Housing prices in Poland in mid-2026: what expat buyers should know

Asking prices in mid-2026: Gdansk jumps 21%, Warsaw tops 20,000 PLN/m2

The freshest broad snapshot comes from Cushman & Wakefield's Q2 2026 report on the primary (new-build) market. Gdansk leads the country with asking prices up 21% year on year, to about 18,500 PLN per square metre (+1% quarter on quarter). Warsaw crossed a symbolic line: the average developer asking price now exceeds 20,000 PLN/m2, up 16% year on year and 4% versus the previous quarter. Krakow, at close to 17,000 PLN/m2, is the third most expensive primary market in Poland.

The remaining big cities in the same report: Lodz at 11,600 PLN/m2 (+11% year on year), Wroclaw +7%, Poznan +5%, and Katowice flat. Preliminary Otodom data for July 2026 points to month-on-month stabilisation of average asking prices (Wroclaw +0.6%, Krakow +0.1%), but year on year prices kept rising in most cities, with Warsaw strongest. The median total asking price of a Warsaw flat now stands at 878,000 PLN.

Keep one thing in mind while reading the table: these are asking prices, what developers want, not what buyers actually pay. The gap between the two is the subject of the next section.

Asking vs transaction prices: two datasets, two stories

NBP, the National Bank of Poland (the country's central bank), publishes a different dataset: transaction prices, meaning what buyers actually paid. For Q1 2026 across the 7 largest cities the picture was flat to slightly negative: an average of 14,245 PLN/m2 on the primary market (-0.3% year on year) and 13,477 PLN/m2 on the secondary market (-0.7%). Gdansk was the only major city with clear transactional growth (+5.35% year on year on the primary market), while Wroclaw recorded a 2.48% decline.

Warsaw shows how wide the gap can be. NBP transaction data for Q1 2026: 16,475 PLN/m2 on the primary market and 16,393 PLN/m2 on the secondary market (-0.6% quarter on quarter). Compare that with the 20,000+ PLN/m2 developer asking average and you get a difference of several thousand zloty per square metre. The datasets are not contradictory: they cover different periods (Q1 vs Q2 vs July), different price types and different baskets of properties. But they do tell you that the listed price is a starting point, not a verdict.

Negotiation is real money here. According to NBP and PKO BP analysts' data for Q1 2026, developers sitting on a large stock of unsold units offer discounts of 5-15%, though they prefer non-price concessions: turnkey finishing, a parking space included in the price, or deferred payment. If you are financing the purchase with a Polish mortgage, our guide to getting a 500,000 PLN mortgage as a foreigner walks through what banks expect from expat borrowers.

Why demand is back: rates held at 3.75% and shrinking supply

The rebound has a simple macro backdrop. The RPP (Poland's Monetary Policy Council, the rate-setting body of the central bank) held interest rates at its 7-8 July 2026 meeting: reference rate 3.75%, lombard 4.25%, deposit 3.25%. That is a stabilisation after an earlier series of cuts. Analysts quoted after the decision expect no changes until the end of 2026, with possible cuts only in 2027; the June inflation reading landed in the middle of the NBP target.

Cheaper credit than a year ago has already moved the market. Developer sales jumped 48% year on year in Q2 2026 and mortgage inquiries rose 15.8%. Developers responded by starting construction of 39,000 units (+22% quarter on quarter) and completing 31,000. Cushman & Wakefield's analysts link the higher credit activity directly to more households deciding to buy.

Supply is not keeping up. Otodom data for July 2026 shows the developer offer in the 7 largest markets shrank to just over 59,000 units worth about 52 billion PLN. More than 4,400 flats sold in July (+12% year on year) against only about 3,000 newly listed, and after seven months of 2026 sales are running 15% above new supply. Sell-out times explain the price map: Warsaw's offer would clear in 3.6 quarters, Wroclaw's in 3.8 and the Tricity's in 3.9, versus 5.2 in Krakow, 7.4 in Lodz and 9.6 in Katowice. Where the stock is thin, developers have room to keep raising prices.

What this means if you are buying as an expat

First, do not count on a subsidy. The credit-subsidy program known as Pierwsze klucze (part of the broader Klucz do mieszkania housing strategy) is still a draft, not law: applications have never opened, reports from 2025 indicated the government had paused work on the loan-subsidy pillar, and there is no confirmed restart in 2026. Cushman & Wakefield notes that the prolonged work on subsidy programs is itself holding back part of the demand. If a program eventually launches, treat it as a bonus, not a plan.

Second, negotiate where the data says you can. The 5-15% discounts and non-price extras concentrate in projects with big unsold stock, which maps to Krakow, Lodz and Katowice with their long sell-out times. In Warsaw and the Tricity expect less room. Cushman & Wakefield's forecast for the second half of 2026 is that demand momentum may gradually fade against a high base, but with sales matching new supply the pressure on prices stays upward. Before you commit, run the numbers through our mortgage and creditworthiness calculators and compare current bank offers in our mortgage ranking.

Third, sort out the money logistics early. If your savings or income are in euros or dollars, a dedicated EUR/USD currency account in Poland can cut conversion costs on the down payment, and Polish banks will want documented, stable income when assessing an expat borrower. With rates on hold at 3.75% and analysts not expecting cuts before 2027, waiting for cheaper credit is a bet against the current data: in most large cities, asking prices keep climbing in the meantime.