Doing Business in Poland, 2015

COMPARING BUSINESS REGULATIONS FOR DOMESTIC FIRMS
IN 18 CITIES WITH 188 OTHER ECONOMIES
Doing Business
in Poland 2015

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Doing Business
in Poland 2015
COMPARING BUSINESS REGULATIONS FOR DOMESTIC FIRMS
IN 18 CITIES WITH 188 OTHER ECONOMIES

Doing Business
in Poland 2015
Resources onthe
DoingBusinesswebsite
Doing Business in Poland 2015
http://www.doingbusiness.org/Poland
Current features
News on the Doing Business project
http://www.doingbusiness.org
Rankings
How economies rank—from 1 to 189
http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings
Reports
Access to Doing Business reports as well
as subnational and regional reports,
reform case studies and customized
economy and regional profiles
http://www.doingbusiness.org/reports
Methodology
The methodologies and research papers
underlying Doing Business
http://www.doingbusiness.org/methodology
Research
Abstracts of papers on Doing Business
topics and related policy issues
http://www.doingbusiness.org/research
Doing Business reforms
Short summaries of DB2015 business
regulation reforms, lists of reforms since
DB2008 and a ranking simulation tool
http://www.doingbusiness.org/reforms
Subnational and regional
projects
Differences in business regulations at
the subnational and regional level
http://www.doingbusiness.org/
Subnational
Law library
Online collection of laws and regulations
relating to business
http://www.doingbusiness.org/law-library
Entrepreneurship data
Data on business density (number of
newly registered companies per 1,000
working-age people) for 139 economies
http://www.doingbusiness.org/data
/exploretopics/entrepreneurship
Distance to frontier
Data benchmarking 189 economies to
the frontier in regulatory practice
/distance-to-frontier
Information on good practices
Showing where the many good
practices identified by Doing Business
have been adopted
/good-practice
Doing Business iPhone app
Doing Business at a Glance—presenting
the full report, rankings and highlights
for each topic for the iPhone, iPad and
iPod touch
http://www.doingbusiness.org
/special-features/iphone

Doing Business
in Poland 2015
v Foreword
1 Overview
11 About Doing Business and Doing Business in Poland 2015
19 Starting a business
27 Dealing with construction permits
37 Registering property
45 Enforcing contracts
53 References
59 Data notes
69 City snapshots
75 Indicator snapshots
79 List of procedures
80 Starting a business
149 Indicator details: Enforcing contracts
151 Acknowledgments
Contents
Doing Business in Poland 2015 is the first
subnational report of the Doing Business
series in Poland. It measures business
regulations and their enforcement in all
16 voivodeships across 18 cities—taking
account of pairs of voivodeship capitals:
Zielona Góra and Gorzów Wielkopolski,
Bydgoszcz and Toruń. The cities are
compared against each other, and with
188 other economies worldwide.
Comparisons with other economies are
based on the indicators in Doing Business
2015, Going Beyond Efficiency, the twelfth
in a series of annual reports published
by the World Bank Group. The indicators
in Doing Business in Poland 2015 are also
comparable with almost 400 cities from
55 economies benchmarked in other
subnational Doing Business studies. All
data and reports are available at www.
doingbusiness.org/subnational.
Doing Business investigates the
regulations that enhance business
activity and those that constrain it.
Regulations affecting 4 stages of the
life of a business are measured at the
subnational level in Poland: starting
a business, dealing with construction
permits, registering property, and
enforcing contracts. These indicators
were selected because they cover areas
of local jurisdiction or practice. The
indicators are used to analyze economic
outcomes and identify what reforms
have worked, where and why. The data in
Doing Business in Poland 2015 are current
as of September 1st, 2014.
This study is the result of collaboration
of the Ministry of Infrastructure and
Development of the Republic of Poland
and Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego with
the World Bank Global Indicators Group,
Development Economics, and the Poland
Country Office.

Doing Business in Poland, 2015

Doing Business
in Poland 2015
Foreword
Poland’s economic growth over the last
25 years has been spectacular. In that
period, Poland has more than doubled
its income per capita and became a
European growth champion. It was the
only EU country to avoid a recession in
2009. Its current GDP growth rate is
strong. Poland seems to be on the brink
of its new “golden age.”
But past success does not guarantee
future success. Maintaining the im-
pressive growth record and fully catch-
ing up with Western Europe will be a
challenge. A vibrant private sector—
where companies invest, create jobs,
and improve productivity—is key to
promoting sustained and inclusive eco-
nomic growth. However, private sector
growth driven by high productivity
requires improved competitiveness, in-
cluding a favorable business climate so
that entrepreneurs with good ideas and
energy create and grow their own busi-
nesses, generating employment. This
is important for Poland, where a large
productivity gap with top-performing
OECD countries still exists, and where
regional disparities within the country
still prevail. Strengthening the business
environment and promoting a cohesive
regional development strategy are key
actions in Poland’s long-term competi-
tiveness and productivity agenda.
Doing Business in Poland 2015 is the
first subnational report of the Doing
Business series in Poland. It measures
business regulations and their enforce-
ment from the perspective of a small
to medium-size domestic firm. The
idea is a simple one: if entrepreneurs
spend fewer resources on regulatory
burdens, they will have more time to
devote to productive activities. If laws
and regulations are clear, accessible,
and transparent and, at the same time,
enforceable before the courts, entre-
preneurs will feel more confident to do
business with people they don’t know,
and expand their client and supplier
network.
In line with the importance of regional
development, Doing Business in Poland
2015 goes beyond Warsaw and bench-
marks 17 other cities in Poland—in-
cluding capitals of each of the sixteen
regions—capturing local differences in
business regulations or in the imple-
mentation of the national laws. Local
authorities can see how they compare
with the rest of the country and the
rest of the world, learn about good
practices, and take steps to increase
their competitiveness. This is impor-
tant for the development of small and
medium-size enterprises, which play a
crucial role in economic development
at the local level.
Doing Business is limited in scope. It
does not focus on the usual elements
of economic policy, such as fiscal
policy, stimulus, and welfare. Rather,
it focuses on the day-to-day function-
ing of the economy at the point where
regulations directly impact small
entrepreneurs. Doing Business does
not attempt to measure all costs and
benefits of a particular law or regula-
tion to the society as a whole. Nor does
it measure all aspects of the business
environment that matter to firms and

DOING BUSINESS IN POLAND 2015vi
investors, or affect the competitiveness
of an economy. Its aim is simply to sup-
ply business leaders and policy makers
with a fact base for informing policy
making and to provide open data for
research on how business regulations
and institutions affect such economic
outcomes as productivity, investment,
informality, corruption, unemployment,
and poverty. The results are revealing:
this report found significant regulatory
differences from one city to another in
Poland and uncovered good practices
that could be replicated and leveraged
to empower local entrepreneurs.
The gap between the 18 cities bench-
marked is significant. By adopting
existing good practices found across
the country in the four areas measured
by this report, Poland would rank 24th
out of 189 economies globally—eight
positions higher than Poland’s current
ranking according to Doing Business
2015—placing the country ahead of
France and the Netherlands. Promoting
convergence among regions and cities
towards the top performers and thus
improving the ease of doing business in
the whole country is a challenge worth
taking.
The publication of comparable data
on the relative ease of doing business
in different countries inspires govern-
ments to act. Comparisons between
cities within a country are even stron-
ger drivers for reform because it is
more difficult for local governments to
justify why doing business in their city
or region is more burdensome than in
neighboring locations, in Poland and
abroad.
We hope that this study will empower
reform-minded local policy-makers
with the right data to inform their
strategies, share lessons across cities
and regions, increase competitiveness,
and help improve the local business
regulatory environment across the
country, creating better conditions for
sustainable growth and inclusion.
Mamta Murthi
Regional Director
Central Europe and the Baltic Countries
World Bank Group

Doing Business
in Poland 2015
Overview
Ask anyone in Poland about the coun-
try’s future and you will likely get an
optimistic answer. This is no surprise.
The country recently celebrated the
anniversary of three memorable events
from its modern history. The year
2014 marked 25 years of freedom, 15
years of NATO membership and 10
years in the European Union. Poland
has transformed itself from a country
at Europe’s periphery to an influential
EU member state with the largest
economy in Central Europe. The coun-
try is now classified as a high-income
economy, a remarkable achievement.
As Polish citizens have prospered with-
in the EU, their international stature
has grown, as has their confidence and
enthusiasm for the country’s future
within the union.1
The economic integration with the
European Union has been an effective
mechanism for promoting conver-
gence: since 2004, gross domestic
product has doubled2
—Poland was also
the only EU country to avoid a reces-
sion during the recent global crisis3
—
and the country is catching up with EU
living standards. Rising incomes, open
borders and EU accession have allowed
Poland to participate in global econom-
ic, social, and technological progress to
an extent never experienced before.4
A new generation of entrepreneurs
has not only risen to the challenge of
increased global competition, but also
taken advantage of the opportunities
offered by the integration into the
EU market. Today, micro, small and
medium-size enterprises represent
Polish entrepreneurs face different
regulatory hurdles depending on where
they establish their businesses. This is
due to varying efficiency levels at the
public agencies in charge of the 4 areas
benchmarked—starting a business,
dealing with construction permits,
registering property and enforcing
contracts—and discrepancies in the
interpretation of national legislation.
Smaller cities tend to do better overall
across the 4 indicators: of the 18
cities measured, Bydgoszcz tops the
aggregate ranking. However, several
large cities rank at or near the top of
individual indicators—for example,
Poznań and Wrocław on starting a
business and dealing with construction
permits, respectively—proving that
high demand for business services can
be dealt with efficiently.
No single city does equally well on all 4
indicators. With the exception of Kielce,
all cities do better than average on at
least one indicator and 13 out of 18 rank
in the top third on at least one indicator.
Reform-minded local officials
can make tangible improvements
by replicating measures already
successfully implemented in other
cities in Poland.
On all indicators, there are good
practices to be found across Poland.
If a hypothetical city were to adopt
the best practices found across the
18 cities, it would rank 24th out of
189 economies globally—8 positions
higher than Poland’s current ranking
according to Doing Business 2015—
placing the country ahead of France
and the Netherlands.
FIGURE 1.1 Gross domestic product per capita by voivodeship (2012)
30–35
25–30
35–50
50–70
GDP per capita,
PLN thousands
(current prices)
POLAND
41,934
DOLNOŚLĄSKIE
ZACHODNIO-
POMORSKIE
POMORSKIE
WARMIŃSKO-
MAZURSKIE
PODLASKIE
MAZOWIECKIE
KUJAWSKO-
POMORSKIE
WIELKOPOLSKIE
LUBUSKIE
ŁÓDZKIE
LUBELSKIE
PODKARPACKIE
ŚWIĘTOKRZYSKIE
MAŁOPOLSKIE
ŚLĄSKIE
OPOLSKIE
Source: Statistical Yearbook of the Regions. Central Statistical Office. Warsaw. 2014.

