A Warsaw developer has sent you a prospekt informacyjny before the reservation, and every page is in Polish. It is the information prospectus: a document the developer must give you free of charge, with its annexes, on a durable medium (trwały nośnik), before you sign a reservation agreement (Article 21 of the Developer Act). Polish law does not require it to be in English, so you will be working with the Polish text. This guide gives you the Polish headings to look for, what each part must contain and what to compare it with before you pay the reservation fee. That fee cannot exceed 1% of the price stated in the prospectus (Article 32(2)).
Legal basis: the Act of 20 May 2021 on the protection of the rights of buyers of a dwelling or a single-family house and the Developer Guarantee Fund (“Developer Act”), consolidated text: Journal of Laws 2026, item 880. The buyer-protection rules have applied since 1 July 2022. All rules and figures below are as of October 2026.
Checklist before you pay a reservation fee (as of October 2026)
- The date the prospectus was drawn up (“Data sporządzenia prospektu”) and whether you have every annex or update.
- The land and mortgage register number (numer księgi wieczystej, KW) and the entries in Section IV of the register (mortgages and pending applications).
- The building permit (pozwolenie na budowę): does it exist, is it final, has it been appealed?
- The type of escrow account (mieszkaniowy rachunek powierniczy), open or closed, the bank, and the Developer Guarantee Fund (DFG) contribution rate.
- The schedule (harmonogram): at least 4 stages and a planned completion date for the works.
- The date by which ownership of your flat will be transferred, in the individual part.
- The flat’s price, price per m² and usable floor area, and whether the price matches the price on the developer’s website.
- Whether the agreement allows price indexation (waloryzacja ceny), and on what terms.
- The surroundings: the local zoning plan for plots up to 100 m from the development and planned projects within 1 km.
- Three annexes: the floor plan, the draft developer agreement and the site layout sketch.
- The reservation agreement itself: in writing, for a fixed term (with time for a credit decision), with a fee of no more than 1% of the price in the prospectus.
- If the Act on the Acquisition of Real Estate by Foreigners applies to you (for example, you are not an EEA or Swiss citizen): whether the purchase includes a share in a separate plot, such as an access road (see the section on your situation as a foreigner).
What is the prospekt informacyjny and when must you receive it?
A developer that starts selling must prepare a prospectus for the development using the template annexed to the Developer Act (Article 20(1) and (3)). It must deliver it before the developer agreement (umowa deweloperska) and, if you first sign a reservation agreement (umowa rezerwacyjna), before that (Article 21(1)).
Three delivery rules apply:
- Free of charge and with its annexes, on a durable medium (Article 21(2)). The Act defines this as a medium that lets you store the information and reproduce it unchanged (Article 5(11)).
- On paper if you ask, at the developer’s business premises, if you received it only in another form (Article 21(3)).
- It becomes part of your contract. With its annexes, the prospectus is an integral part of the reservation agreement and the developer agreement (Article 23(2)). It is not a sales brochure.
The developer also publishes the general part of the prospectus on its website from the start of sales, and before the first reservation agreement if it signs them (Article 19a(1), in force since 11 July 2025). The same website shows the price per m² including VAT. If the price on the website differs from the price offered to you, you can demand a contract at the price most favourable to you (Article 19a(6)). Because the general part is online, you can run it through a translation tool before your visit. That helps you find the fields; it is not a certified translation.
One exception: if you buy a finished flat from a developer under an ordinary sale agreement, you do not get the full prospectus. The developer gives you, on a durable medium, a shorter information sheet about the property and the flat, without the parts on financing, protection of payments, schedule and withdrawal (Articles 3 and 27(1)).
Which Polish headings should you look for?
At the top of the template is the field “Data sporządzenia prospektu” with the note “Stan na dzień sporządzenia prospektu informacyjnego” (as at the date the prospectus was drawn up). If something has changed since then, the developer delivers an annex or a new prospectus, with the change marked so that you can identify it, in time for you to read it before the agreement (Article 22).
