ust. 1: for projects where sales began before 1 July 2022 and at least one developer contract had been signed by then, the old rules applied for two years, until 1 July 2024.
• Art. 76 ust. 2: for contracts signed within that two-year window where ownership had still not been transferred after 1 July 2024, the old rules continue to apply. That is why contracts governed by the 2011 act — with no DFG — still exist in Kraków in 2026.
• Art. 76 ust. 3: a developer running a project without an escrow account on 1 July 2022 had 30 days to open one.
• Art. 77: where an investment task was carved out before 1 July 2022 but its sales started afterwards, the new act applies in full.
• Art. 76 ust. 1a (added 22 August 2025): for transitional projects the DFG contribution is calculated at the rate in force on 1 July 2022 — 0.45% for an open account and 0.1% for a closed one.

Practical conclusion: if the project you are buying into started selling before July 2022 — and some in Kraków are still completing — ask outright which act governs your contract and whether a DFG contribution is being paid. The answer should follow from the prospectus; if it does not, that in itself is a warning sign.

Who enforces the act

Chapter 9 contains criminal provisions: failure to provide buyers with a payment protection measure carries a fine, restriction of liberty or up to two years’ imprisonment (art. 57); starting sales without preparing a prospectus is punishable by a fine (art. 58); giving false or withholding true information in the prospectus, up to two years (art. 59); lacking the mortgage creditor’s consent when sales begin, a fine (art. 60). Where the developer is a company, the natural person acting on its behalf bears the liability (art. 61). A separate provision targets banks: releasing escrow funds to the developer contrary to the act, or without verifying that a construction stage has been completed, carries up to two years (art. 62).

There is also a consumer track, and it is broader than usually reported. Breaching the price-transparency duties — running the website, publishing and updating prices, and quoting the site address in adverts and offers (art. 19a ust. 1–4) — is expressly designated a practice infringing collective consumer interests under art. 24 ust. 2 of the Competition and Consumer Protection Act (art. 19a ust. 5). The same designation covers failure to report that data daily to the minister (art. 19b ust. 1 and 2, read with art. 19b ust. 4). Either way it is a matter for the President of UOKiK, with fines calculated on turnover. Separately, UOKiK is challenging one-sided price indexation clauses in developer contracts; its explanatory proceedings reached 87 businesses.

What this means for a buyer in Kraków

1. Establish whether your transaction is covered at all. A flat from a developer: yes. A commercial unit in an aparthotel, a purchase through a company, the secondary market: no.
2. Check when the project started selling. Before July 2022 means the transitional regime of art. 76 may apply.
3. Check the building permit date. Issued before 1 August 2024 means the newer technical conditions do not apply.
4. Open the developer’s price page. Since 2025 the price per m² of every unit must be there, with a change history. Its absence breaches art. 19a and is a bargaining point.
5. Do not negotiate what the statute already wins for you. Article 42 voids less favourable terms — save your negotiating capital for deadlines, penalties and the floor-area reconciliation clause.

Current projects and their construction stages are collected in our overview of new developments in Kraków. If you want someone to go through the prospectus and draft contract with you against these points, get in touch — in our model the developer pays the commission, so the buyer pays nothing.