DOING BUSINESS IN POLAND 20152
99% of all economic entities and pro-
vide work for 70% of people employed
in non-financial enterprises.5
Despite these important achievements,
a number of challenges remain. While
before the global economic crisis the
growth rate of income for the bottom
40% outpaced the average, this trend
was reversed. In addition, persistent
regional imbalances across the 16
voivodeships (regions) and internal di-
vergence within regions—typically with
large cities faring better than smaller
towns and rural areas6
—threaten the
attainment of smart, sustainable and
inclusive growth for all (figure 1.1).
Doing Business studies business regula-
tions from the perspective of small and
medium-size domestic firms. A funda-
mental premise of Doing Business is that
economic activity benefits from good
rules and institutions. These include rules
that establish and clarify property rights,
reduce the cost of solving commercial
disputes, increase the predictability of
economic outcomes and provide con-
tractual partners with core protections
against abuse. The objective: regulations
designed to be efficient, accessible to all
and simple in their implementation.
Over the past five years, Poland has
implemented 16 reforms across the
10 indicator areas measured by Doing
Business. Since 2009, it has registered
the most progress on the Doing Business
“distance to frontier” (DTF) metric—a
measure of absolute performance with
respect to the world’s best practices—
of any EU country.
From a more granular perspective,
however, the performance remains
uneven: on half of the 10 Doing Business
indicator areas, the country’s business
environment lags behind the EU aver-
ages. Interestingly, indicators measur-
ing the strength of regulation tend to
fare better than those measuring the
complexity of regulatory processes
or government efficiency (figure 1.2).
For example, Poland’s Doing Business
scores show a strong secured lending
regime and credit information system,
ranking among the top 20 economies
globally. However, to start a business
in Warsaw, a Polish entrepreneur has
to wait almost three times longer and
pay three times more, on average, than
his competitor in another EU country.
To deal with construction permits,
he would have to comply with almost
twice as many requirements—with
Poland ranked in the bottom third of all
economies globally.
Reforms aimed at improving legal
institutions typically entail substan-
tial changes in legal frameworks, are
costly to implement and take years
to yield positive results. Thanks in
part to the reform efforts motivated
by the transition and EU integration,
a set of comprehensive and ambitious
economic and institutional reforms
were undertaken in Poland. Combining
these ongoing reforms with further
enhancing the regulatory efficiency
of government agencies can have a
strong impact. Take the example of
starting a business: one could see the
improvements introduced over time as
a continuum starting with a reduction
in registration costs and minimum
capital, moving to reduce the need for
multiple interactions between agencies
and the entrepreneur by creating a
one-stop shop, eliminating procedures,
and then a move to more sophisticated
reforms with the help of technology—
including the online “S24” platform
and the recent electronic exchange of
information between agencies (box 1.1).
FIGURE 1.2 Poland ranked 32nd out of 189 economies on the ease of doing business in 2014, but its performance varies
significantly across indicators
Note: Data are based on the Doing Business 2015 report.
Source: Doing Business database.
EASIEST (1)
MOST DIFFICULT (189)
Global best
EU average
Poland*
* as represented by Warsaw
32
36
85
53
137
82
64
78
39
62
17
55
35
48
87
56
41
34
52
48
32
33
Ease of
doing
business
Dealing with
construction
permits
Getting
electricity
Registering
property
Getting
credit
Protecting
minority
investors
Paying
taxes
Trading
across
borders
Enforcing
contracts
Resolving
insolvency
Starting a
business
Singapore
Hong Kong
SAR, China Korea, Rep. Georgia New Zealand New Zealand UAE Singapore Singapore FinlandNew Zealand

3OVERVIEW
BOX 1.1: Reforming business start-up in Poland—six years in the making
Since 2009 Poland has introduced important changes with the objective of making it easier and less expensive to start a
business. The minimum capital requirement and registration fees were lowered and a one-stop shop for business registra-
tion was set up at the National Court Register (Krajowy Rejestr Sądowy, or KRS). In addition, an online system for registering
limited liability companies with standard articles of association is now available as another option for entrepreneurs (the
“S24” system).
The idea of the one-stop shop was for KRS not only to be in charge of company registration, but also to manage the process
for obtaining the statistical and tax identification numbers on behalf of the entrepreneur and register the company with
the Social Insurance Office. However, the back-office start-up procedures were not re-engineered. As a result, KRS simply
played the role of a post-office: receiving paper applications from the entrepreneur and sending them on to the respective
agencies, which, in turn, returned the approved documents, still in paper format. While the reform looked good on paper,
the process continued to take approximately one month—the same as before the reform—casting doubt on whether the
entrepreneur was better off with the one-stop shop.
In 2012, the online “S24” platform was launched, allowing entrepreneurs to register limited liability companies with the
KRS using standard articles of association without requiring a notary deed. The system not only sharply reduced the cost
of starting a business, but also enabled the processing of applications by KRS in just 1-2 days. Even though entrepreneurs
had to register in person with the statistical, tax and social insurance offices, these direct interactions were almost 3 weeks
faster than going through the one-stop shop. Currently, two years after the launch, approximately 30% of new limited li-
ability companies are set up through the “S24” system, although the uptake varies across cities.1
Challenges remain, which
may be limiting higher uptake. The system is not as user-friendly as it could be—for example, all company founders need
to be logged in simultaneously and applications cannot be saved in draft format. In addition, the registration process is not
fully electronic—applicants still have to pay the civil law transaction tax in-person.
Recent reforms seek to build on both systems and address their limitations (table 1.1).2
Effective December 1, 2014, the new
law on the one-stop shop came into force. Entrepreneurs no longer need to submit separate applications for the tax office
and statistical office when registering with the KRS. Instead, the KRS shares information electronically with the National
Register of Taxpayers, which, in turn, shares it with the Statistical Office and the Social Insurance Office. The same infor-
mation submitted to KRS is used to generate the statistical and tax identification numbers. Users of the “S24” system will
also be able to use the reformed one-stop shop. In addition, a recent legal amendment expands the “S24” system to regis-
tered partnerships and limited partnerships and reduces registration fees and the need to submit the specimen of board
members signatures among other changes to further encourage its use.
It is still too early to assess the impact of the recent reforms on the ease of starting a business across locations in Poland.
Achieving a significant time reduction requires that the KRS local court divisions and the other agencies involved in the
start-up process have well-functioning electronic systems. In addition, to reduce delays, the review of applications at the
KRS court divisions will need to become more efficient, as is already the case for the standard articles of association used
by the online “S24” system.
Consistent implementation across locations can be challenging, as the case of Italy illustrates. There, an electronic one-
stop shop connects five different entities involved in business start-up. However, the time to start a business varies signifi-
cantly across cities due to different response times at the local level. Also, ensuring that electronic systems work well from
the outset is critical to ensure credibility. In Mexico, the electronic portal tuempresa.gob.mx for business start-up was off to
a good start, until a glitch suspended the platform for two months in 2012. Despite subsequent improvements to the portal,
the uptake has not recovered, as users favor alternative mechanisms—even if they involve more steps.
1. Data include limited liability companies created from June 2013 to May 2014. Ministry of Justice of Poland.
2. Act of June 26, 2014 amending the National Court Register Act (Journal of Laws of 2014 Item 1161), effective December 1, 2014 - Ustawa z dnia 26 czerwca 2014 r. o zmianie
ustawy o Krajowym Rejestrze Sądowym oraz o zmianie niektórych innych ustaw (Dz.U. 2014 poz. 1161).

