If you’ve just bought an apartment in Poland, it should quickly come to your attention that you have to pay monthly communal fees. This is the czynsz administracyjny bill.
“Czynsz administracyjny” or “czynsz najmu“?
As the name czynsz administracyjny suggests, it’s an administrative fee that has been adopted as a definition of the sum of benefits and fees to be paid by apartment owners to the accounts of property management companies or members of housing co-operatives on their behalf. Czynsz administracyjny typically covers building management and maintenance, contributions to a renovation fund and, depending on the property, advance payments for water, heating and waste collection.
People in Poland are used to bandying about the word “czynsz”. However, they might not always be referring to the czynsz administracyjny bill.
There’s also czynsz najmu. This is the actual rental fee determined by the property owner, minus the monthly communal costs. “Czynsz najmu” means the rent payable to the landlord for the use of the apartment when you rent an apartment. Check the tenancy agreement to see whether building charges and utilities are included in the rent or payable separately.
An example of a czynsz administracyjny bill
The monthly czynsz administracyjny bill for March 2025 for the 75 m2 flat I owned in Gdańsk up until the end of January 2025 came to 894,66 zł. I still had access to my settlements via the property manager’s cloud-native system up until the middle of March.
In April 2024, the property management company added an extra 249,11 zł to my communal fees due to maintenance costs connected with the garage hall. The flat comes with two parking spaces and a storage unit (komórka lokatorska).
In the image above, you may see a breakdown of the monthly communal fees the current owner has to cover. These include:
Centralne ogrzewanie – opłata stała – Central heating – standing charge
Zimna woda i ścieki – Cold water and canalisation
Konserwacja wind – Lift maintenance
Fundusz remontowy – Renovation fund
Monitoring – Video Surveillance
In the summer of 2023, it came to light that the administrator of my building in Gdańsk had driven our mini-community of three buildings deep into debt. Essentially, the monthly advance payments may have been set too low to cover the building’s actual running costs. Hence, residents united to kick out this company and bring in a new administrator. With the new appointment, communal fees rose. Considering that I’d been used to paying around 540-650 zl per month for around four years, having to pay 882,80 zl (the cost of fees between the summer of 2023 and April 2024) was somewhat financially burdensome. However, this figure may have been realistic because residents had underpaid for many years, hence the massive debt that had accrued.
Updating this post in October 2026, I wouldn’t be surprised if the overall service charge, including the garage gall, for this flat now amounts to 1,250 zł. Gdańsk is Gdańsk. However, the communal charge I had to pay was nothing short of daylight robbery in my opinion. By the time I sold the flat, communal fees had risen a whopping 111% since 2019.
Therefore, I had to contend with yet another sudden increase in my cost of living. It no longer made financial sense for my wife and me to live in such a large flat. I did rent out one of the parking spaces for 240 zł a month but even that didn’t make up for the extortionate communal fees I had to pay. What’s more, I became dissatisfied with the state of the building I lived in. It got dirtier and dirtier, while the green spaces surrounding the building were not as well-kept as they had previously been.
Communal and administrative building fees in Kraków
I’ve been renting a 42 m2 flat in the Płaszów district of Kraków since August 2026. I have to pay a fixed service charge (opłata eksploatacyjna) of 421 zł a month. This fee covers the services and costs related to the administration and maintenance of the property and its common areas. It also includes the handling and removal of waste generated or located in the Common Areas of the building.
The aforementioned waste removal fee is separate from the municipal waste collection fee attributable to each individual apartment and its residents. Waste collection from the property is provided by the city of Kraków, and the applicable charge is determined in accordance with the current municipal regulations. This is why the waste fee related to my apartment appears separately in the monthly utility settlement and is not included in the fixed 421 PLN Service Charge. Here is the settlement I received for August 2026:
Quite frankly, I was shocked by the cold water reading in 1 as I was in Łódź during the first half of August.
The heating charge consists of two components: a variable charge, which depends on the actual consumption recorded by the meter, and a fixed charge, which is payable regardless of actual heating consumption. The fixed charge relates to the heating capacity ordered for the building and the fixed costs of heat transmission. It is allocated to individual apartments based on their share of the building’s area and is charged throughout the year, including during months when the actual heating consumption is 0 GJ. The applicable rates are based on the invoices and tariffs of the heat producer and distributor.
Summary:
- Cold water – PLN 14.86/m³
- Hot water – PLN 40.11/m³ , including the fee for 1 m³ of cold water intended for heating
- Heating – PLN 117.40/GJ + fixed fee of PLN 2.00/m² of the rented apartment area
- Electricity — PLN 0.97/kWh + fixed fee PLN 21.71 / 28.99 / 37.44 / 45.89 (depending on electricity consumption in the apartment)
- Waste management (rubbish collection) – PLN 35 per resident
Overall, I paid 835 zł for the service charge and utilities which, to my mind, is really expensive for a 42 m2 flat away from the city centre. I’d even go as far to say that it is extortionate.
Communal charges in Warsaw
In Warsaw, the situation may be different. For example in a residential building from the late 70s, monthly charges for a 57.3 m² apartment total PLN 1,233.88, or approximately PLN 21.53 per square metre. This includes building running costs of PLN 247.54, maintenance charges of PLN 64.18 and a renovation fund contribution of PLN 103.14. A substantial part of the bill covers advance payments for heating, water heating, and water and sewerage, so this is much more than an administration fee alone.
Older buildings can be more expensive to maintain, particularly where major repairs are needed or poor insulation increases heating costs. Newer developments may benefit from better energy efficiency and fewer immediate renovation needs, potentially resulting in lower monthly charges. However, security services, underground garages and other shared facilities can offset those savings. Costs therefore vary considerably between buildings, and this example should not be treated as an average for Warsaw.
Communal charges in new developments
Be aware that, in new developments, monthly charges may include temporary costs associated with finishing the apartments.
In the example provided, a construction waste container charge adds PLN 258 per month for a 60 m² apartment. Buyers should check what this charge covers, how it is calculated and when it will end.
Mateusz Radomyski, attorney-at-law and managing head of Warsaw-based Verdict Partners, stated in interview that:
❝ Some developers also allow buyers to access their apartments for finishing works while construction is still ongoing, sometimes even before an occupancy permit (“pozwolenie na użytkowanie”) has been obtained. This can allow buyers to start work sooner, but may also involve paying certain charges while the developer is still completing the project. Early access for finishing works does not itself mean that the apartment can legally be occupied. However, the presence of construction waste containers alone does not indicate that an occupancy permit is missing: they may remain available while buyers finish their apartments after the permit has been issued.❞
Summary
Overall, if you’re looking to buy a flat in Poland to live in or indeed as a buy-to-let investment, I believe that you and your tenants will be satisfied with the transparency of communal charges in major Polish cities. Most buildings seem to be well-maintained. However, communal and administrative building fees have skyrocketed everywhere in Poland in recent years.