publication
2026-01-30 10:00
The year 2025 brought a solid acceleration in the growth of Poland's gross domestic product, announced the Central Statistical Office. And although this result did not surprise anyone, many people probably feel quite dissatisfied. A year ago, it was assumed that 2025 would be slightly better.
In 2025, Poland's GDP was 3.6% in real terms (after taking into account inflation). higher than the year before – results from preliminary estimates of the Central Statistical Office. This result is consistent with the expectations of economists who expected GDP growth of 3.6%. It is also the best full-year result since 2022.
This also means an acceleration of Poland's economic growth rate, because in 2024 our GDP increased by 3.0% (after revision from 2.9%), recovering from the stagnation in 2023, when we came close to recession with a GDP increase of only 0.1%. However, this was still a clearly weaker result than in the years of the post-Covid boom, when Poland's GDP grew by 5-7% in 2021-22.
Last year, therefore, brought a continuation of the economic recovery in Poland, which began in the fall of 2023. Since then, almost every quarter we have observed higher and higher annual dynamics of Polish GDP. According to the latest available data, in the third quarter of 2025, the Polish economy grew by 3.8%. We will have to wait almost two weeks for official data for the fourth quarter. They will be published on Thursday, February 12.
For now, we only know that GDP growth in 2025 was driven by private consumption, which in real terms increased by 3.7%. Investments were slightly disappointing, which increased only by 4.2%, although an investment boom was expected in Poland a year ago. We also learned that last year's economic growth was driven by the services sector. Value added in trade and repairs increased by 4.2%, in industry by 3.0%, and in construction by only 1.7%.
Despite some disappointments, the year 2025 in the Polish economy was still better than its two predecessors. The growing dynamics of GDP was accompanied by decreasing inflation, which fueled the boom on the Polish capital market. WIG – the broadest index of the Warsaw Stock Exchange – gained as much as 47.3% and had the best year in almost 30 years. In turn, interest rate cuts at the National Bank of Poland supported the boom in the debt market. The TBPS index of Polish fixed-rate treasury bonds gained 9.5% in 2025.
However, the dynamics of Poland's GDP still did not exceed the potential of our economy and certainly did not satisfy the aspirations of the majority of Poles. For us, a noticeably positive achievement is only the 5% GDP growth rate, which, although it raises inflationary tensions, also translates into a significant improvement in the economic situation on the labor market. And it hasn't been very good in recent quarters. Although wages in the corporate sector continued to grow dynamically, employment gradually decreased, the number of unemployed people increased, and the number of group layoffs was the highest in years.
The data published today are preliminary and may be subject to revision, in accordance with the revision policy applied in national accounts – the Central Statistical Office reserves. The official preliminary estimate for the fourth quarter will be published on February 12.