WHAT DOES DOING
BUSINESS IN POLAND 2015
MEASURE?
Warsaw represents Poland in the
annual Doing Business report, which
compares 189 economies glob-
ally. However, in a large country with
a decentralized system of government
comprising 16 regions (voivodeships),
373 districts (powiats) and 2,489
municipalities (gminas),7
entrepreneurs
face different local practices and regu-
lations. In short, Warsaw does not tell
the full story.
In order to give a more complete rep-
resentation of Poland’s business and
regulatory environment, this study
expands the benchmarking exercise to
all voivodeship capitals.8
The focus is on
indicators that measure the complex-
ity and cost of regulatory processes
affecting three stages in the life of a
small-to-medium–size domestic firm:
starting a business, dealing with con-
struction permits, and registering prop-
erty. It also benchmarks the strength
of legal institutions across the country
by measuring enforcing a commercial
contract before a local court.
The same national legal framework
defines requirements, regulates costs
and sets time limits in all four indicator
areas. But while the law is the same
across the cities, its implementation
may vary—mainly due to discrepancies
in its interpretation and to different
efficiency levels of the public agencies
in charge of the areas benchmarked.
In three of the four areas measured—
starting a business, registering prop-
erty, and enforcing contracts—the role
of the judiciary is paramount to many
of the transactions measured by this
report. In addition to dispute resolu-
tion, Polish civil and commercial courts
operate the immovable assets registry
(Land and Mortgage Registry) and
the business registry (National Court
Register), respectively. Meanwhile, city
and district authorities play a large role
in the other indicator area: dealing with
construction permits.
WHAT ARE THE FINDINGS?
On an aggregate level across the four
indicators measured, it is easier to do
business in Bydgoszcz and Olsztyn, but
more difficult in Warsaw and Gdańsk
(table 1.2). Reviewing these findings
in isolation may show unexpected
results. Some cities that appear less
dynamic may rank surprisingly high,
while some larger business centers
appear to lag behind. This is because
Doing Business does not measure all
aspects of the business environment
that matter to firms or investors—nor
does it measure all factors that affect
competitiveness.9
A number of observations stand out.
First, in Poland, there is a clear cor-
relation between the size of the city (as
measured by population) and the aggre-
gate ranking.10
Smaller cities do better,
in part because they receive less de-
mand for business services than larger
cities. Government offices in large busi-
ness centers deal with a high volume of
applications, which leads to bottlenecks
and higher costs for professional ser-
vices. However, Łódź and Wrocław are
examples of large cities that capitalize
on economies of scale and use resources
at their disposal to invest in administra-
tive modernization. Administrations
in these cities issue a building permit
in just over one month—similar to
the delay in much smaller cities, such
TABLE 1.1 Business start up in Poland—before and after reform
Before December 1, 2014 As of December 1, 2014
Functions One-stop shop at KRS “S24” online registration One-stop shop at KRS “S24” online registration
Registration with the National
Court Register (KRS)
Registration with the tax
office and obtaining tax
identification number (NIP)
Registration with statistical
office and obtaining statistical
number (REGON)
Notification to the Social
Insurance Office
Use of standard articles of
association
Information exchange Manual: paper copies sent
by the KRS court divisions to
local tax, statistical and social
insurance offices.
The entrepreneur personally
submits applications in paper
form to tax, statistical and
social insurance offices.
The one-stop shop manages applications to tax, statistical and
social insurance offices through electronically interconnected
systems.
Total time 30 days (17-city average) 8 days (Poznań data)* not yet available**
* In Poznań, most limited liability companies are set up using the “S24” online system—the highest uptake among the 18 cities.
** The data of Doing Business in Poland 2015 are valid as of September 1, 2014 and do not reflect the impact of the December 1, 2014 changes.

5OVERVIEW
as Olsztyn and Gorzów Wielkopolski,
where the applications volume is five
times smaller.11
Similarly, trial time at
the busy regional court of Kraków is less
than a year—6 months faster than in
Gdańsk or Warsaw. Judges in Kraków
follow best national practices and use
active case management, leveraging the
existing provisions of the Code of Civil
Procedure to frontload evidence and
set a schedule of anticipated hearings
and pleadings where possible. Another
example is Poznań—ranked in the top
third on starting a business and regis-
tering property—where high demand for
business services in these areas is dealt
with more efficiently than in smaller cit-
ies. Other cities should follow suit.
A good international example comes
from Italy, where Milan and Turin—two
of the largest business centers in the
country—rank near or at the top on
dealing with construction permits and
enforcing contracts, respectively. A
risk-based approach allows for fast-
tracking of approvals for simple
buildings in Milan. The court in Turin
has successfully reduced pending
cases and sped up civil proceedings by
establishing clear guidelines on case
management and tracking judges’ per-
formance—proving that large cities can
be efficient and offer quality services.
A second observation is that no single
city does equally well in all four areas.
With the exception of Kielce, all cities
do better than average on at least
one indicator and 13 out of 18 rank in
the top third on at least one indicator.
In Toruń, for example, dealing with
construction permits is easier than
elsewhere, but starting a business is
ranked below most other cities. Gorzów
Wielkopolski ranks near the top on en-
forcing contracts but performs poorly
when it comes to starting a business
and dealing with construction permits.
Gdańsk does well on starting a business
but lags behind in the other areas. From
a public-policy point of view, such dis-
persion or uneven performance across
the indicators measured can guide
local policymakers to areas where im-
provements are possible without major
legislative changes (figure 1.3).
Third, small local changes can make a
difference in the bigger, global picture:
the distance to frontier (DTF) score indi-
cates the distance between a city’s per-
formance on a given indicator and the
best performance globally across 189
TABLE 1. 2 Doing Business in Poland: Where is it easier?
City
(Voivodeship)
Aggregate
rank on 4
indicators
Starting
a business
Dealing with
construction
permits
Registering
property
Enforcing
contracts
Distance
to
frontier
(score) Rank
Distance
to
frontier
(score) Rank
Distance
to
frontier
(score) Rank
Distance
to
frontier
(score) Rank
Bydgoszcz
(Kujawsko-Pomorskie)
1 85.79 9 69.84 1 82.14 3 72.69 6
Olsztyn
(Warmińsko-Mazurskie)
2 87.80 2 64.65 9 81.02 5 76.12 1
Białystok
(Podlaskie)
3 86.79 4 63.41 12 82.62 1 73.69 3
Toruń
(Kujawsko-Pomorskie)
4 85.54 13 67.04 3 80.78 7 72.97 5
Opole
(Opolskie)
5 86.79 4 66.31 6 79.43 13 73.05 4
Poznań
(Wielkopolskie)
6 89.13 1 62.31 15 81.49 4 71.64 7
Rzeszów
(Podkarpackie)
7 84.03 17 67.27 2 80.38 9 71.57 8
Zielona Góra
(Lubuskie)
8 84.53 14 64.64 10 82.53 2 71.23 10
Łódź
(Łódzkie)
9 85.79 9 66.35 5 80.66 8 68.98 14
Szczecin
(Zachodniopomorskie)
10 82.77 18 65.98 7 80.82 6 71.08 12
GorzówWielkopolski
(Lubuskie)
11 84.53 14 60.85 17 80.02 11 73.78 2
Katowice
(Śląskie)
12 85.79 9 63.43 11 79.34 16 70.49 13
Wrocław
(Dolnośląskie)
13 86.29 6 66.65 4 77.47 18 68.62 16
Lublin
(Lubelskie)
14 86.04 7 65.92 8 78.39 17 68.67 15
Kielce
(Świętokrzyskie)
15 84.28 16 63.06 13 79.38 15 71.11 11
Kraków
(Małopolskie)
16 86.04 7 60.74 18 79.54 12 71.44 9
Warsaw
(Mazowieckie)
17 85.79 9 62.97 14 80.30 10 64.83 17
Gdańsk
(Pomorskie)
18 87.80 2 61.97 16 79.42 14 63.89 18
Note: The aggregate rankings are based on the average of each city’s distance to frontier (DTF) scores for the four
topics included in this study. The DTF score shows how far on average an economy is at a point in time from the best
performance achieved by any economy on each Doing Business indicator since 2005. The measure is normalized to
range between 0 and 100, with 100 representing the frontier of best practices. For more details, see the About Doing
Business and Doing Business in Poland 2015 section.

economies.Ondealingwithconstruction
permits, for example, Polish cities are
furthest away from the global frontier
of best practices. But within Poland, the
distance between the best and worst
performing cities is significant (figure
1.4). With a DTF score below 62, Gdańsk,
Gorzów Wielkopolski and Kraków per-
form as poorly as economies ranking in
the bottom fourth globally. Meanwhile,
Bydgoszcz’s DTF of 69.84 places the
city close to the average global perfor-
mance.This is not surprising: Bydgoszcz
is one of the five cities with the fewest
requirements because pre-construction
clearances for water, rainwater and
sewage connections can be requested in
one single step. Dealing with construc-
tion permits is also relatively fast and
inexpensive. Obtaining a building permit
takes two weeks less than the 60-day
limit set by law. According to anecdotal
evidence, this is due to how City Hall
administrators have organized the
internal flow of documents and the way
applications are channeled through the
different departments. Moreover, fewer
requirements and lower costs for hiring
private experts, such as land surveyors,
keep costs low.
COMPARING REGULATIONS
ACROSS 18 CITIES FROM 16
VOIVODESHIPS
Starting a business
In Poznań, half of limited liability
companies are set up with the help of
the “S24” online system—the highest
uptake among the 18 cities.12
Startup
requires six procedures, eight days
and 6.9% of income per capita. In the
remaining 17 cities, most businesses
choose to register using the one-stop
shop of the local court division of the
KRS. This requires four procedures
but causes longer delays—one month
on average—and higher costs—12.9%
of income per capita—well above the
EU average of 11.6 days and 4.1% of
income per capita. The volume of ap-
plications and resources, as well as
different practices at the respective
court division of the KRS, determine
the duration of the start-up process. It
takes 22 days in Olsztyn and Gdańsk
and 42 days in Szczecin. Notary fees
are the main source of costs in all cit-
ies using the KRS one-stop shop, but
they are dropping as result of recent
deregulation of the profession. In addi-
tion, company founders across Poland
need to deposit PLN5,000 (EUR1,166)
or 12.3% of income per capita as paid-in
minimum capital. Recent reforms—un-
derway since December 2014—replace
paper-based interactions between the
agencies involved in the one-stop shop
with interconnected databases. Poland
could, over time, move to an entire on-
line business start-up process similar
to New Zealand or Slovenia.
Dealing with construction
permits
Across Poland, dealing with construc-
tion permits takes on average 21
procedures and 175 days, at a cost
equivalent to 0.2% of the warehouse
value. In the EU, the same process is on
average 10 times more expensive—2.3%
of warehouse value—but significantly
less complex—13 procedures. The Polish
Building Law sets the regulatory and
legal framework for the construction
industry, defining requirements, set-
ting time limits and regulating costs.
However, there are local implementa-
tion differences across cities. It is
easier to comply with the formalities
to obtain a construction permit to
build a warehouse and connect it to
water and sewerage in Bydgoszcz and
FIGURE 1.3 A location’s regulatory environment may be more business-friendly in some areas than others—revealing opportunities
for reform
1
Rank
10
15
5
18
Bydgoszcz
Olsztyn
Białystok
Toruń
Opole
Poznań
Rzeszów
Zielona
Góra
Łódź
Szczecin
Gorzów
W
ielkopolski
Katowice
W
rocław
Lublin
Indicator with highest ranking
Aggregate ranking
Indicator with lowest ranking
Kielce
Kraków
W
arsaw
Gdańsk

