Polish law strictly restricts trading in agricultural land, but barely restricts leasing it. Below: what actually blocks a purchase, when a permit from the Ministry of the Interior and Administration (MSWiA) is required, why the renewable energy market relies on leasing, and how much it costs to exclude land from agricultural production.
This is the first misunderstanding we encounter in conversations with funds from Germany, Spain or France. Polish law strictly restricts trading in agricultural land, but it does not restrict leasing it. And for a renewable energy project, leasing is not only simpler: in practice it is the only realistic route for an entity from outside agriculture.
An investor does not need ownership, only the right to use the land for 29–30 years, the ability to run cables and access roads, and the security required by the financing bank. All of this can be achieved through a lease agreement.
Restrictions on trading agricultural land in Poland do not arise because an investor is foreign. They apply equally to a Polish company that is not an individual farmer.
The regime of the Act on Shaping the Agricultural System (ustawa o kształtowaniu ustroju rolnego, UKUR) applies to agricultural properties of 1 ha or more. Below this threshold trading is considerably freer, but utility-scale projects always exceed it.
As a rule, only an individual farmer may acquire an agricultural property. An entity that does not meet the statutory definition must obtain the consent of the Director General of the National Support Centre for Agriculture (KOWR). This is an administrative procedure with an uncertain outcome and an unpredictable duration.
When an agricultural property of 1 ha or more is sold, the seller must notify KOWR, which then has 30 days to decide whether to exercise its right of pre-emption. For an investor, this means that even an agreed transaction may fail to close.
The buyer must run, for at least 5 years, the agricultural holding into which the acquired property was incorporated, and a natural person must run it personally. During this period the property may not be transferred, nor may its possession be handed over to another entity. This rules out the model of "buy the land and lease it to a developer".
Important case law: an intention to lease the land for a photovoltaic farm does not, on its own, constitute grounds for obtaining the Director General of KOWR's consent to transfer possession of the property before the 5-year period since acquisition has elapsed. The argument "I need lease income" is not sufficient.
This is a separate regime, overlapping with UKUR. It derives from the Act on the Acquisition of Real Estate by Foreigners.
On 2 June 2026, the Council of Ministers adopted and referred to the Sejm a draft amendment to the Act on the Acquisition of Real Estate by Foreigners and the Law on Notaries. The direction of the changes is to streamline oversight, chiefly by introducing an electronic system for notarial deeds transmitted by notaries to the MSWiA.
Separately, amendments to UKUR that took effect on 30 April 2026 extended the catalogue of close relatives to include, among others, a spouse's parents and step-parents.
The practical conclusion: regulations in this area change frequently. The legal position should be verified as of the date of the planned transaction, not on the basis of an analysis from a year ago.
The market standard in Polish renewables looks the same for an investor from Poznań and one from Madrid.
The agreement binds the parties, but takes full effect only once its conditions are met: obtaining the environmental decision, grid connection conditions and the building permit. During the preparatory period the owner receives a lower reservation rent and can usually continue to farm the land.
The agreement must expressly grant the right to conduct surveys and measurements, apply for administrative decisions and grid connection conditions, build and operate the installation, run cables and access roads, establish easements and, crucially, assign the rights to the financing entity and grant security for its loan.
Projects are usually run through a special purpose vehicle (SPV), which streamlines financing, facilitates the sale of the project at the ready-to-build (RTB) stage and limits the investor's exposure. However, the SPV's ownership structure affects whether and which of the regimes (UKUR, the act on foreigners) applies. This needs to be analysed before the company is set up, not after.
A notarial deed, submission to enforcement under Article 777 of the Code of Civil Procedure, an entry in the land and mortgage register, rent indexation, and an obligation to dismantle the installation and restore the land once the agreement ends. The landowner has certainty of payment; the investor has certainty that the title is durable.
Building an installation on agricultural land requires its exclusion from agricultural production. This requirement arises from Article 12 of the Act on the Protection of Agricultural and Forest Land. This is a separate procedure, conducted by the local county authority (starostwo powiatowe).
The cost depends on the soil quality class and consists of a one-off charge plus an annual fee equal to 10% of that charge, collected for 10 years. The procedure usually takes 2–3 months.
This is precisely why, in our plot selection criteria, we consistently point to classes IV, V and VI and to wasteland. This is not solely a matter of agricultural soil quality, but directly a matter of project cost.
See our plot selection criteria →We are not a law firm and we do not replace your advisers. What we do is prepare the land so that their work does not start with firefighting.
The land and mortgage register, owners and co-owners, mortgages, easements, claims, access to a public road, existing lease agreements. We check this remotely and free of charge, before anyone commits any money.
Inheritance proceedings, deregistering mortgage encumbrances, opening new land and mortgage registers. The bank financing the project will check all of this at the due diligence stage. Better for it to be sorted out beforehand.
A wind project is typically a dozen or more plots belonging to different people: for turbines, access roads, assembly areas, cables and the substation. Consolidating this into a coherent package of agreements with uniform terms is a distinct competence and the most common point where projects get stuck.
An agreement with the landowner is not the same as the consent of the municipality and neighbours. We conduct dialogue from the pre-development stage, before binding decisions are made, because social conflict can stop a project more effectively than a missing document.
Tell us what location and scale you are looking for. We will prepare the land: legally clean, with the grid analysed and relationships with owners in order.
This material is based on the Act of 11 April 2003 on Shaping the Agricultural System, the Act of 24 March 1920 on the Acquisition of Real Estate by Foreigners, the Act of 3 February 1995 on the Protection of Agricultural and Forest Land, and on information published by the National Support Centre for Agriculture (KOWR) and the Ministry of the Interior and Administration (MSWiA). It takes into account the amendments to UKUR in force since 30 April 2026 and the draft amendment adopted by the Council of Ministers on 2 June 2026.
This is not legal advice. This material is for informational purposes and presents general principles rather than an assessment of a specific set of facts. Regulations on trading in agricultural land and on the acquisition of real estate by foreigners are frequently amended in Poland, and their application depends on the circumstances of the particular transaction, the ownership structure of the buyer, and the classification of the land. Before making an investment decision, you should seek the advice of a Polish legal counsel (radca prawny) or advocate (adwokat) and verify the legal position as of the date of the transaction.