The “How to Search?” team — we write about how to check sources before you share them.
In short: Poland has dozens of free, official registers and databases — from the National Court Register to land and mortgage registers and Statistics Poland (GUS) data — but most of them don’t appear on the first page of Google. You need to know they exist and go to them directly. Below are 10 specific places, with links and practical tricks for using them.
Why it’s worth looking at government sources
When you’re looking for information about a company, a property, a law, or a municipality’s spending, the natural reflex is to type the query into Google. The problem is that the search engine mainly shows articles DESCRIBING public data — often outdated, simplified, or written by intermediaries who themselves use the same registers. The original register — the one the office updates on an ongoing basis — rarely makes it to the first page of results.
It’s the same problem we’ve written about more than once: it’s easier to trust the first, convenient result than to get to the source. The difference is that with government data, the source is public, free, and — in most cases — available to anyone in a few clicks, as long as you know where to look.
Most Polish public registers — from the KRS to land and mortgage registers — are free and available online, but not always visible in Google results.
Searching through Google
You type a company name into the search engine. You get articles from portals that aggregate KRS data — sometimes outdated, sometimes charging for a “full report.”
Searching in the official register
You go directly to the Court Registers Portal, enter the KRS number or NIP, and get a current extract straight from the court — for free, with no intermediaries.
10 places and tricks worth knowing
dane.gov.pl — the central catalog of public data
This is the starting point for most queries: municipal budgets, air quality data, education statistics, and hundreds of other datasets in one place. Trick: don’t read the data in the browser preview — filter by format (CSV, XLSX, API) and download the file so you can search or sort it yourself.
Public Information Bulletins (BIP)
Every office — from a ministry to the smallest municipality — is required to run its own BIP. Trick: instead of searching each BIP separately, use the Google operator site:, e.g., site:bip.krakow.pl budżet 2026to search the resources of a specific office all at once.
The Court Registers Portal / KRS (prs.ms.gov.pl)
Here you can check any company and organization entered in the National Court Register. Trick: download the “full extract,” not just the “current” one — it shows the history of changes to the management board, shareholders, and capital, which can be just as important as the current state.
CEIDG — sole proprietorships
The KRS covers companies, but most small businesses in Poland are sole proprietorships — you can check those in CEIDG. Trick: pay attention to the business start date and any periods of suspension — it’s a quick warning sign before signing a contract.
The Portal of Common Court Judgments and the Supreme Administrative Court (NSA)
Judgments of the common and administrative courts are public and searchable online. Trick: if you know the case number, search by it — if not, search by phrases from the facts of the case (e.g., a street name or the type of dispute), not just by surname, because personal data is often anonymized.
The Sejm — the legislative process and Sejm prints
On the Sejm’s website, every bill has its own print number, which lets you follow the entire course of work — from the first reading to the vote. Trick: instead of reading the entire bill, first check the explanatory memorandum and the committee opinions — that’s usually where you’ll find a summary of what is actually changing.
The GUS Local Data Bank (bdl.stat.gov.pl)
This is the source of official statistics for a specific municipality, county, or province — from the number of residents to unemployment. Trick: instead of a single number from the news, choose an indicator and compare it over several years — only the trend shows whether the situation is improving or getting worse.
Geoportal (mapy.geoportal.gov.pl)
The official map with the boundaries of registered land plots, buildings, and zoning plans. Trick: search for a plot by its registration number or address, then turn on the “local zoning plan” layer to check what can be built in a given area.
Electronic Land and Mortgage Registers (ekw.ms.gov.pl)
Every property in Poland has its own land and mortgage register with information about the owner, the mortgage, and any claims. Trick: you’ll find the register number in the notarial deed, but if you don’t have it, use the service for searching for a register by the land plot registration number from Geoportal.
e-Zamówienia (ezamowienia.gov.pl) and NIK reports
Here you can check who won a public tender in your municipality or office, and for how much. Trick: for larger contracts, it’s also worth looking at the website of the Supreme Audit Office (nik.gov.pl) and checking whether a given institution or area of spending has already been audited — NIK reports can be surprisingly readable, even for a layperson.
“A public register won’t show up in search results by itself — you need to know it exists and go there directly.”
How to read official documents — a few additional tips
The website addresses are only half the battle — the other half is being efficient at navigating the documents themselves. A few habits that save hours: use the Ctrl+F (or Cmd+F) shortcut in every PDF file instead of scrolling page by page; always check the publication or update date of a document — offices sometimes leave old versions next to new ones; and remember that file names can be misleading — it’s worth glancing at the first page to make sure it really is the document you’re looking for.
If the information you’re looking for isn’t in any of the registers above, you still have a legal tool: a request for access to public information under the Act of September 6, 2001, on Access to Public Information. The office generally has 14 days to respond. This is a solution for situations where the data technically exists, but no one has published it yet.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, all the sources listed in this article — dane.gov.pl, BIP, KRS, CEIDG, the judgment portals, the Sejm, GUS, Geoportal, land and mortgage registers, and e-Zamówienia — are free and publicly available.
It depends on the office — the law imposes an obligation to publish, but the pace of updates varies. Always check the document’s publication date and, if in doubt, compare it with another source, e.g., an official central register.
You can file a request for access to public information — the office generally has 14 days to respond. It’s a formal tool for situations where the data hasn’t been published yet.
Most datasets on dane.gov.pl have an open license allowing reuse, including commercial reuse — but it’s worth checking the license assigned to a specific dataset, because they may differ.
The registers described concern Poland, but a similar mechanism exists at the EU level — the European Union Open Data Portal (open-data.europa.eu) aggregates public data from across the EU, including Eurostat.
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Sources: dane.gov.pl (catalog of open public data); bip.gov.pl (the central BIP website); prs.ms.gov.pl (Court Registers Portal / KRS); ceidg.gov.pl; orzeczenia.ms.gov.pl (Portal of Common Court Judgments); orzeczenia.nsa.gov.pl (Central Database of Administrative Court Judgments); sejm.gov.pl (the legislative process and Sejm prints); bdl.stat.gov.pl (GUS Local Data Bank); mapy.geoportal.gov.pl; ekw.ms.gov.pl (Electronic Land and Mortgage Registers); ezamowienia.gov.pl; nik.gov.pl (audit results); open-data.europa.eu (EU Open Data Portal); the Act of September 6, 2001, on Access to Public Information.