On 20 May, a new EU regulation on the collection and sharing of data on short-term rentals begins to apply. However, Poland has still not adopted national legislation that would implement the regulation into the domestic legal system. As a result, property owners, booking platforms and local governments are entering a period of uncertainty, in which obligations under EU law are coming into force faster than Polish procedures.
Experts from SonarHome stress that this does not mean an immediate revolution in the market or automatic penalties for landlords. The EU regulation itself does not ban short-term rentals and does not introduce limits on the number of days a property may be rented out. Its main purpose is to bring more order and transparency to the market by giving public authorities better access to data on the scale of short-term rentals, the location of properties and the activity levels of owners. In practice, this means the need to create a system of identification numbers and reporting obligations for platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.
According to Anton Bubiel, housing market expert at SonarHome.pl, the situation in Poland has become particularly complicated. Implementing provisions are still being processed by the government, while a much more restrictive bill proposed by Poland 2050 is also in parliament. For this reason, it cannot yet be said that Poland’s registration and record-keeping system for short-term rentals will come into force on 20 May. Until the bill completes the full legislative path, is signed by the president and published in the Journal of Laws, there can be no talk of new domestic obligations or penalties.
According to data from the Polish Short-Term Rental Association, around 65,000 apartments were offered in this model in Poland in 2024. Airbnb alone listed nearly 60,000 apartment offers, while Booking had more than 35,000, although many listings overlapped. The market is highly concentrated on several major platforms and is focused mainly on large cities, especially Warsaw, Kraków, Gdańsk and Wrocław.
The government draft prepared by the Ministry of Sport and Tourism assumes that rentals shorter than 30 days would be formally included in the system of hotel services. Property owners would be required to register and obtain an identification number, which would then have to appear in listings on booking platforms. The draft also provides for information duties, control mechanisms and administrative penalties for violations.
Experts argue that the government proposal is not revolutionary. Its main goal is to organise a market that has so far operated partly in the grey zone or through scattered local registers. The new rules would mean more formalities, but they should not significantly reduce the scale of short-term rentals. The biggest impact would likely be felt by owners operating outside the official business framework.
The most controversial proposal is the Poland 2050 bill. It would give broad powers to housing communities, cooperatives and local governments. Among other things, it would require property owners to obtain consent from a housing community or cooperative before offering short-term rentals. It would also allow local authorities to create zones restricting such rentals and impose administrative penalties of up to PLN 50,000. In practice, this could significantly reduce the supply of apartments available on booking platforms.
In the coming months, booking platforms may play the key role. The EU regulation places data collection and reporting obligations directly on services such as Airbnb and Booking. This means that these companies will have to adapt their systems regardless of the pace of legislative work in Poland. They may therefore be the first to request additional information or declarations from property owners.
However, experts do not expect platforms to block listings on a mass scale simply because they do not yet include identification numbers. That would be difficult to justify while Poland still has no functioning registration system. A more likely scenario is the introduction of temporary solutions, such as additional forms or declarations submitted by owners to platform operators.
The coming months should therefore be treated as a transitional period. EU law is beginning to operate faster than national implementing rules, creating uncertainty for property owners, platforms and local governments. For now, there is no indication that legally operating landlords will suddenly lose the ability to publish their offers. The bigger question is whether Poland eventually adopts more restrictive rules that could reshape the short-term rental market in major cities.
