Polish Warehouse Starts Reach 738,000 Sq M in Q3 as Vacancy Falls to 5.7%

Developers started work on 738,000 square metres of warehouse space in Poland in the third quarter of 2026, roughly matching the entire first half and rising about 54% year on year. Vacancy fell for a fourth consecutive quarter to 5.7%, while investment transactions reached approximately €1.3 billion over nine months, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

Authors/source: Robert Tomaszewski, Szczepan Gowin and Ewa Derlatka-Chilewicz, Cushman & Wakefield. Polish original published on 10 November 2026 at 10:22:36 UTC.

Poland’s warehouse market entered the final months of the year with less vacant space and a marked recovery in construction and investment activity. Occupiers signed leases for almost 1.8 million square metres during the quarter, and the consultancy expects full-year investment transactions to exceed €2 billion.

Construction starts catch up with the first half

The approximately 738,000 square metres started between July and September compares with 402,000 in the second quarter and 331,000 in the first. Starts were almost twice the 383,500 square metres completed during the quarter.

Total space under construction rose from 1.3 million square metres at the end of June to 1.67 million at the end of September. The pipeline also exceeded the 1.56 million square metres recorded a year earlier.

A growing share of projects has tenants in place before completion. Speculative development accounts for about 38% of the pipeline, down from 45% a year earlier.

Śląskie, the Silesian region in southern Poland, accounted for almost half of new starts, at 357,000 square metres. It was followed by Mazowieckie, the region around Warsaw, with 119,000; Małopolskie in southern Poland with 85,000; and Pomorskie on the Baltic coast with 67,000.

“The third quarter reversed the trend seen in the first half, when completions exceeded starts. Around 62% of space under construction already has tenants, rising to 72% in Silesia, where development activity is currently strongest. Speculative projects are concentrated in a few regions, principally Mazowieckie and Małopolskie, where approximately 68% and 71% of space under construction, respectively, has yet to be leased,” said Ewa Derlatka-Chilewicz, Head of Research at Cushman & Wakefield.

Occupiers move from renewals to expansion

Gross take-up reached 1.79 million square metres in the third quarter and almost 5.3 million over the first nine months. That compares with 4.5 million in the corresponding period of 2025, an increase of 19% year on year, according to the report. Net take-up, excluding renewals and sale-and-leaseback transactions, was approximately 1.27 million square metres, broadly in line with the second quarter’s 1.26 million.

Renewals have accounted for a progressively smaller share of leasing: 46% in the first quarter, including sale-and-leaseback transactions, followed by 34% in the second and 29% in the third. Renegotiations represented 52% of leasing volume in the first nine months of 2025. Expansions, meanwhile, accounted for 6.8% of demand, up from 2.4% three months earlier.

“Over the past two years, many companies renewed their leases to wait out the uncertainty. Tenants are now making growth decisions again, entering new locations and expanding existing warehouses. The difficulty is that the choice of large, ready-to-occupy premises is shrinking. Companies planning a move in 2027 should start discussions now, because in many regions a development built to their requirements is becoming a realistic option, and that takes longer,” said Szczepan Gowin, Partner and Head of Industrial & Logistics at Cushman & Wakefield.

Vacant space falls by about 27% year on year

Approximately 2.17 million square metres remained vacant at the end of September, more than 240,000 less than three months earlier despite almost 400,000 square metres of new supply. The report puts the quarterly decline in the vacancy rate at 6.4% to 5.7%. The rate was 2.5 percentage points below the 8.2% recorded in September 2025, while the volume of vacant space was about 27% lower.

Availability is tightening fastest in major logistics regions. In Dolnośląskie, or Lower Silesia in southwestern Poland, vacancy fell from about 11% to 4.0% over nine months. The rate in Łódzkie, in central Poland, was 3.4%, and new leases accounted for more than 80% of the 284,000 square metres taken up there during the third quarter.

No new warehouse construction started in Łódzkie during the quarter. Only about 19,000 square metres under construction in the region remained unlet.

Mazowieckie presented a different picture. The region delivered half of Poland’s new supply during the quarter, at 191,000 square metres, and its vacancy rate of 7.2% remained above the national average.

Investment transactions could exceed €2 billion in 2026

“Investment activity in Poland’s warehouse market remains strong in 2026. Transaction volume reached approximately €1.3 billion in the first three quarters, 54% more than in the same period last year. Given the number and value of transactions currently under way and scheduled to close in the fourth quarter, we expect the full-year total to exceed €2.0 billion, confirming a strong recovery in investment activity in the sector,” said Robert Tomaszewski, Associate, Capital Markets Poland, and Co-head of the Logistics Sector at Cushman & Wakefield.

Long-income and value-add strategies together account for more than 90% of this year’s transaction volume. Long-income investors prioritise predictable cash flows backed by long leases and financially strong tenants.

Value-add buyers seek properties whose valuations can be increased through active management. Opportunities include letting vacant space, re-letting, extending the weighted average unexpired lease term (WAULT), upgrading buildings and capturing potential rent increases.

Core and Core+ transactions remain a minority despite a relatively broad selection of high-quality assets on the market. Investors normally attracted to this segment have focused more on Western Europe than on Central and Eastern Europe in recent quarters. Higher financing costs and more attractive returns in Central and Eastern European markets could gradually shift that balance, encouraging some Western European investors to look again at Poland and the wider region.

“The outlook for early 2027 remains positive. Given the transactions that have recently entered exclusivity, we also expect a strong first half next year. Sustaining high volumes later in the year will increasingly depend on attracting new sources of capital, particularly investors from Western Europe,” Tomaszewski said.

“Over the past two years, the pool of active buyers has remained relatively narrow and stable, centred mainly on capital from the United States, France, the Middle East and Central and Eastern Europe. Broadening that group will be one of the key factors determining further growth in market liquidity.”