7OVERVIEW
Rzeszów, and more difficult in Gorzów
Wielkopolski and Kraków. The number
of steps required range from 19 in
Bydgoszcz, Rzeszów, Szczecin, Warsaw
and Wrocław to 22 in Gdańsk, Gorzów
Wielkopolski, Kielce, Olsztyn and
Opole. The differences arise from the
10–13 clearances required—related to
electricity, water, sewerage, rainwater
drainage and public road access—even
before the building permit application is
submitted and construction can com-
mence. Smaller cities tend to require
more pre-construction clearances
compared to larger urban areas: four13
of the five cities that require more steps
to deal with construction permits have
200,000 or fewer inhabitants. In all
cities, there are no requirements during
construction,14
seven after construc-
tion, and two to obtain water and sew-
erage connections. Complying with all
requirements takes 137 days in Opole;
in Kraków, Poznań and Warsaw it takes
more than two months longer. The vari-
ation in time depends on three factors:
the delay in obtaining pre-construction
clearances, the time it takes City Halls
to process building permit applica-
tions, and the days required to obtain
an occupancy permit from the County
Building Inspectorate. Although most
fees are set nationally, in Bydgoszcz,
dealing with construction permits costs
halfwhat it costs in Warsaw—PLN3,142
(EUR733) versus PLN6,080 (EUR1,418).
This is because the clearance from the
municipal water works company is less
expensive and because of the lower cost
of hiring private third parties such as
fire safety experts and land surveyors.
Consolidating pre-construction clear-
ances is a key factor to facilitating
the construction permitting process in
Poland—where the number of requisites
before construction can even start is
much higher than in most advanced
economies. Investing in advanced zon-
ing systems would also help reduce the
burden of obtaining such clearances.
Registering property
Registering property takes on average
33 days and costs 0.32% ofthe property
value. Based on a common legal frame-
work, the same six procedures apply
throughout the country. Compared
to the EU average of 4.45% of prop-
erty value, Poland is inexpensive when
it comes to registering property. On the
other hand, it lags behind in terms of
the time it takes to do so. Registering
property is easiest in Białystok, where
it takes only 18 days and costs 0.35%
of the property value. By contrast, in
Wrocław it takes 51 days. The delay is
largely caused by the time it takes to go
through registration with the Land and
Mortgage Registry. The average time
to complete this step is 25 days, but
it can vary from 40 days in Wrocław
to 10 days in Białystok and Zielona
Góra, where the Land and Mortgage
Registries have streamlined internal
procedures and leveraged the assis-
tance from legal secretaries to help the
referendarzs.15
In Kraków, registering
property costs 0.27% of property value,
while in Gdańsk it costs almost 0.1%
more because of differences in notary
fees, which are subject to negotiation
following the recent deregulation. On
average, notary fees constitute 95% of
the total cost to register a property in
Poland. Consolidating land and real es-
tate records in one electronic database
and sharing a single identification num-
ber to search for properties—both in the
Cadastre and the Land and Mortgage
Registry—would allow for quick identi-
fication of the legal status of the prop-
erty, provide greater certainty for the
parties engaged in a property transfer,
and reduce the likelihood of mistakes.
Making registration electronic would
also bring significant improvements.
Enforcing contracts
On average, it takes 512 days and
costs 15.9% of the claim value to re-
solve a commercial dispute across the
18 Polish cities measured. This makes
Poland faster, by about two months,
and cheaper, by nearly 6 percentage
points, than the average EU economy.
Enforcing contracts is easier in Olsztyn
where it takes a total of 328 days and
costs 15.3% of the claim value. It is more
difficult in Gdańsk, where it takes 715
days and costs 19.7%. Variations in the
time can be found at all stages of the
enforcing contracts process: lengthy
service time due to the postal operator
in some cities, backlogs in the courts of
the most populous cities, and multiple
auctions at the enforcement stage in
cities with a smaller market for move-
able assets. In most cities where trial
time is less than a year, judges use ac-
tive case management by leveraging
the provisions in the Polish Code of Civil
Procedure to earmark and schedule
anticipated hearings, and to require
the frontloading of evidence. Poland
has over the last 10 years implemented
many reforms to speed up commercial
justice, including a bold reform of the
bailiff profession. However, commercial
courts are facing an increasing flow of
incoming cases and in the most popu-
lous cities, such as Warsaw, backlogs
are on an upward trend. Promoting
alternative dispute resolution, such
as mediation, would allow cases to
be resolved at an early stage and not
have to go through multiple procedural
steps, trial and judgment. Reviewing
court resource allocation can help
ensure that judges get the support
FIGURE 1.4 Gap between the highest
and lowest distance to frontier scores
in dealing with construction permits
within Poland
Average score
Distance to frontier score (0-100)
50th percentile
25th percentile
Lowest
score
Best
score
60.74
Kraków
69.84
Bydgoszcz
64.63
(71.02)
(62.06)

they need to manage an increasing
caseload. Finally, institutionalizing
good practices that have helped some
courts to deal with increasing case flow
could help courts throughout Poland
reduce delays.
LEARNING FROM EACH
OTHER
Publishing comparable data on the
relative ease of doing business in dif-
ferent countries inspires governments
to act. They uncover bottlenecks and
identify where policymakers can look
for good practices. Poland has a track
record of successfully looking to the EU
and using international benchmarks—
like Doing Business or other similar
indicators—to improve its regulatory
framework.
Now it is time to look inward: com-
parisons between locations in the
same country can be even stronger
drivers of reform, because it is more
difficult for local governments to jus-
tify why doing business in their city
or region is more burdensome than in
neighboring locations. The good news
is that sharing the same national legal
framework facilitates the adaptation
of good practices. Reform-minded
local officials can achieve tangible
improvements by replicating measures
already successfully implemented in
other locations across Poland. Small
administrative improvements that do
not require major regulatory changes
can make a big difference in the life of a
small or medium-size firm.
Lessons can be learned from the cities
that have the best performance and
also from those that face the most
challenges. For example, referendarzs
in Warsaw deal with significantly more
company registration applications
than in any other city, yet the KRS
court divisions manage to maintain
their registration times well within the
average. One reason behind Warsaw’s
higher efficiency may be a flexible
work schedule that allows referenda-
rzs to adjust to peaks in the volume of
applications.
On all indicators, there are good prac-
tices to be found across Poland. If a
hypothetical city—“Polonia”—were to
adopt the best practices on starting
permits, registering property, and
enforcing contracts found across the
18 cities, it would rank 24th
out of 189
economies globally—eight positions
higher than Poland’s current ranking
according to Doing Business 2015—plac-
ing the country ahead of France and
the Netherlands (figure 1.5). Learning
from Poznań what it takes to encour-
age the massive uptake of the “S24”
online registration system among
entrepreneurs, and then combining this
faster and less expensive process with
the streamlined procedures available
through the one-stop shops at the
National Court Register, would allow
“Polonia” to rank 48 positions higher on
starting a business. Similarly, reduc-
ing the time and cost of dealing with
construction permits to 137 days, as
in Opole—where obtaining a building
permit takes two weeks less than the
2-month limit set by law and the oc-
cupancy permit is released in 10 days,
FIGURE 1.5 How would the adoption of good practices found across Polish cities impact Poland’s global ranking?
Poland (Warsaw)
Doing Business 2015 rank
Best of Poland (hypothetical city, Polonia)
Potential rank
Starting a business
4 procedures, 30 days, 12.9% of income per capita
Minimum capital requirement 12.3% of income per capita
Enforcing contracts 52
33 procedures, 685 days, 19.4% of claim value
Dealing with construction permits 137
19 procedures, 212 days, 0.3% of warehouse value
6 procedures, 33 days, 0.32% of property value
Ease of doing business 32
39
Starting a business
4 procedures (17 cities), 8 days (Poznań)
6.92% of income per capita (Poznań)
Minimum capital requirement 12.3% of income per capita (all cities)
13 Enforcing contracts
33 procedures (all cities), 328 days (Olsztyn)
13.6% of claim value (Białystok)
19 procedures (Bydgoszcz, Rzeszów, Szczecin, Wrocław and Warsaw)
137 days (Opole), 0.15% of warehouse value (Bydgoszcz)
6 procedures (all cities)
18 days (Białystok), 0.27% of property value (Kraków)
24
37
85