The prospectus has a general part (część ogólna) about the developer and the development, and an individual part (część indywidualna) about your flat. Based on the statutory template, as of October 2026:
Scroll the table sideways to see all columns.
| Part | Polish words that point you there | What it contains | What to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| General: developer | deweloper, KRS | company details and KRS number, three completed developments (where they exist), including the most recent, with the date of the occupancy permit | the field on enforcement proceedings (postępowania egzekucyjne) for more than PLN 100,000 |
| General: property | nieruchomość, księga wieczysta, działka | address, plot number, land and mortgage register number | mortgages and applications in Section IV |
| General: construction | pozwolenie na budowę, roboty budowlane | building permit, planned dates of works, number and layout of buildings, minimum distance between them | how the usable floor area is measured |
| General: money | rachunek powierniczy, harmonogram, waloryzacja, odstąpienie | sources of financing, escrow account, DFG rate, schedule, indexation, withdrawal conditions | the type of account and the indexation rules |
| Individual | cena, powierzchnia użytkowa, przeniesienie prawa własności | price of the flat, price per m², usable floor area, ownership transfer date, location in the building, layout, finishing standard, parking spaces, utilities, access to a public road | whether the price and floor area match the offer |
Three annexes come with the prospectus: a floor plan with your flat marked, the draft developer agreement, and a sketch of the site layout showing the building and its surroundings. If one is missing, hold off on paying the fee. For the meaning of the other Polish words in these documents, see a glossary of the Polish property terms in your documents.
Which details should you compare with the land register, KRS and the building permit?
This is a comparison of numbers and names, not a full check of the developer, so you do not need to read Polish to do it:
- Land and mortgage register. Enter the KW number from the prospectus in the Ministry of Justice’s Electronic Land and Mortgage Registers search. Check that the entries in Section IV (Dział IV) match the prospectus field on mortgages.
- KRS. Check the KRS number from the general part in the KRS search: are the company name and registered office the same as in the prospectus and the draft agreement?
- Building permit. The prospectus has three yes/no fields: is there a permit, is it final, has it been appealed? Next to them are the permit number and the authority that issued it.
Other documents you can see at the developer’s office. If you ask, even before the reservation, the developer must show you at its premises, among others, the current land and mortgage register, a KRS extract, the building permit, financial statements for the last two years, the building design and the consent of the bank or other mortgage creditor to transfer the flat free of the mortgage, or an undertaking to give it (Article 26(1)).
Escrow account and DFG: where are they in the prospectus and what do they mean for your payments?
In the general part, look for the field “Środki ochrony nabywców” (buyer protection measures). It shows:
- the type of escrow account: otwarty (open) or zamknięty (closed);
- the DFG contribution rate as a percentage;
- the institution that secures the buyer’s money.
The developer, not you, pays the DFG contribution (Article 49(5)). As of October 2026, the rates under the regulation of 21 June 2022 (Journal of Laws 2022, item 1341) are 0.45% for an open account and 0.1% for a closed one; the Act caps them at 1% and 0.1% (Article 49(7)).
The DFG is a separate account within the Insurance Guarantee Fund (UFG) (Article 46). It refunds payments made into an open escrow account in the cases listed in Article 48(1), for example if the developer goes bankrupt, or if you withdrew and did not get your money back on time. If the bank holding the account becomes insolvent, the DFG covers the part of your payments not paid out by the Bank Guarantee Fund (BFG) (Article 48(2)); the template’s mandatory paragraph puts BFG protection at the equivalent of €100,000 per depositor (as of October 2026). More on the fund: dfg.ufg.pl.
What about the reservation fee? It counts towards the price. After you sign the developer agreement, the developer must pay it into the escrow account within 7 days (Article 32(3)–(4)). What happens to the fee if the deal falls through is covered in what you can lose under a reservation agreement.
The schedule and dates: what is binding and what is an estimate?
The schedule (harmonogram przedsięwzięcia) divides construction into stages. It must have at least 4 stages, and each stage must account for no less than 10% and no more than 25% of the total costs of the project, not of your flat’s price (Article 24(2), as of October 2026). Each stage has a completion date and a percentage share of costs. The Act itself calls that breakdown an estimate (“szacunkowy”, Article 24(1)).
How to read the dates:
- “Planowany termin rozpoczęcia i zakończenia robót budowlanych” in the general part is the planned start and end of construction work.
- “Termin, do którego nastąpi przeniesienie prawa własności” in the individual part is the date by which ownership of your flat will be transferred. Compare it with the date in the draft agreement.
- Price indexation. The prospectus has a field “Dopuszczenie waloryzacji ceny oraz określenie zasad waloryzacji”. If it says “tak” (yes), read the rules before you pay the reservation fee.
The prospectus is an integral part of the agreement (Article 23(2)). If the agreement gives a different date from the prospectus, the rules in the last section of this guide apply. For checks you can run on the construction itself, see how to check whether an off-plan building will be finished on time.
