Skip to content
CondutoresProfissionais
EN

← Driving bans in Europe

Poland

Bans on public holidays and on the eve of public holidays for vehicles over 12 t, with a stricter summer regime on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Applies to: Goods vehicles over 12 t ·Updated on 23 October 2026

When you cannot drive

  • Public holidays

    Eve 18:00 → holiday 22:00

    It applies to the national holidays set in the annual calendar.

  • Summer period

    Fridays 18:00 → 22:00; Saturdays 08:00 → 14:00; Sundays 08:00 → 22:00

    It runs roughly from the last weekend of June to the last one of August.

Most common exemptions

  • Carriage of perishable goods and live animals
  • Combined transport and vehicles returning empty to the point of origin under certain conditions
  • Emergency, rescue and humanitarian assistance vehicles

Exemptions vary from country to country and almost always depend on paperwork on board proving what the load is.

Planning notes

Poland has a regime that gets less attention in road guides than the German or French ones, but it can stop a trip just as easily — above all in summer, when lorries over 12 tonnes stand still on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings.

The 12-tonne threshold matters: vehicles between 7.5 and 12 t, which would be barred in Germany or France, drive freely in Poland.

Anyone running the eastern corridor should treat border queues as part of the driving-time plan, not as a surprise.

Share