9OVERVIEW
the fastest in Poland—and 0.15% of
the warehouse value, as in Bydgoszcz,
would put “Polonia” 37 places ahead on
this indicator. In Białystok, the Land
and Mortgage Registry leverages a
modern case management system
to improve internal processing times
and, in Kraków, competition among
notaries drove down property transfer
costs—adopting these practices would
rank the hypothetical city 30th
, similar
to the United States, on registering
property. Finally, if “Polonia” were to
adopt the speed to enforce a contract
of Olsztyn (328 days) and the low cost
of Białystok (13.6%), it would climb 39
positions to rank 13th
globally, the same
as Germany and ahead of Finland.
Other countries can serve as examples
of how peer-to-peer learning works. A
recent consultation of public officials
from 31 Mexican states confirmed
that peer learning is a significant
tool for reform-minded states. The
Doing Business in Mexico series and
the biannual meetings organized by
the Mexican Federal Commission on
Regulatory Improvement are recur-
ring opportunities to learn about good
practices and connect to peers. Peer
learning also takes place when local
policy makers visit neighboring states
and cities. For example, policy makers
of the state of Colima visited Sinaloa,
where they learned about issuing land-
use authorizations electronically; soon
after, Colima set up a similar system
on its own website. Not surprisingly,
the states making the largest number
of inquiries are those that consistently
maintain and develop good practices.
The data show that the better-per-
forming states in the Doing Business in
Mexico series are those that make the
most efforts to contact others (figure
1.6). While saving time and money are
immediate benefits for firms, there
are larger economy-wide payoffs from
business reforms. A study shows that
after the introduction of local one-
stop shops for business start-ups the
number of new firm registrations rose
5%, employment increased by 2.2% and
prices fell by nearly 1% because of the
competition from new entrants.16
Governments that succeed in sustain-
ing reform programs tend to have com-
mon features. Like Poland, they take a
comprehensive approach that targets
improvements across multiple areas
of the investment climate. They use
existing benchmarks, firm statistics
or surveys to identify opportunities for
improvement, learn from others and
measure progress regularly.
Consultation with stakeholders is
another key component in the reform
process. An effective platform to
promote regular consultations and
collaboration with the private sector,
making the latter an important part
of the reform process, is essential.
Without understanding the private
sector’s concerns and the barriers that
prevent them from starting, operat-
ing and growing their businesses, no
government can claim to have set up a
comprehensive reform agenda that will
make a real difference to its people. It
would therefore be beneficial for Poland
to strengthen its existing mechanisms
that will allow for regular consultations
and feedback mechanisms between
the public and the private sectors,
making this an important part of the
reform process in the country.
Similarly, without effectively com-
municating the benefits of reforms,
implementation suffers. In the area of
construction permits, for example, the
numerous amendments to the Polish
Building Law were not disseminated
consistently across enforcement
agencies and private practitioners, re-
sulting in confusion and uneven imple-
mentation across cities. Recently, the
Building Law was modified to simplify
the permitting process.17
Legislative
amendments should be well com-
municated to all stakeholders—local
implementing agencies, the business
and legal communities and the general
public—and accompanied by guide-
lines on how to interpret the new law
in order to ensure that changes are
understood and put in practice.
One example comes from the
United States. The Open Government
Initiative,18
launched in 2009, at-
tempts to foster greater transparency
FIGURE 1.6 States in Mexico that strive the most to maintain an active dialogue with
their peers have a better business regulatory environment
Note: The correlation between the distance to frontier and the number of states that were contacted by other states is
0.53 and the relationship is significant at 1%.
Source: Doing Business database—obtained in November 2013 during consultative meetings with authorities from
Mexican states.
Aguascalientes
Tamaulipas
Baja California
Mexico City
Morelos
Colima
Guanajuato
State of Mexico
Puebla
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
Number of states contacted
Distance to the global frontier in the four measured areas (percentage points)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Durango

in an effort to engage citizens and
businesses more actively in the regu-
latory process. The initiative marks a
departure from previous transparency
measures. It focuses on “collaborative
governance,” meaning that regulatory
agencies must take proactive steps to
work in collaboration with businesses
and citizens and stakeholders. Its goal
is to strengthen accountability, secure
public trust, and increase efficiency
and effectiveness in government.
Poland’s economic performance is
undoubtedly a success story. As the
country continues down a path of
growth and development, a number
of new challenges are emerging. In the
longer term, Poland will have to face
the problem of an aging society, while
trying to avoid the “middle income
trap”—getting stuck at its current
economic level. Enhancing the business
environment can be a powerful tool for
maintaining a high level of competitive-
ness and establishing a solid foundation
for sustainable growth (table 1.3).
Removing needlessly bureaucratic
regulations and red tape reduces the
cost for Polish firms to do business and
thus boosts productivity and enhances
their efficiency and competitiveness
abroad. The national economies that
have managed to increase their foot-
print in the global marketplace are
those that have made sustained efforts
to create an environment that is more
conducive for private sector develop-
ment. Poland’s proven reform track
record provides optimism that similar
efforts will be undertaken in the years
to come, leading to sustained growth
and progress.
TABLE 1.3 Suggested reforms to improve the ease of doing business across Poland
SUGGESTED REFORMS RELEVANT MINISTRIES/ AGENCIES*
Starting a business
adopting existing good practices
registration at the one-stop shop of the National
Court Register
transaction tax with a business registration fee
based on a cost recovery principle
Local level:
National level:
Dealing with construction permits
and the issuance of the occupancy certificate
permit administration
Local level:
National level:
Land and Mortgage Registry of the relevant court
Mortgage Registry and the Cadastre
searches at the Land and Mortgage Registry and
the Cadastre
Local level:
National level:
Enforcing contracts
litigants
allocation within the courts
divisions
Local level:
Regional Court: Commercial division
National level:
Conflicts Resolution
*The list includes the main ministries and departments but additional departments or ministries might be implicated.
Note: All suggested reform recommendations are detailed in the “What to reform?” section of each chapter.

Doing Business
in Poland 2015
About Doing Business
and Doing Business
in Poland 2015
E
conomic activity requires sensible
rules that encourage firm start-up
and growth and avoid creating
distortions in the marketplace. Doing
Business measures the rules and regula-
tions that can help the private sector
thrive—because without a dynamic
private sector, no economy can provide
a good, and sustainable, standard of liv-
ing for people. Doing Business promotes
rules that establish and clarify property
rights, minimize the cost of resolving
disputes, increase the predictability of
economic interactions and provide con-
tractual partners with core protections
against abuse.
The Doing Business data highlight the
important role of the government and
government policies in the day-to-day
life of domestic small and medium-size
firms. The objective is to encourage
regulations that are designed to be ef-
ficient, accessible to all who use them
and simple in their implementation.
Where regulation is burdensome and
competition limited, success tends to
depend on whom one knows. But where
regulation is efficient, transparent and
implemented in a simple way, it be-
comes easier for aspiring entrepreneurs
to compete on an equal footing and to
innovate and expand. In this sense Doing
Business values good rules as a key to
social inclusion. Enabling growth—and
ensuring that all people, regardless of
income level, can participate in its ben-
efits—requires an environment where
new entrants with drive and good ideas
can get started in business and where
good firms can invest and grow, thereby
creating more jobs.
Doing Business was designed with 2
main types of users in mind: policy
makers and researchers.1
Doing Business
is a tool that governments can use to
design sound policies for the creation
of firms and jobs. But this tool should
not be used in isolation. Doing Business
provides a rich opportunity for bench-
marking by capturing key dimensions
of regulatory regimes. Nevertheless, the
Doing Business data are limited in scope
and should be complemented with other
sources of information.
Doing Business is also an important
source of information for researchers. It
provides a unique data set that enables
analysis aimed at better understanding
the role of business regulation in eco-
nomic development.
WHAT DOES DOING
BUSINESS AND DOING
BUSINESS IN POLAND 2015
MEASURE?
Doing Business captures several im-
portant dimensions of the regulatory
environment as it applies to local firms.
Doing Business provides 2 main types of
indicators: those that broadly measure
the complexity and cost of regula-
tory processes and those that measure
the strength of legal institutions.
Indicators of the first type (starting
permits, getting electricity, registering
property, paying taxes and trading
across borders) promote efficiency in
transactions handled by the govern-
ment, such as in the process to register
Doing Business measures business
regulations that affect domestic small
and medium-size firms in 11 areas
across 189 economies. Doing Business
in Poland 2015 covers 4 of these areas:
starting a business, dealing with
construction permits, registering
property and enforcing contracts.
Doing Business and Doing Business
in Poland 2015 do not capture other
aspects of the business environment,
such as security, market size and
macroeconomic stability.
The Doing Business methodology
is based on standardized case
scenarios in the largest business city
of each economy. Subnational Doing
Business studies expand the Doing
Business analysis beyond this largest
business city to measure variations in
regulations or in the implementation of
national laws across locations within
an economy or a region.
Doing Business in Poland 2015 relies
on the following main sources of
information: the relevant laws
and regulations, private sector
respondents, government officials,
magistrates and World Bank Group
staff.
Governments use Doing Business as
a source of objective data providing
unique insights into good practices
worldwide. Many Doing Business
indicators are “actionable”—though
depending on the context, they may
not always be “action-worthy.”

BOX 2.1 Comparing regulations at the local level: subnational Doing Business studies
The subnational Doing Business studies expand the Doing Business analysis beyond the largest business city of an econo-
my. They measure variation in regulations or in the implementation of national laws across locations within an economy
(as in Italy or Colombia) or a region (as in South East Europe or Central America). Projects are undertaken at the request
and in collaboration with governments.
Data collected by subnational reports over the past 2 years show that there can be substantial variation within an econ-
omy. In Mexico in 2013, for example, transferring property took as few as 2 days in Colima and as many as 74 in Mexico
City. Indeed, within the same economy one can find cities that perform as well as economies ranking in the top 20 on the
ease of registering property and cities that perform as poorly as economies ranking in the bottom 40 on that indicator
(see figure).
Different locations, different regulatory processes, same economy
The subnational Doing Business studies create disaggregated data on business regulations. But they go beyond a data
collection exercise. They have proved to be strong motivators for regulatory reform at the city level:
The data produced are comparable across locations within the economy and internationally, enabling locations to
benchmark their results both locally and globally. Comparisons of locations that are within the same economy and
therefore share the same legal and regulatory framework can be revealing: local officials find it hard to explain why
doing business is more difficult in their jurisdiction than in a neighboring one.
Pointing out good practices that exist in some locations but not others within an economy helps policy makers rec-
ognize the potential for replicating these good practices. This can prompt discussions of regulatory reform across
different levels of government, providing opportunities for local governments and agencies to learn from one another
and resulting in local ownership and capacity building.
Since 2005 subnational reports have covered 367 cities in 55 economies, including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Morocco
and Pakistan. In 2014, subnational studies were completed in Mexico, Nigeria and more recently in the Central America
region.
Subnational reports are available on the Doing Business website at http://www.doingbusiness.org/subnational.
Mexico, 2013Italy, 2012Egypt, Arab Rep., 2013Colombia, 2012Nigeria, 2014
64.52
72.75
80.49
73.62
29.38
57.00 58.40 59.76
88.71
79.0376.67
55.14
4.84
Worst score Best score Average score
10th percentile
(42.27)
Distance to frontier score for
registering property (0–100)
90th percentile
(88.16)
78.41
82.79
Note: The average score shown for each economy is based on all locations covered by the data: 36 cities in Nigeria, 23 cities in Colombia, 15 locations and governorates in
the Arab Republic of Egypt, 13 cities in Italy and 31 states and Mexico City in Mexico. The worst score shown for each economy is that of the location with the most complex
process for transferring property, and the best score that of the location with the most efficient one. The 10th and 90th percentile values are based on economy-level scores
for the 189 economies covered by Doing Business.
Source: Subnational Doing Business database.