What must the developer disclose about the surroundings?
The template requires three kinds of information about the neighbourhood (as of October 2026):
- Existing facilities that affect living conditions, in particular those causing nuisance through smell, noise or light. The template sets no radius for this field.
- Local zoning plan provisions for plots up to 100 m from the boundary of the development: land use, building intensity and height, share of biologically active area, minimum number of parking spaces. If there is no plan, the developer writes “Brak planu” (no plan).
- Planned projects within 1 km: from local plans, zoning decisions, environmental decisions, restricted-use areas and flood risk maps, with public-purpose projects such as roads, railway lines, an airport or transmission networks listed separately. A footnote to the template also names air corridors, sewage treatment plants, waste incinerators, landfills and cemeteries.
Compare this information with the site layout sketch (annex 3). If something important to you, such as a road or a tram line, appears on the sketch but not in the description, ask about it in writing.
Cannot read Polish? Your situation as a foreigner
Does the prospectus have to be in English?
No. The Developer Act, including the prospectus template, contains no rule on language at all. The general Polish Language Act applies (consolidated text: Journal of Laws 2026, item 81, as of October 2026):
- in dealings with a consumer who lives in Poland, under a contract performed in Poland, Polish is used (Article 7(1)), including in documents required by other laws (Article 7(3));
- a document may have a parallel version in another language. If the consumer is a Polish citizen, the Polish version is the basis for interpretation (Article 8(1a));
- a contract with a consumer may be drawn up in a foreign language if the consumer asks for it, knows that language, is not a Polish citizen and has first been told of the right to a document in Polish (Article 8(1b)).
None of these rules obliges the developer to translate the prospectus. You can ask for an English version, but how these rules apply to the prospectus itself is a question for a lawyer.
What happens at the notary if you do not speak Polish?
The developer agreement is signed as a notarial deed (akt notarialny) (Article 40(1) of the Developer Act). Under the Law on Notaries (consolidated text: Journal of Laws 2026, item 614, as of October 2026):
- notarial acts are performed in Polish. At a party’s request, the notary can also perform the act in a foreign language, either personally, if the notary’s command of that language has been demonstrated in the way required of sworn translators, or with a sworn translator (Article 2 § 3);
- if you do not know Polish and no translation into a language you know is attached, the notary translates the deed personally or through a translator (Article 87 § 1(1));
- before signing, the deed is read out, and the notary must make sure that you understand its content and meaning (Article 94 § 1);
- if a foreigner acquires property under the deed, the deed states that buyer’s citizenship (Article 92 § 1(4a)).
A sworn translator (tłumacz przysięgły) produces certified written translations and interprets orally (Article 13 of the Act on the Profession of Sworn Translator, consolidated text: Journal of Laws 2019, item 1326). The Minister of Justice keeps and publishes the list of sworn translators (Articles 6(2) and 10). Because the prospectus becomes part of your agreement, it is worth understanding it before the reservation, not only when the deed is read out at the notary.
Do you need an MSWiA permit for a new-build flat?
Not for the flat itself. Under the Act on the Acquisition of Real Estate by Foreigners (consolidated text: Journal of Laws 2017, item 2278, as of October 2026), a foreigner of any citizenship can buy a self-contained flat without a permit, and a garage unit or a share in one if it serves the buyer’s housing needs (Article 8(1)(1) and (1a)). These exemptions do not apply in the border zone (Article 8(3)); Warsaw is not in it. EEA and Swiss citizens need no permit at all (Article 8(2)).
One detail to check in the prospectus: a share in the land and common parts of the building goes with the flat and needs no permit. But according to the FAQ of the Ministry of the Interior and Administration (MSWiA), a share in a separate property sold together with the flat, such as an access road or part of a residential complex, does require a permit for a buyer covered by the Act. Look at the access to a public road field in the individual part and at the draft agreement. If the purchase includes a share in another plot, ask the developer in writing which plot it is and check with the notary whether you need a permit before you sign.
Paying rent while the building goes up
If you rent in Warsaw, the schedule tells you roughly how long you will pay rent alongside the price instalments. According to Statistics Poland (GUS), multi-family residential buildings completed in 2025 took on average 24.8 months to build (“Efekty działalności budowlanej w 2025 r.”, published 30 June 2026). You pay into the escrow account stage by stage, after each stage of the schedule is completed (Article 8 of the Developer Act), so the planned completion date in the general part and the ownership transfer date in the individual part are the two dates to plan your rent around. If you plan to finance part of the price with a loan, ask a mortgage adviser (doradca kredytowy) first, and agree a reservation term long enough for the bank’s decision (Article 31). The trade-off between a ready flat and an off-plan one is covered in the cost of waiting for an off-plan flat.
