How many Foreigners buy Apartments in Poland?

If you’re wondering how many foreigners buy apartments in Poland, figures provided by the Polish Ministry of Interior and Administration for 2023 reveal that foreigners purchased 14,346 apartments.

For obvious reasons, it is Ukrainian citizens who have become increasingly active on the Polish real estate market in recent years.

I will now present some of the main takeaways from data provided by the Polish Ministry of Interior and Administration regarding foreigners’ interest in the Polish housing market in 2023.

How many Foreigners buy Apartments in Poland? – Polish Ministry of Interior and Administration Data

The following data provided by the Polish Ministry of Interior and Information reveals a great deal about foreigners’ buying patterns with regard to real estate in Poland:

1. First and foremost, foreigners purchased 14,346 apartments in Poland in 2023. That was 13 apartments fewer than in 2022.

Here’s a graphic which outlines the number of apartment purchases made by foreigners between 2019 and 2023:

2. The total area of premises purchased by foreigners amounted to around 835,000 m2. This means that the average apartment bought by a foreigner in 2023 was a little over 58 m2.

3. Ukrainians purchased approximately half of the total number of residential premises acquired by foreigners in Poland in 2023. In 2023, they bought roughly 7,100 pieces of real estate. That is around 10 percent more than in 2022.

4. Unsurprisingly, Warsaw is the most popular city among foreign investors in Polish real estate. Kraków occupies second place, with Wrocław coming in third. Interestingly, Warsaw witnessed quite a steep decline in transactions among foreigners between 2022 and 2023. Conversely, foreign nationals purchased significantly more apartments in Kraków in 2023 compared with 2022.

5. Belarusians purchased around 2000 apartments in Poland in 2023. This is around 600 units more than in 2022.

6. Overall, the war in Ukraine has tempered the enthusiasm of foreigners, especially citizens of Germany, France, Great Britain and the United States, to buy apartments in Poland.

The Two Main Reasons for the Steep Rise in the Number of Foreigners Purchasing Apartments in Poland

The significant rise in the number of foreigners buying apartments in Poland since 2017 may be attributed to the following two reasons:

1. Economic immigration of Ukrainian and Belarusian migrants and the impact of the war in Ukraine

Considering that Ukrainians lead the way in terms of apartment purchases in Poland by a significant margin, the war in Ukraine has undoubtedly had an impact on the overall number of foreigners buying apartments in Poland.

A 2023 PKO Bank Polski report stated that the growing demand for apartments was related to the “plans of economic migrants”, mainly from Ukraine and Belarus. Therefore, even before the war in Ukraine broke out, immigrants from these countries were moving to Poland with the intention of staying in the country long-term. The increase in Ukrainians’ interest in apartments in Poland dates back to 2014. It was in March 2014 that Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula, while the war in Donbas broke out a month later.

2. High rental yields and significant resale values of properties in Poland

The PKO Bank Polski report estimated that many purchases of apartments by foreigners in 2022 were of an investment nature.

PKO Bank Polski picked up on the increase in the number of purchases of apartments by Swedes, Luxembourgers, Cypriots, Belgians and Austrians in 2022. Their activity on the Polish transaction market in the years prior to 2022 had been rather moderate. It was among citizens of Sweden, Luxembourg and Cyprus that the increase in purchases compared to the previous year was the highest. These citizens are representatives of wealthy countries. Therefore, one has to assume their acquisitions had been of a purely investment nature.

Buy-to-let in Poland is attractive to foreign investors due to the high gross rental profitability and relatively low taxation of rental income. Moreover, the solid macroeconomic foundations of the Polish economy, especially the labour market, allow for a strong increase in housing prices in the long term. Therefore, foreign investors are fully aware of the possibility of reselling Polish real estate for a substantial profit at a later date.

It may be assumed that foreign investors took advantage of greater negotiation opportunities in 2022 which arose from weakening economic conditions on the housing market and the significant depreciation of the Polish zloty.