Economy

Imports
$382 billion (2022). Crude Petroleum ($16.5B), Cars ($13.5B), Motor vehicles; parts and accessories (8701 to 8705) ($10.2B), Refined Petroleum ($8.86B), and Broadcasting Equipment ($6.85B), importing mostly from Germany ($88.9B), China ($43.9B), Italy ($20B), Netherlands ($18.6B), and Czechia ($16.2B).

In 2022, Poland was the world’s biggest importer of Oxometallic or Peroxometallic Acid Salts ($3.06B), Carbon ($714M), Roofing Tiles ($97.6M), and Lead Oxides ($17.6M).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)
• 95.7% have an account with a financial institution
• 24.4% have a credit card
• 58.4% make online purchases

Ease of doing business
It is very easy to conduct business (rated 76.4 out of 100) ranked 25th out of 34 OECD high income countries, ranked 40th out of 190 countries worldwide (2023, World Bank).

Exports
$346 billion (2022). Motor vehicles; parts and accessories (8701 to 8705) ($15.3B), Electric Batteries ($9.55B), Computers ($6.73B), Seats ($6.67B), and Other Furniture ($6.66B), exporting mostly to Germany ($93.1B), Czechia ($22.4B), France ($19.8B), United Kingdom ($17.2B), and Netherlands ($16.3B).

In 2022, Poland was the world’s biggest exporter of Wood Crates ($1.24B), Razor Blades ($891M), Frozen Fruits and Nuts ($719M), Newspapers ($409M), and Insulating Glass ($374M).

Main local online stores
Allegro.pl, Ceneo, RTV EURO AGD, Skapiec.pl, Komputronik, eBay, Zalando, empik.com.

Economic freedom
‘Moderately free’ (66 out of 100) ranked 23rd out of 44 European countries, ranked 42nd out of 184 countries worldwide (2024, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).

Global Innovation Index
Ranked 26th out of 39 European countries, 41st out of 132 worldwide.

The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.

Media

Media language
Polish

Information channels
Poland’s broadcasting market is the largest in Eastern and Central Europe. TV is the leading medium and three players – state-owned TVP and privately-owned TVN and Polsat – dominate the market. Many non-state media outlets are owned by foreign concerns, particularly German companies. Agora – the publisher of Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper – is the main domestic media group. There are hundreds of newspaper titles, most of them local or regional. The top-selling tabloid, Fakt, is owned by Germany-based publisher Axel Springer. The constitution guarantees freedom of expression and forbids censorship. But critics cried foul when the newly-elected conservative Law and Justice government introduced a bill in late 2015 to allow ministers to appoint the heads of TVP and public Polish Radio. The move prompted the European Commission to look into any potential threat to freedom of expression. The public media “have been transformed into government propaganda mouthpieces”, Reporters Without Borders said in 2018. Freedom House says private media that criticise the government have experienced pressure from regulators and a fall in advertising revenue from state-run companies. Some ruling party members have called for changes in the law to reduce foreign ownership of the media, advocating a “repolarisation” of the sector.

The press

Gazeta Wyborcza – mass-circulation daily
Rzeczpospolita – influential daily
Fakt – mass-circulation tabloid daily
Super Express – mass-circulation tabloid daily
Dziennik Gazeta Prawna – economic daily
Polityka – weekly
Wprost – weekly
Newsweek Polska – weekly
The Warsaw Voice – English-language weekly
Warsaw Business Journal – English-language weekly

Television

Telewizja Polska (TVP) – public, operates national, regional and thematic networks
TVN – commercial, also operates news channel TVN 24
Polsat – commercial channel and pay-TV operator
Canal+ – pay-TV operator

Radio

Polish Radio – public, operates five national networks and many regional stations
TheNews.pl – Polish Radio’s news site, in English
RMF FM – commercial
Radio Zet – commercial
Radio Maryja – controversial Catholic station, run by Redemptorist Order

News agency

Polish News Agency (PAP) – state-run
Wirtualna Polska – portal
Onet.pl – portal
Interia – portal

Internet Data

Internet users
88.1% penetration, 35.75 million

Share of web traffic by device
69.97% mobile phones, 29.39% computers (laptops and desktops), 0.62% tablet devices, others 0.02%

Median speed of mobile Internet connection
42.12 mbps

Median speed of fixed Internet connection
139.28 mbps

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 130.8%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 96.3%

Most popular web search engines
Google (95.6%), Bing (2.83%), DuckDuckGo (0.68%), Yahoo! (0.44%), Yandex Ru (0.32%), other (0.12%).

Most used social media
Facebook (87.55%), Instagram (4.28%), Pinterest (2.83%), Twitter (2.55%), YouTube (1.93%), Tumblr (0.35%), reddit (0.32%), Other (0.2%).

Social statistics

Life expectancy
77 yrs (2022)

CO2 emissions
7.4 metric tons per capita

Corruption perceptions Index
Poland scored 55 out of 100, ranked 45 out 180 countries worldwide.

Current health expenditure
6.68% of GDP (2022)

Current education expenditure
93.5% of total expenditure in public institutions

World Happiness Index
Poland ranked 48 out of 137 countries, with a score of 6.123.

Glass Ceiling Index
68.2 out 100, ranked 10th out of 29 countries.

The glass-ceiling index measures the environment for working women combining data on higher education, labor-force participation, pay, child-care costs, maternity and paternity rights, business-school applications, and representation in senior jobs.

Religion
Poland is predominantly a catholic country and this is outwardly manifested. Churchgoing is prevalent. Also various religious holidays and traditions are observed. It is common to profess adherence to church rules and dogma for the sake of appearance but, in practice, true observance is not so widespread. In public, people tend to be very uncritical about the church and although in a closer group of friends they may be more critical, they will still follow most of the traditions associated with the church.

Ethnicity
After WW II, Poland became ethnically very homogenous. This had two effects: lack of conditions in which ethnic tensions arose and, at the same time, lack of knowledge and therefore understanding and appreciation of ethnic differences. As a result, ethnic differences may be noticed more in Poland than in more diverse countries. On Polish streets, there are few people who do not look Polish. There are few Asians and even fewer black people and most live in the largest cities. 

Graduates (tertiary education)
More adults in Poland are obtaining a tertiary degree today than a decade ago. While 32% of young adults had attained a tertiary education in 2008, 44% of them had in 2018, a similar attainment rate as the OECD average (2019)

Gender
The approach to gender is peculiar in Poland. On one hand, women have been working outside the home in huge numbers at least since the end of the Second World War. Even as early as the 19th century, they played important social roles and participated in decision-making on the family and community level, about economic matters. In today’s Poland, statistically, they are better educated than Polish men but they earn less money (the gender wage gap is about 30%) and they are discriminated at work place on basis of age, marital and parental status and appearance, despite is being illegal. At the same time, women are supposed to be (and in most cases are) treated with respect and there is a certain double standard of morality where women are expected to behave with greater moral sobriety than men.

Class
Although Poland was communist for a very long time, it remains a very class-based society, even if it is not just a simple division according to the wealth of the individual. People tend to socialise very much with their own kind. Education is very important and it is unlikely that people with high education will socialize with those who are not educated. It is still quite uncommon for an educated man to marry a non- educated woman.

Class is also decided by family status. People from the rural areas are generally perceived as lower class. In Warsaw, people are probably judged more on the basis of their own achievements and money. It may be important to note that Poland had a large aristocratic population before WW II, however, most aristocrats were killed during the war and during the Stalinist area, with the few survivors emigrating or marrying ordinary Poles.