13ABOUT DOING BUSINESS AND DOING BUSINESS IN POLAND 2015
a transfer of property. The second set
of indicators (getting credit, protecting
minority investors, enforcing contracts
and resolving insolvency) show limited
variability across cities in the same
economy since they mainly draw from
national laws with general applicability.
The choice of Doing Business indicators
has been guided by economic research
and firm-level data, particularly data
from the World Bank Enterprise
Surveys.2
These surveys provide data
highlighting the main obstacles to busi-
ness activity as reported by entrepre-
neurs in more than 120 economies. The
design of the Doing Business indicators
has also been informed by theoretical
insights gleaned from extensive re-
search and the literature on the role of
institutions in enabling economic de-
velopment. In addition, the background
papers developing the methodology for
each of the Doing Business indicator
sets have established the importance
of the rules and regulations that Doing
Business measures for such economic
outcomes as trade volumes, foreign di-
rect investment, market capitalization
in stock exchanges and private credit
as a percentage of GDP.3
Doing Business in Poland 2015 is the
first subnational Doing Business report
in the country (box 2.1) and as such it
captures several important dimensions
of the regulatory environment as they
apply to local firms in 18 Polish cities.
It provides quantitative measures of
regulations in 4 business areas: start-
ing a business, dealing with construc-
tion permits, registering property and
enforcing contracts.
TWO AGGREGATE
MEASURES
Doing Business presents data both
for individual indicators and for 2
aggregate measures—the distance
to frontier metric and ease of doing
business ranking—to provide different
perspectives on the data. The ease
of doing business ranking compares
economies with one another; the
distance to frontier score benchmarks
economies with respect to regulatory
best practices, showing the absolute
distance to the best performance on
each Doing Business indicator. When
compared across years, the distance
to frontier score shows how much the
regulatory environment for local entre-
preneurs in an economy has changed
over time in absolute terms, while the
ease of doing business rankings show
how much the regulatory environment
has changed relative to that in other
economies.
The distance to frontier measure
aids in assessing the absolute level
of regulatory performance and how
it improves over time. This measure
shows the distance of each economy
to the “frontier,” which represents the
best performance observed on each of
the indicators across all economies in
the Doing Business sample since 2005
or the third year in which data were
collected for the indicator. This allows
users both to see the gap between a
particular economy’s performance
and the best performance at any point
in time and to assess the absolute
change in the economy’s regulatory
environment over time as measured
by Doing Business. This measure shows
not only how economies are ordered on
their performance on the indicators but
also how far apart they are.
Doing Business in Poland 2015 includes
rankings of the 18 cities measured on
4 topics: starting a business, dealing
with construction permits, register-
ing property and enforcing contracts.
The rankings presented are based on
the distance to the frontier score. The
distance to frontier score captures the
TABLE 2.1 What is the frontier in regulatory practice in the areas measured
by Doing Business in Poland 2015?
Topic and indicator Who sets the frontier Frontier
Worst
performance
Starting a business
Procedures (number) Canada; New Zealand 1 18a
Time (days) New Zealand 0.5 100b
Cost (% of income per capita) Slovenia 0 200b
Minimum capital (% of income per capita) Australia; Colombia c
0 400b
Dealing with construction permits
Procedures (number) Hong Kong SAR, China 5 30a
Time (days) Singapore 26 373b
Cost (% of Warehouse value) Qatar 0 20b
Procedures (number) Georgia; Norway; Portugal;
Sweden
1 13a
Time (days) Georgia; New Zealand; Portugal 1 210b
Cost (% of property value) Saudi Arabia 0 15b
Enforcing Contracts
Procedures (number) Singapore 21 53a
Time (days) Singapore 120 1,340b
Cost (% of claim value) Bhutan 0.1 89b
a. Worst performance refers to the 99th percentile among all economies.
b. Worst performance refers to the 95th percentile among all economies.
c. One hundred and ten other economies also have a minimum capital of 0.

gap between a city’s performance and
a measure of best practices across the
areas covered by the report. For start-
ing a business, for example, Canada
and New Zealand have the smallest
number of procedures required (1) and
New Zealand the shortest time to fulfill
them (0.5 days). Slovenia has the lowest
cost (0.0% of income per capita), and
Australia, Colombia and 110 other econ-
omies have no paid-in minimum capital
requirement (table 2.1). For each topic
covered, Doing Business uses a simple
averaging approach for weighting com-
ponent indicators, calculating rankings
and determining the distance to frontier
score. To test the robustness of this ap-
proach, other approaches were explored,
including using principal components
and unobserved components.4
These
turn out to yield results nearly identical
to those of simple averaging. In the ab-
sence of a strong theoretical framework
that assigns different weights to the
topics covered for the 189 economies
worldwide, the simplest method is used:
weighting all topics equally and, within
each topic, giving equal weight to each
of the topic components.
Each topic covered by Doing Business
relates to a different aspect of the
business regulatory environment.
The distance to frontier scores and
rankings of each economy vary, often
substantially, across topics, indicat-
ing that strong performance by an
economy in one area of regulation
can coexist with weak performance
in another. A quick way to assess the
variability of an economy’s regulatory
performance is to look at its distance
to frontier scores across topics.
Croatia, for example, has an overall
distance to frontier score of 66.53. Its
distance to frontier score is 85.43 for
starting a business, while at the same
time, it has a distance to frontier score
of 44.97 for dealing with construction
permits. Variation in performance
across the indicator sets is not at all
unusual. It reflects differences in the
degree of priority that government
authorities give to particular areas of
business regulation reform and in the
ability of different government agen-
cies to deliver tangible results in their
area of responsibility.
Calculation of the distance to
frontier score
In the present report, calculating the
distance to frontier score for each city
involves 2 main steps. First, individual
component indicators are normalized
to a common unit where each of the
component indicators y is rescaled
using the linear transformation (worst
− y)/(worst − frontier). In this formula-
tion the frontier represents the best
performance on the indicator across
all world economies since 2005 or the
third year after data for the indicator
were collected for the first time.
In the same formulation, to mitigate
the effects of extreme outliers in the
distributions of the rescaled data for
most component indicators (very few
economies need 700 days to complete
the procedures to start a business, but
many need 9 days), the worst perfor-
mance is calculated after the removal
of outliers. The definition of outliers
is based on the distribution for each
component indicator. To simplify the
process, 2 rules were defined: the 95th
percentile is used for the indicators
with the most dispersed distributions
(including time, cost and minimum capi-
tal), and the 99th percentile is used for
number of procedures (figure 2.1).
Second, for all cities in Doing Business
in Poland 2015, the obtained scores are
presented for each measured topic:
starting a business, dealing with con-
struction permits, registering property
and enforcing contracts. More com-
plex aggregation methods—such as
principal components and unobserved
components—yield a ranking nearly
identical to the simple average used
by Doing Business.5
Thus Doing Business
uses the simplest method: within each
topic, giving equal weight to each of the
topic components.
FIGURE 2.1 How are distance to the frontier scores calculated for indicators? An
example
100
80
60
4
20
0
0 2015105 25 30
Worst
performance
(99thpercentile):
30procedures
Best performance
(frontier):
5 procedures
Distance to frontier
score for procedures
A time-and-motion topic: dealing with construction permits
Procedures (number)
Regulatory frontier

