Public information request in Poland: how to ask, 14 days

Who can ask, and who must answer

Everyone has the right to public information (art. 2 ust. 1 of the act on access to public information). The office may not ask you to show any legal or factual interest, so you never have to say why you want it (art. 2 ust. 2).

Public authorities and other bodies that do public tasks must answer (art. 4 ust. 1), for example:

• public authorities: ministers, the voivode, the Office for Foreigners, city and gmina offices, the police (pkt 1);
• bodies that do public tasks or manage public property: ZUS, public schools and hospitals, companies controlled by the state or a city (pkt 4–5);
• political parties, and trade unions and employers’ organisations that are representative (art. 4 ust. 2).

Only the one that holds the information must give it (art. 4 ust. 3). So write to the office that has it.

What you can ask for

Any information about public matters (art. 1 ust. 1). The act gives examples (art. 6 ust. 1), among them:

• how the office is organised, and who holds which post;
• how it accepts and handles cases, how many it has, and in what order it deals with them;
• the content of its decisions and other official documents, and the results of inspections;
• its property, and how it spends public money.

You can also ask to see official documents (art. 3 ust. 1 pkt 2).

Ask for what the office already has: a document, a decision, a number. If the office must first prepare the answer, for example by going through many files, it may treat it as "processed information" (informacja przetworzona). You have a right to that only where it is particularly important for the public interest (art. 3 ust. 1 pkt 1).

Check the office’s BIP first (Biuletyn Informacji Publicznej, its official information pages). A request is for information not already published in the BIP, on the data portal or, since 1 July 2026, in the central register of contracts of public bodies (art. 10 ust. 1). The BIP must also say how to ask for what is not there (art. 8 ust. 4).

Your own case is a different route. As a party, you can read the file of your own case and make copies (art. 73 § 1 k.p.a.). Other acts with their own rules on access still apply (art. 1 ust. 2).

What the office can hold back

• classified information and other secrets protected by law (art. 5 ust. 1);
• a person’s privacy, or a business’s trade secret (art. 5 ust. 2).

Privacy does not cover information about people in public posts that is linked to their work, including how they got the post and how they do it (art. 5 ust. 2).

How to ask

The act sets no form for a request. Information that can be given at once is given orally or in writing, without a written request (art. 10 ust. 2). The courts accept a request in any form, so email works (WSA in Gorzów Wielkopolski, II SAB/Go 62/26).

Write:

1. what you want, as exactly as you can, in numbered points;
2. the form: for example, scans by email or paper copies by post. The office must use the way and form you ask for, unless its technical means do not allow it (art. 14 ust. 1);
3. where to send it: your email or postal address;
4. your name. On paper, sign it.

Leave out why you want it. If the office plans to refuse, it may first ask you to sign the request, and must give you at least 7 days (NSA, III OSK 1729/25; art. 64 § 2 k.p.a.).

An example, in Polish, as the letter always is:

Na podstawie art. 2 ust. 1 ustawy z dnia 6 września 2001 r. o dostępie do informacji publicznej wnoszę o udostępnienie: 1) liczby wniosków o udzielenie zezwolenia na pobyt czasowy, które na dzień 1 października 2026 r. oczekiwały na rozpatrzenie; 2) kopii dokumentów określających kolejność rozpatrywania tych wniosków. Informację proszę przesłać na adres e-mail: [___].

Send it by email to the address in the office’s BIP, by post, or in person. Keep proof that you sent it.

The 14 days

The office must give you the information without undue delay, and no later than 14 days from the day you filed the request (art. 13 ust. 1).

If it cannot, it must tell you within those 14 days why, and when it will give it. The new date can be at most 2 months from your request (art. 13 ust. 2).

Access is free (art. 7 ust. 2). If the form you chose causes the office extra costs, it may charge you those costs. It must tell you the amount within 14 days of your request. It then gives the information 14 days after telling you, unless in that time you change the form or withdraw the request (art. 15).

If its technical means do not allow your form, it must tell you in writing and say in what form it can give the information at once. If you do not ask for that form within 14 days, the case is closed (art. 14 ust. 2).

If the office refuses

A public authority must refuse by a decision (art. 16 ust. 1). The decision must name the people who took a position in the case and, if it refuses for privacy or a trade secret, whose (art. 16 ust. 2 pkt 2).

• You can appeal (odwołanie) within 14 days of delivery (art. 129 § 2 k.p.a., applied by art. 16 ust. 2). It goes to the higher body, through the office that refused (art. 127 § 2 and 129 § 1 k.p.a.).
• If a minister or a local appeal board (SKO) refused, you instead ask the same body to look again (wniosek o ponowne rozpatrzenie sprawy) (art. 127 § 3 k.p.a.).
• If the body is not a public authority, such as a company, you ask that body to look again (art. 17).
• No detailed reasons are needed: it is enough that you disagree (art. 128 k.p.a.).
• The appeal must be decided within 14 days (art. 16 ust. 2 pkt 1).

Send the appeal on paper, by post or in person, or to the office’s e-Doręczenia address. Not by email: a letter sent to the office’s email address is left unexamined (art. 63 § 1 k.p.a.).

A refusal in a plain letter is not a decision, so there is nothing to appeal. Use the steps for no answer below.

After the appeal, you can complain to the voivodeship administrative court (WSA) within 30 days of delivery of the appeal decision, through the body that made it (art. 53 § 1 and 54 § 1 p.p.s.a.).

If there is no answer

When the 14 days, or the date the office gave you, have passed, you can complain to the WSA about the office’s inaction, a skarga na bezczynność (art. 3 § 2 pkt 8 p.p.s.a.).

Do you need a ponaglenie first? The p.p.s.a. allows a complaint about inaction "at any time after a ponaglenie" (art. 53 § 2b). But the Supreme Administrative Court holds that this applies only to cases under the k.p.a. and the tax ordinance, and a request for public information is not one of them (NSA, III OSK 2753/24, 19 March 2025; III OSK 2491/25, 12 June 2026). The regional courts’ 2026 rulings we read say the same. Offices still argue the opposite in court.

The safe way: send a ponaglenie first, after the deadline has passed. One sent earlier is left unexamined (art. 37 § 3a k.p.a.). It costs little, and the question no longer arises. Send it like an appeal, not by email. Respubliko writes it.

The complaint goes through the office (art. 54 § 1 p.p.s.a.). The office has 15 days to pass it to the court with its answer, and the court decides within 30 days of getting them (art. 21). If the court agrees, it orders the office to act within a set time, and it can fine the office or award you a sum of money (art. 149 § 1 and 2 p.p.s.a.).

What Respubliko writes

Respubliko writes the request in Polish from your answers: what you want, in what form, and where to send it. It leaves out why you want it. You check it, sign it and send it yourself. If the office is late, or refuses by decision, Respubliko can write the ponaglenie or the appeal. We do not write the court complaint yet. Free legal help can.