Economic News

• PRICES: Poland's CPI inflation once again surprised on the downside, coming in at 2.5% year-on-year in June, compared with the consensus expectation of 2.8%. The surprise was largely driven by non-core components, while core inflation remained close to 3%. A more detailed commentary on these data can be found here.
• SENTIMENT: The Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) produced by European Commission has risen in June from 100,3 to 100,6 for Polish economy. More generally, business sentiment in Poland has been improving in recent months. Based on soft data alone (such as business tendency surveys published by Statistics Poland (GUS) and the European Commission), we estimate that GDP growth in the second quarter reached 3.6–3.7% year-on-year.

Poland's manufacturing PMI on the other hand unexpectedly fell from 49.4 to 46.1, diverging from signals provided by other business sentiment indicators for the same period, including those published by Statistics Poland (GUS) as well as PMIs for other European economies. It is worth noting that in recent years the Polish PMI has exhibited a distinctive seasonal pattern, tending to weaken in the middle of the year before rebounding in the autumn.

• FISCAL POLICY: Approximately 63% of this year’s gross borrowing requirements of the state budget have already been financed – according to Deputy Finance Minister Jurand Drop.
• HOUSING: Transaction prices of residential properties in Poland’s ten largest cities increased by 3.3% year-on-year in Q1 2026 in the primary market and by 1.6% yoy in the secondary market – according to the National Bank of Poland (NBP). These growth rates are broadly in line with those recorded over the preceding three quarters.
• MANUFACTURING: In June, 66.4 thousand new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles (up to 3.5 tonnes) were registered in Poland, marking a 19.7% year-on-year increase. In total, 349.9 thousand vehicles were registered in the first half of the year, 9.9% more than in the corresponding period of 2025. Chinese manufacturers continued their rapid expansion in the Polish market, with their market share reaching a record high of 14.9% in June, according to the latest data.

How Many People Actually Live in Poland?

If you asked a random passer-by in Poland, they would most likely answer “38 million”, because that is the figure they learned at school, read in an encyclopedia, or came across in one of thousands of articles. However, that number is most likely incorrect. The answer to the question posed in the title is more complicated than it may seem at first glance. In fact, StatOffice (GUS) routinely publishes two different and mutually inconsistent figures. Yesterday, it presented a third one, which prompted us to briefly discuss them. Here they are (as of the end of 2025):

• Population according to the national definition – 37.3 million. Under this methodology, Poland's population stood at around 38 million for many years. However, demographic trends (with fertility below replacement rate for years) and the results of population censuses have ultimately pushed that benchmark lower. This is also the population measure used as the “capita” denominator in Eurostat's GDP per capita statistics.
• Resident population – 36.5 million. This methodology is frequently used by international organizations and is recommended by the European Parliament, among others.
• Population present in Poland based on so-called “signs-of-life” data – 38.8 million at the end of 2025. This is the new addition to the set of estimates.

One can also try to combine these estimates, incorporate additional sources, and make further adjustments, but this does little to reduce the confusion.

Population of Poland, estimates, millions of people

Source: Pekao Research

Where does Confusion Come Frome?

The discrepancies stem from the fact that the different population measures are based on fundamentally different definitions. The national population definition is based on the concept of registered residence. Under this approach, a person residing in Poland must be registered as a permanent resident and may stay abroad temporarily—with “temporary” effectively meaning for any length of time. As a result, this definition includes virtually all contemporary Polish emigrants in Poland’s population while excluding a large share of immigrants. By contrast, being classified as part of the usually resident population generally requires living in Poland continuously for at least 12 months. This definition provides a more realistic picture of the number of Poles actually living in the country, but it also struggles to capture immigration accurately, as determining either the actual length of stay or an individual's intended duration of residence is difficult. More broadly, Polish public statistics are not especially precise when it comes to immigration.

In practice, there are numerous partial and incomplete data sources on immigrants, as well as a range of estimates produced by institutions such as StatOffice (GUS), the National Bank of Poland (NBP), and private-sector organizations. However, the nature of migration means that many immigrants effectively slip through the cracks of the second definition.

The inability to establish Poland's actual population with precision has significant consequences—and some of them help explain why reforming public statistics is so challenging.

• It distorts statistics that express economic variables on a per-capita basis (such as GDP per capita) as well as indicators that depend directly on population figures (for example, voting power within the EU).
• It also affects changes in those indicators, particularly over shorter time horizons, which can influence assessments of economic convergence and growth performance.
• In addition, it distorts the geographical distribution of the population, affecting such issues as interregional transfers, the size of electoral districts, estimates of demand for public services, spatial planning, and other policy decisions.

StatOffice has been criticized by experts for years for relying on the national population definition. The new experimental population estimate is an attempt to address some of those concerns. What did the StatOffice do? It subtracted emigrants and added immigrants, concluding that 38.8 million people were present in Poland at the end of last year—around 1.5 million more than the official population estimate suggests.

Out of this population of nearly 39 million, 2.3 million were foreign nationals, accounting for roughly 6% of the total population (with higher shares in large urban agglomerations). Their geographical distribution is shown on the map below. We would simply note that, according to StatOffice, the increase in the number of foreign nationals in 2025 (215,000 people) was more than twice as large as the increase in the number of foreigners registered in Poland's social insurance system.

Geographical Distribution of Foreign Nationals Residing in Poland

Financial Markets Update

• The zloty came to the edge of a cliff—but stepped back. At the beginning of last week, EUR/PLN touched an important resistance level (4.30 per euro), but failed to break through it. A key factor was the weakening of the US dollar against major currencies, including the euro. Nevertheless, the episode highlighted the zloty’s sensitivity to both USD valuations and expectations regarding future interest rate developments.
• Recent weeks have brought another significant shift in financial markets. Expectations of interest rate hikes in Poland have disappeared from the yield curve and have been replaced by expectations of rate cuts. The impact has been striking: the front end of the PLN IRS curve has fallen below 4%, while all major benchmarks of the domestic interest rate market have returned close to levels seen before the outbreak of the Gulf War. Over the past month, spreads versus US and German 10-year government bond yields have narrowed by 35 and 60 bps respectively. It is therefore hardly surprising that the zloty has weakened. The disappearance of expectations for further monetary tightening in Poland has provided little support for the currency.
• In the coming days, markets may either be disappointed or receive confirmation of their expectations regarding future interest rate moves. The Monetary Policy Council (MPC) meeting and the subsequent press conference by NBP Governor Adam Glapiński are scheduled for this week (Thursday). Other MPC members have already offered some hints about the current thinking at the NBP: interest rate hikes are no longer on the table, and the Council is now considering—at least hypothetically—the possibility of rate cuts. The NBP Governor may well confirm this shift in stance.