A city’s distance to frontier score is indi-
cated on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0
represents the worst performance and
100 the frontier. All distance to frontier
calculations are based on a maximum of
5 decimals. However, indicator ranking
calculations and the ease of doing busi-
ness ranking calculations are based on
2 decimals.
WHAT DOES DOING
BUSINESS NOT MEASURE?
Doing Business does not cover many
important policy areas, and even
within the areas it covers its scope is
narrow (table 2.2). Doing Business does
not measure the full range of factors,
policies and institutions that affect the
quality of an economy’s business en-
vironment or its national competitive-
ness. It does not, for example, capture
aspects of security, the prevalence of
bribery and corruption, market size,
macroeconomic stability, the state
of the financial system or the level of
training and skills of the labor force.
Even within the relatively small set of
indicators included in Doing Business,
the focus is deliberately narrow. The
trading across borders indicators, for
example, capture the documents, time
and cost required for the logistical
process of exporting and importing
containerized goods by seaport, but
they do not measure the cost of the sea
transport or of tariffs or capture any
aspects relating to international trade
agreements. Thus through these indi-
cators Doing Business provides a narrow
perspective on the infrastructure chal-
lenges that firms face, particularly in
the developing world. It does not ad-
dress the extent to which inadequate
roads, rail, ports and communications
may add to firms’ costs and undermine
competitiveness (except to the extent
that the trading across borders indica-
tors indirectly measure the quality of
ports and roads). Similarly, the starting
a business indicator does not cover all
aspects of commercial legislation.
Doing Business does not attempt to
measure all costs and benefits of a
particular law or regulation to society
as a whole. Measuring business laws
and regulations provides one input into
the debate on the regulatory burden
associated with achieving regulatory
objectives. These objectives can differ
across economies. Doing Business pro-
vides a starting point for this discus-
sion and should be used in conjunction
with other data sources
WHAT ARE THE
STRENGTHS AND
LIMITATIONS OF THE
METHODOLOGY?
The Doing Business methodology was
designed to be an easily replicable way
to benchmark business regulation. It
has advantages and limitations that
should be understood when using the
data (table 2.3).
A key consideration for the Doing
Business indicators is that they should
ensure comparability of the data
across a global set of economies. The
indicators are therefore developed
around standardized case scenarios
with specific assumptions. Doing
Business recognizes the limitations of
the standardized case scenarios and
assumptions. But while such assump-
tions come at the expense of generality,
they also help ensure the comparability
of data. For this reason it is common
to see limiting assumptions of this
kind in economic indicators. Inflation
statistics, for example, are often based
on prices of a set of consumer goods
in a few urban areas, since collecting
nationally representative price data at
high frequencies would be prohibitively
costly in many countries. GDP esti-
mates are also subject to a number of
limiting assumptions, which have not
prevented their widespread use.
Some Doing Business topics include
complex areas, and so it is important
that the standardized cases are
carefully defined. For example, the
TABLE 2.3 Advantages and limitations of the Doing Business methodology
Feature Advantages Limitations
Use of standardized
case scenarios
Makes the data comparable across
economies and the methodology
transparent
Reduces the scope of the data and
means that only regulatory reforms
in the areas measured can be
systematically tracked
Focus on largest
business citya
Makes the data collection manageable
(cost-effective) and the data
comparable
Reduces the representativeness of
the data for an economy if there are
significant differences across locations
Focus on domestic and
formal sector
Keeps the attention on where
regulations are relevant and firms are
most productive—the formal sector
Fails to reflect reality for the informal
sector—important where that is
large—or for foreign firms where they
face a different set of constraints
Reliance on expert
respondents
Ensures that the data reflect the
knowledge of those with the most
experience in conducting the types of
transactions measured
Results in indicators that do not
measure the variation in experiences
among entrepreneurs
Focus on the law Makes the indicators “actionable”—
because the law is what policy makers
can change
Fails to reflect the reality that where
systematic compliance with the law is
lacking, regulatory changes may not
achieve the full desired results
a. Subnational Doing Business goes beyond the largest business city within a country or region.
TABLE 2.2 What Doing Business does
not cover
Examples of areas not covered
Security
Prevalence of bribery and corruption
Market size
Macroeconomic stability
State of the financial system
Level of training and skills of the labor force

standardized case scenario usually
involves a limited liability company or
its legal equivalent. The considerations
in defining this assumption are twofold.
First, private limited liability companies
are, empirically, the most prevalent
business form for firms with more than
one owner in many economies around
the world. Second, this choice reflects
the focus of Doing Business on expand-
ing opportunities for entrepreneurship:
investors are encouraged to venture
into business when potential losses are
limited to their capital participation.
Another assumption underlying the
Doing Business indicators is that en-
trepreneurs have knowledge of and
comply with applicable regulations.
In practice, entrepreneurs may not
know what needs to be done or how
to comply and may lose considerable
time trying to find out. Alternatively,
they may deliberately avoid compli-
ance altogether—by not registering
for social security, for example. Where
regulation is particularly onerous, firms
may opt for bribery and other informal
arrangements intended to bypass the
rules—an aspect that helps explain
differences between the de jure data
provided by Doing Business and the de
facto insights offered by World Bank
Enterprise Surveys. In economies with
particularly burdensome regulation,
levels of informality tend to be higher.
Compared with their formal sector
counterparts, firms in the informal
sector typically grow more slowly, have
poorer access to credit and employ
fewer workers—and these workers
remain outside the protections of
labor law.6
Firms in the informal sector
are also less likely to pay taxes. Doing
Business measures one set of factors
that help explain the occurrence of
informality and give policy makers
insights into potential areas of regula-
tory reform.
Rules and regulations fall under the
direct control of policy makers—and
they are often where policy makers
start when intending to change the set
of incentives under which businesses
operate. Doing Business not only shows
where problems exist in the regulatory
framework; it also points to specific
regulations or regulatory procedures
that may lend themselves to reform.
And its quantitative measures of busi-
ness regulations enable research on
how specific regulations affect firm
behavior and economic outcomes.
HOW ARE THE DATA
COLLECTED?
The Doing Business data are based on
domestic laws and regulations as well as
administrative requirements. The data
are collected through several rounds
of interaction with expert respondents
(both private sector practitioners
and government and public agencies
operating at the central and/or local
level)—through face to face interviews,
responses to questionnaires, conference
calls and written correspondence. Doing
Business relies on several main sources
of information: the relevant laws and
regulations, private sector respondents,
government officials, magistrates and
World Bank Group staff. For a detailed
explanation of the Doing Business meth-
odology, see the Data Notes.
Relevant laws and regulations
Doing Business in Poland 2015 indica-
tors are based on laws and regulations.
Besides participating in interviews or
filling out written questionnaires, Doing
Business in Poland respondents provided
references to the relevant laws, regula-
tions and fee schedules, which were
collected and analyzed by the Doing
Business in Poland team.
For the rest of the data the team
conducts extensive consultations with
multiple contributors to minimize mea-
surement error. For some indicators, the
time component and part of the cost
component (where fee schedules are
lacking) are based on actual practice
rather than the law on the books. This
introduces a degree of judgment. When
sources indicate different estimates, the
time indicators reported in DoingBusiness
represent the median values of several
responses given under the assumptions
of the standardized case.
Doing Business in Poland 2015
respondents
Over 400 professionals participated in
the study providing the data that inform
the 4 Doing Business indicators. The sub-
national Doing Business website and the
acknowledgement section of this report
list the names and credentials of those
respondents wishing to be acknowl-
edged. Respondents are professionals
who routinely administer or advise on the
legal and regulatory requirements in the
specific areas covered by Doing Business
in Poland 2015, selected on the basis of
their expertise in these areas. Because
of the focus on legal and regulatory ar-
rangements, most of the respondents
are legal professionals such as lawyers
or notaries. Builders, architects, engi-
neers and other professionals provided
information related to dealing with con-
struction permits. Local government
officials and magistrates also provided
information that is incorporated into the
indicators.
Doing Business in Poland 2015 approach
was to work with professionals who
regularly undertake the transactions in-
volved. Following the standard method-
ological approach for time-and-motion
studies, Doing Business breaks down each
process or transaction, such as starting
a business or registering a property,
into separate steps to ensure a better
estimate of time. The time estimate for
each step is given by practitioners with
significant and routine experience in the
transaction. When time estimates differ,
further interactions with respondents
are pursued to converge on one estimate
or a narrow range that reflects the ma-
jority of applicable cases.

Doing Business does not survey firms
for 2 main reasons. The first relates to
the frequency with which firms engage
in the transactions captured by the
indicators, which is generally low. For
example, a firm goes through the start-
up process once in its existence, while
an incorporation lawyer may carry out
10 such transactions each month. The
incorporation lawyers and other experts
providing information to Doing Business
are therefore better able to assess the
process of starting a business than are
individual firms. They also have access
to the latest regulations and practices,
while a firm may have faced a different
set of rules when incorporating years
before. The second reason is that Doing
Business mostly gathers legal informa-
tion, which firms are unlikely to be fully
familiar with.
Governments and World Bank
Group staff
After the analysis of laws and regula-
tions and after conducting follow-up
interviews with Doing Business in Poland
2015 respondents, the Subnational Doing
Business team shared the preliminary
findings of the report with governments
and public agencies operating both at
the central and local level. Through this
process government authorities had the
opportunity to comment on the prelimi-
nary data, both through meetings with
World Bank Group staff and in writing.
HOW DO GOVERNMENTS
USE THE DATA?
Over the past decade governments
have increasingly focused on reform-
ing business regulation as one way
of maintaining competitiveness in an
increasingly globalized economy. Doing
Business provides one source of action-
able, objective data that give useful
insights into good practices worldwide.
Indeed, since 2003 governments have
implemented more than 600 regula-
tory reforms that have been informed
by Doing Business.7
One venue for sharing success stories
in business regulation reform is peer-
to-peer learning events—workshops
where officials from different govern-
ments across a region or even across
the globe meet to discuss the chal-
lenges of regulatory reform and to
share their experiences (figure 2.2).
In addition, reform committees within
governments frequently use the Doing
Business indicators as one input to
inform their programs for improving
the business environment. More than
50 economies have formed such com-
mittees—typically at the interministe-
rial level or reporting directly to the
president or the prime minister—to
ensure the coordination of efforts
across agencies. In East and South Asia
they include Indonesia, the Republic of
Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines and
Sri Lanka. In the Middle East and North
Africa: Algeria, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In Europe and Central Asia: Azerbaijan,
Croatia, the Czech Republic, Georgia,
Kazakhstan, Kosovo, the Kyrgyz
Republic, the former Yugoslav Republic
of Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro,
Poland, the Russian Federation,
Tajikistan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom
and Uzbekistan. In Sub-Saharan Africa:
Botswana, Burundi, the Central African
Republic, the Comoros, the Democratic
Republic of Congo, the Republic of
Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Kenya,
Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda,
Sierra Leone, Togo and Zambia. And
in Latin America: Chile, Colombia,
Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic,
Guatemala, Mexico, Panama and Peru.
One reason behind the use of Doing
Business indicators by governments
is that many of these indicators can
be considered “actionable,” measuring
aspects over which governments have
direct control. For example, govern-
ments can reduce (or even eliminate)
the minimum capital requirement for
new firms. They can invest in company
and property registries to increase the
efficiency of these public agencies.
FIGURE 2.2—How governments use Doing Business as a policy tool
Reform committees
use Doing Business
indicators to help
inform programs to
improve the business
environment.
Successful business
regulation reforms
improvements as part
of broader reform
programs.
Reform committees
use Doing Business
indicators to help
inform programs to
improve the business
environment.
improvements as part
of broader reform
programs.
Governments learn
from one another
about good practices
in the areas measured
by Doing Business.
Governments use
Doing Business as a
tool to stimulate
regulatory

They can improve the efficiency of tax
administration by adopting the latest
technologies to facilitate the prepara-
tion, filing and payment of taxes by
businesses. And they can undertake
court reforms to shorten delays in the
enforcement of contracts. On the other
hand, some Doing Business indicators
capture costs that involve private
sector participants, such as lawyers,
notaries, architects, electricians or
freight forwarders—costs over which
governments may have little influence
in the short run.
While many Doing Business indicators
are actionable, this does not neces-
sarily mean that they are always
“action-worthy” in a particular con-
text.8
Business regulation reforms
are one element of a strategy aimed
at improving competitiveness and
establishing a solid foundation for
sustainable economic growth. There
are many other important goals to pur-
sue—such as effective management of
public finances, adequate attention to
education and training, adoption of the
latest technologies to boost economic
productivity and the quality of public
services, and appropriate regard for air
and water quality to safeguard people’s
health. Governments have to decide
what set of priorities best fits the
needs they face. To say that govern-
ments should work toward a sensible
set of rules for private sector activity
does not suggest that doing so should
come at the expense of other worthy
economic and social goals.

