Short-term rental in Poland in 2026: what every apartment owner must know

EU Regulation 2024/1028 entered into force on May 20, 2026. If you rent your apartment short-term - through Airbnb, Booking.com, or any other platform - it applies to you directly.

The complication: Poland has not yet passed the national legislation needed to implement it. That leaves owners in an unusual position. The obligation is real. The tool to fulfil it does not exist yet.

Here is what the regulation requires, where Poland stands, what the fine is, and what you can do right now.

What the EU regulation actually requires

EU Regulation 2024/1028 was adopted by the European Parliament and Council on April 11, 2024 (Source: EU Regulation 2024/1028). It entered into force across all EU member states on May 20, 2026 - directly, without requiring a separate national law to activate it.

The regulation creates five concrete obligations:

1. Mandatory registration. Every apartment or room used for short-term rental must be registered in a central national database. Registration produces a unique identification number for that property.

2. The number must appear in every listing. If your flat is listed on Airbnb, Booking.com, OLX, or any comparable platform, your registration number must appear in that listing. A listing without a valid number is a non-compliant listing.

3. Platforms must verify and remove. Airbnb, Booking.com, and similar platforms are required to check registration numbers. If a listing carries an invalid or missing number, the platform must remove it (Source: EU Regulation 2024/1028).

4. Platforms must share data with authorities. Platforms are required to transmit, regularly and automatically, the number of bookings, nights booked, guests hosted, and the addresses and host details for each listing. This data goes to national and local authorities.

5. Fines for non-compliance. Failure to register or failure to display a registration number carries a fine of up to 50,000 PLN (Source: Infor.pl, May 2026).

Poland's situation: the law gap

Here is where it gets complicated.

The EU regulation is in force. It is law in Poland today. But the national registration system - CWTON (Centralna Wynikowa Ewidencja Obiektów Noclegowych, Poland's planned central short-term rental register) - does not yet exist (Source: kluczo.pl, May 2026).

Two parallel legislative tracks are working toward creating it:

Government project UC135 (Ministry of Sport and Tourism) is still in the Standing Committee of the Council of Ministers. It has not been submitted to the Sejm. Parliamentary project Druk 2353 (submitted by the Poland 2050 parliamentary club on December 29, 2025) had its first Sejm reading in April 2026 and was sent to committee. No second reading date has been set (Source: rp.pl; gazetaprawna.pl).

Experts estimate CWTON cannot realistically launch before Q1 2027 (Source: kluczo.pl, May 2026).

The practical result: you cannot register today, even if you want to. The obligation exists in EU law. The registration mechanism does not. This is a legal gap that the Polish government needs to close - and owners need to monitor.

(Source: wbj.pl - "Registration of all short lease rented rooms starts May 20, 2026")

The fine: 50,000 PLN - who is at risk and when

The 50,000 PLN fine is the ceiling for non-compliance (Source: Infor.pl, May 2026). It applies to failure to register or failure to display a registration number in a listing.

Given that the registration system does not exist yet, enforcement against individual owners for missing registration numbers is not practical before CWTON launches. However, that situation will change when the system is in place.

The more immediate risk runs differently. Platform obligations are already active. Airbnb and Booking.com are required under the regulation to begin data-sharing with authorities. Once CWTON is live, those platforms will also be required to verify numbers. Owners who are unregistered at that point - or whose listings lack a number - will face listing removal and potential fines simultaneously.

The window between CWTON launch and enforcement ramp-up is not guaranteed to be long. Staying informed about the legislative timeline is not optional. It is a financial risk-management task.

What municipalities and housing associations are getting

The same legislative packages introduce two additional powers that are directly relevant to short-term rental owners in urban areas.

Municipalities (gminy) are proposed to gain the right to designate zones where short-term rental is restricted or prohibited, and to cap the number of rental days per year in defined areas (Source: gazetaprawna.pl). Historic city centers and tourist-intensive districts are the most likely candidates. These powers are still in the legislative pipeline as of May 2026 - but the direction is clear.

Housing associations (wspólnoty mieszkaniowe) may gain the ability to vote on restricting or banning short-term rental within their buildings. The mechanics of such a vote - quorum, majority required - depend on the final text of the legislation, which has not yet passed (Source: orla.fm, 2026).

Both of these are proposed, not enacted. But owners in Warsaw, Kraków, Gdańsk, and Wrocław - where STR concentration is highest - should treat them as live risks, not distant possibilities.

Tax enforcement: what Airbnb data sharing means for undeclared income

Platform data-sharing is not only about registration. Tax authorities in Poland will gain direct access to booking data from Airbnb and Booking.com (Source: gazetaprawna.pl). That means: number of nights rented, total payments received, property address, and host details - automatically, without a separate audit.

For owners who have been declaring their rental income correctly, this changes nothing. For owners who have not - the data trail is now systematic and unavoidable.

Short-term rental income in Poland is taxable. The applicable regime depends on your circumstances - ryczałt (lump-sum tax) is the most common approach for individual owners. If you are uncertain about your obligations, consult a tax adviser before the registration system comes online.

What to do right now

The registration system is not ready, so you cannot complete the formal registration process yet. But that is not a reason to wait passively. Several concrete steps are available now.

Track the legislative timeline. Both UC135 and Druk 2353 have public status pages. Set a monthly reminder to check progress. When CWTON moves to a live-launch date, register early - not in the last week before enforcement begins.

Audit your listings. Check every active listing on every platform and make sure all information is accurate and up to date. When registration opens, updating multiple listings at once is more work than updating one.

Check your tax position. If you have been operating without declaring short-term rental income, now is the time to regularise - before data-sharing makes the history visible to tax authorities.

Know your building's governance structure. If you own a flat in a building managed by a housing association, find out when the next general meeting is and what is on the agenda. If a vote on STR restrictions is being discussed, you have a right to participate.

Document your income and expenses. Whatever the regulatory outcome, knowing your real numbers - income per month, costs per month, net return per flat - puts you in a stronger position. When registration arrives and platforms begin sharing data, your own records should already match what is being reported.