What if the agreement differs from the prospectus?
During the reservation. The developer must tell you about changes to the prospectus and its annexes and say what each change concerns (Article 33(1)). If it changed the prospectus without telling you, the reservation fee must be refunded without delay (Article 34(1)(3)).
When you sign the developer agreement. Changes made between delivery of the prospectus and signing must be clearly highlighted in the agreement. They bind you only if you agree to include them (Article 35(2)–(3)). The agreement also contains your statement that you received the prospectus and read it (Article 35(1)(16)), so compare the two documents before you sign. If you rely on a translation, compare the Polish texts, not only the translations.
After signing. You can withdraw from the developer agreement within 30 days of signing it (Article 43(2), as of October 2026), among other cases where:
- the information in the agreement does not match the prospectus, except for changes you accepted under Article 35(2);
- the developer did not deliver the prospectus or the information about a change;
- the data in the prospectus did not match the facts or the legal position on the day you signed;
- the prospectus lacked data required by the template.
You make the withdrawal statement in writing, with a notarised signature and with consent to the removal of your claims from the land and mortgage register (Article 45(1)). The agreement is then treated as never concluded, you bear no withdrawal costs, and the developer must return the money paid out to it from the escrow account without delay, no later than 30 days after receiving your statement (Article 44(2)–(3)). This right applies to the developer agreement. For a reservation, the rules in Articles 33–34 described above apply.
FAQ
Does a Polish developer have to give me the prospekt informacyjny in English?
No. As of October 2026, the Developer Act (Journal of Laws 2026, item 880) contains no rule on the language of the prospectus. The Polish Language Act allows a parallel version in another language, and a buyer who is not a Polish citizen and knows that language can ask for the contract to be drawn up in it (Article 8(1a)–(1b)), but neither act obliges the developer to translate. You can ask for an English version; the developer is not required to provide one.
Can I sign the developer agreement if I do not speak Polish?
Yes. The developer agreement is a notarial deed (Article 40(1) of the Developer Act), and the deed is drawn up in Polish. At your request, the notary can also conduct it in another language, personally or with a sworn translator. If you do not know Polish and no translation is attached, the notary must translate the deed for you, and must make sure you understand it before you sign (Law on Notaries, Articles 2 § 3, 87 § 1(1) and 94 § 1, as of October 2026).
How much can a Warsaw developer charge for a reservation?
As of October 2026, the reservation fee cannot exceed 1% of the flat’s price stated in the prospectus (Article 32(2) of the Developer Act). The reservation agreement must be in writing, or it is void (Article 30(1)), and it is concluded for a fixed term. If you are taking a mortgage, that term should allow for the bank’s credit decision (Article 31).
Do I need a permit from the Ministry of the Interior (MSWiA) to buy a new-build flat in Warsaw as a non-EU citizen?
Not for the flat itself. As of October 2026, a self-contained flat, and a garage unit (or a share in one) linked to your housing needs, can be bought without a permit whatever your citizenship, outside the border zone; Warsaw is not in it. According to the MSWiA FAQ, a share in a separate property sold with the flat, such as an access road, does need a permit if the Act applies to you.
How long do I have to withdraw if the contract does not match the prospekt?
As of October 2026, you have 30 days from signing the developer agreement (Article 43(2) of the Developer Act). This covers, among other things, a contract that differs from the prospectus, a prospectus that was never delivered, and prospectus data that do not match the facts or the legal position. The statement must be in writing with a notarised signature (Article 45(1)).
Have a prospekt in Polish and a sales office appointment? Write to us before your first visit to the developer’s sales office (biuro sprzedaży). We will go through the prospectus and the draft agreement with you, in English or another of our seven languages, using this checklist, point out what to ask the developer or a lawyer, and go to the sales office together. You do not pay us a fee for help buying a flat from a developer. Before you write, you can browse new-build flats in Warsaw with the developers’ published prices.
Jawno · Vladyslav Moroz, real estate agent (pośrednik w obrocie nieruchomościami), sole trader with OC liability insurance · +48 692 649 839 · infojawno@gmail.com
This text is for information only and is not legal advice. Law as of October 2026.