Doing Business
in Poland 2015
Starting a business
P
oles are among the most enthu-
siastic about entrepreneurship
in Europe, according to a 2012
report.1
However, the report also found
that Poland had the highest gap be-
tween those who describe themselves
as self-employed and those who actu-
ally are. Turning this enthusiasm for
entrepreneurship into real businesses
requires hard work, dedication, and
a favorable business environment.
Yet, channeling the creative energy of
young entrepreneurs is necessary to
ramp up innovation, competitiveness,
and job creation—three important
pillars to sustain Poland’s impressive
growth of recent years.2
WHY DOES STARTING A
BUSINESS MATTER?
Entrepreneurs are more likely to start
their businesses where few barriers to
entry exist. Using data collected from
company registries in 100 economies
over eight years, researchers have
found that simple business start-up is
critical for fostering formal entrepre-
neurship.3
Other economic benefits fol-
low. In fact, there is a positive relation-
ship between entrepreneurship, growth
and job creation. In 2007, young start-
ups accounted for nearly 8 million of
the 12 million new jobs created in the
U.S. economy.4
In contrast, cumbersome regulations
for starting a business are associated
with a smaller number of legally reg-
istered firms, greater informality and
a smaller tax base.5
Using a sample
of OECD countries, researchers found
that, on average, halving the number of
procedures required to start a business
leads to a 14% increase in the number
of new business registrations. A similar
reduction in the number of days re-
quired leads to a 19% increase, while a
similar cut in the cost leads to a 30%
increase.6
Evidence at the country level supports
these findings. After a reform in Mexico
reduced the number of procedures
needed to start a business by 60%,
the country saw a 5% increase in the
total number of firms.7
Comparable
evidence exists on a regional level for
Italy: provinces with a longer process
for starting a business have lower rates
of firm creation than those with a more
streamlined process.8
Not surprisingly, facilitating business
registration has been an area of focus
for governments. Since 2005 Doing
Business has recorded 462 business
registration reforms in 165 economies,
of which 15% were in OECD high-income
countries.9
Research shows, however,
that business registration should not
be seen in isolation, as the benefits of
an easier start-up process depend also
on other factors such as tax adminis-
tration, and land and labor regulation.10
Although Poland has reduced the
minimum capital requirement and
created a one-stop shop for business
registration, the time and cost remain
high relative to the EU average.
It is four times faster and half as
costly to register online using the
“S24” system, which does not require a
notary deed.
In Poznań, most businesses register
online using the “S24” system, but the
uptake is lower in other cities.
Notary fees are the main cost for
companies not using the “S24” system,
but recent deregulation is bringing
them down.
Recent reforms, if well implemented,
can address the current shortcomings
of the one-stop shop and the “S24”
system, reducing the time required to
start a business and further improving
the online start-up process.

WHAT DOES STARTING A
BUSINESS MEASURE?
Doing Business data measure the
number of procedures, time, cost and
paid-in minimum capital required for
small and medium-size limited liability
companies to formally operate (figure
3.1). To make the data comparable
across 189 economies, Doing Business
uses a standardized business that
is 100% domestically owned, has a
start-up capital equivalent to 10 times
income per capita, engages in general
industrial or commercial activities, and
employs between 10 and 50 people
within the first month of operations.
HOW DOES STARTING
A BUSINESS WORK IN
POLAND?
Over the last six years, Poland has
reformed regulations relating to start-
ing a business. During this period the
number of limited liability companies
in Poland has grown by over 70%, de-
spite the economic crisis in Europe.11
In 2009, the paid-in minimum capital
was reduced by 90%, from PLN50,000
(EUR11,661) to PLN5,000 (EUR1,166).
The cost of starting a business fell
by 26%, from 17.5% of income per
capita in 2008 to 12.9% in 2014, due
partially to lower registration fees.12
In
2009, Poland introduced a one-stop
shop at the National Court Register
(Krajowy Rejestr Sądowy, or KRS),13
and
expanded it in 2013. Entrepreneurs
can apply for the statistical number
(Rejestr Gospodarki Narodowej, or
REGON), tax identification number
(Numer Identyfikacji Podatkowej, or
NIP) and registration with the Social
Insurance Office (Zakład Ubezpieczeń
Społecznych, or ZUS) at the time of
registration with the local KRS court
division (figure 3.2).14
The court division
of KRS also takes care of the publica-
tion of the new company registration
in the Court and Commercial Gazette.
In addition, a reform of the Labor
Code eliminated the requirement to
inform the National Work Inspectorate
(Państwowa Inspekcja Pracy) and
the National Sanitary Inspectorate
(Państwowa Inspekcja Sanitarna) of
the new company registration.15
The
number of procedures, as measured by
Doing Business, fell from 10 to 4.
However, the one-stop shop had little
impact on the time to start a business
(figure 3.3) because no actual reengi-
neering of procedures occurred. At the
time of registration, the court division
of KRS received the application forms
for the tax identification and statistical
numbers from entrepreneurs, which
were then forwarded to the local Tax
Office and Statistical Office. As one of
the private sector contributors to this
study put it: “they call it a one-stop
shop, but in reality the KRS works as
a post office.”
To reduce the time and cost to start a
business, an online system to register
limited liability companies, the so-
called “S24”, was launched in 2012.16
Entrepreneurs choosing this system
can use standard articles of asso-
ciation that do not require a notary
deed, thus avoiding that fee.17
Initially
designed only for registration with
KRS and not as a one-stop shop, the
“S24” system required entrepreneurs
to register separately with the Tax
Office, the Statistical Office and the
Social Insurance Office. Registration
with KRS through the “S24” system is
usually completed within 1–2 days.
$
Cost
(% of income per capita)
Paid-in
minimum
capital
Number of
procedures
Preregistration PostregistrationRegistration,
incorporation
Time
(days)
Formal operation
Entrepreneur
FIGURE 3.1 What are the time, cost, paid-in minimum capital and number of
procedures to get a local limited liability company up and running?
FIGURE 3.2 The one-stop shop at the National Court Register: How does it work?
Court division at
National Court Register
Publication in Court
and Commercial Gazette
Tax Office
(NIP)
Statistical Office
(REGON)
Social Insurance Office
(ZUS)

21STARTING A BUSINESS
The use of the “S24” system has picked
up recently. On average, it represented
about 30% of limited liability com-
panies created in Poland in the first
half of 2014, up 21% compared to the
same period in 2013. There is room for
improvement, however. For example,
when Chile introduced an online sys-
tem for business registration in 2013,
half of new limited liability companies
were using it just seven weeks after
its launch.18
The Chilean system is
free of charge. In Poland, meanwhile,
entrepreneurs using the “S24” system
as of September 2014 must pay a civil
law transactions tax, registration fees,
a stamp duty for VAT registration, and
a small fee for online payment—for a
total of PLN2,814 (EUR656) for the
hypothetical company in the Doing
Business case study.
The “S24” system’s user-friendliness
could also improve. Currently, each of
the owners and members of the board
must enter their personal details to
create an account, and they all need
to log in simultaneously to provide
their approvals. The system does not
allow the saving of draft applications,
so if the process is not completed in
one session the user must start over.
In addition, companies created using
the “S24” system must go through
the court division of KRS to make any
modification, although a new act will
soon enable online modifications for
companies registered online.19
Recent changes seek to address some
of the shortcomings of the one-stop
shop at the KRS and the “S24” system.
An amendment of the National Court
Register Act, effective as of December
1, 2014, eliminates the need to attach
separate applications for the tax iden-
tification and the statistical numbers
at the time of registering with KRS.20
Interconnected IT systems will allow
the KRS to share information with
the Tax Office, the Statistical Office,
and the Social Insurance Office. The
information provided to the KRS will
FIGURE 3.3 The one-stop shop did not significantly reduce the time to
start a business
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Procedures (number) Time (days) Cost (% of income per capita)
FIGURE 3.4 Uptake of the “S24” online business registration system across cities
Note: KRS court divisions are in charge of business registration in each city. Statistics for Warsaw represent the
average of data from the two KRS court divisions covering the city. The court division in Zielona Góra also covers
Gorzów Wielkopolski. Data includes limited liability companies created from June 2013 to May 2014.
Source: Ministry of Justice of Poland.
Percentage of limited liability companies
registered with the S24 system (June 2013-May 2014)
50%
40%
33%
31%
30%
29%
27%
26%
23%
23%
22%
22%
21%
20%
19%
19%
15%
Poznań
Kielce
Wrocław
Kraków
Rzeszów
Lublin
Warsaw
Katowice
Łódź
Szczecin
Opole
Toruń
Białystok
Bydgoszcz
Gdańsk
Olsztyn
Gorzów Wielkopolski
and Zielona Góra

Doing Business in Poland, 2015

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Doing Business in Poland, 2015