Poland's investment land market continues to be dominated by residential projects, with developers outside Warsaw focusing on Kraków, Wrocław and Gdańsk, followed by Poznań and Łódź. Land value is now determined not only by location and development potential, but increasingly by how efficiently the entire development process can be carried out, according to analysis by Walter Herz.
Administrative procedures have grown considerably longer over the past decade. In Poland's largest regional cities, developers currently wait an average of eight to fourteen months for a building permit on a multifamily residential project, while in Warsaw the process takes around eighteen months. Walter Herz analysis, based on data from the General Office of Building Control, shows the longest waits in Poznań at over fourteen months, followed by Gdynia at over ten months. Average waiting times stand at 280 days in Łódź, 267 days in Kraków, 256 days in Wrocław and 231 days in Gdańsk. As recently as 2016, the same process took between two and three and a half months in those cities.
The number of building permits issued actually fell in most analysed cities between 2024 and 2025. In Gdańsk the figure dropped from 70 to 44 decisions, and in Kraków from 107 to 91, meaning the slowdown is driven not by higher volumes of applications but by lengthening administrative processes. For investors, every additional month means capital tied up for longer, higher financing costs and greater exposure to changes in material prices, construction costs and overall market conditions.
Poland's spatial planning reform is adding a further layer of uncertainty. More than 60 per cent of municipalities have yet to adopt general plans, and existing local zoning plans cover only around one-third of the country's territory. From 1 September, municipalities without an adopted general plan will no longer be able to issue new planning decisions for undeveloped land, amend existing local zoning plans or process new Integrated Investment Plans (ZIPs). As a result, the most sought-after plots are those with a clear planning status and a straightforward path to a building permit, and land valuation is increasingly based on the investment scenario that comes with the site rather than the property itself.
ZIPs are expected to play a greater role under the new planning system, replacing the Special Housing Act. They could offer advantages for large projects, including a more collaborative approach with municipalities and greater predictability of costs, but their effective use depends on general plans being in place, which most municipalities have yet to adopt. Developers are also calling for greater digitalisation of procedures, standardised documentation requirements and a reduction in the number of institutions involved in reviewing applications, arguing that the main barrier is not the volume of documents required but the unpredictability of the administrative process as a whole.
"Poland remains one of the largest residential markets in the region, but limited land availability, combined with the lengthy process of preparing projects, is reducing its attractiveness to global investors," said Damian Karkosiński, Investment and Acquisition Specialist at Walter Herz. A shortage of development-ready land and growing administrative costs are feeding through into both land and housing prices, and developers are becoming more selective when acquiring sites, with projects carrying less predictable timelines increasingly being postponed or abandoned, limiting future housing supply.
