Poland's Act on Artificial Intelligence Systems entered into force on 11 August 2026, creating the Commission for the Development and Security of Artificial Intelligence as national market surveillance authority

What the Act covers

Article 1 sets out five subjects: the organisation and conduct of market surveillance over AI systems and general purpose AI models within the scope of Regulation 2024/1689, proceedings for infringement of the Regulation and of the Act, accreditation and notification of conformity assessment bodies, measures supporting the development of AI systems, and the rules for imposing administrative fines.

The exclusions in Article 2 are broad. National defence matters, national security activity of the special services, the work of the Military Counterintelligence and Military Intelligence Services, and scientific research and development that does not involve real-world testing within the meaning of Article 3(57) of the Regulation all sit outside the Act.

Article 3 also carves out natural persons using an AI system purely for personal purposes unconnected with taxable or business activity.

The Commission, and who sits on it

Article 5 designates the Komisja Rozwoju i Bezpieczenstwa Sztucznej Inteligencji as the market surveillance authority under Article 70(1) of the Regulation and as the single point of contact under Article 70(2).

Its membership under Article 19 is a deliberate coalition: a Chair, two deputy chairs, and four members designated respectively by the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, the Financial Supervision Authority, the National Broadcasting Council and the President of the Office of Electronic Communications. Those four are unpaid for the role and receive travel and accommodation costs only.

The Act states that the Chair, the deputies and the members are independent in the exercise of their function. Decisions are taken by resolution, by simple majority in an open vote, with at least five members present.

Article 20 then lists a long cooperation map, including the data protection authority, the cybersecurity CSIRTs, the medicines and medical devices office, the digital services coordinator, the Patent Office and the Prosecutor General.

The individual opinion procedure

Articles 8 to 12 create something a compliance team can actually use. A body already subject to the Regulation, or one planning activity that would bring it within scope, may apply for an individual opinion on a specific factual situation or a future event.

The application costs 150 zloty and must set out the facts for a single issue plus the applicant's own legal assessment of them. The applicant declares that the elements of the situation are not already the subject of proceedings before other authorities or courts, and a false declaration deprives the resulting opinion of legal effect.

The Commission must issue and serve the opinion without delay and no later than 30 days, extended to 60 days in particularly complicated cases, with notice to the applicant that the case has been treated as complicated. Miss the deadline and Article 12(3) treats an opinion as having been issued in accordance with the position the applicant put in the application. The fee is refunded in full.

One applicant may not file a fresh request sooner than 30 days after the last one, and a request filed early is left unexamined.

Enforcement, appeals and the money

Administrative fines run through the Commission, with Tax Ordinance collection rules applied by analogy and Article 189f of the Administrative Procedure Code disapplied. Appeals go to the Warsaw Regional Court sitting as the competition and consumer protection court, filed through the Commission within one month of service. If the Commission accepts that the appeal is well founded in whole or in part, it has 14 days to quash or amend its own decision without sending the file to court.

Two conduct offences carry restriction of liberty or a fine: obstructing or frustrating inspection activity under Chapter 3 or proceedings under Chapters 4 and 5, and failing to comply with a Commission decision under Article 63(2). Both extend to a person acting on behalf of or in the interest of a legal entity, and both are tried under the petty offences procedure.

The Act caps the state budget cost at 9.30 million zloty in 2026, rising to 29.68 million zloty by 2035, with a corrective mechanism operated by the Chair if a year's ceiling is breached or threatened.

Practical sequencing

Two dates matter. From 11 August 2026 the general provisions apply and the Commission has a statutory existence. Articles 8 to 18 and Chapters 3 to 5, 8 and 9 only start on 28 October 2026, which is when the inspection powers, the infringement procedure and the individual opinion machinery come into operation.

The Act creates the Commission itself. The Sejm, with the Senate's consent, appoints the Chair within two months of entry into force, and the Chair convenes the Commission's first sitting within three months of it. Until that first sitting there is no constituted body to file with, so a client wanting an early individual opinion is queuing rather than filing.

What we did not verify

We opened the promulgated Polish text of the Act as published in Dziennik Ustaw at eli.gov.pl and read Articles 1 to 21, the fine and offence provisions in Articles 109 to 114, the Code of Civil Procedure amendment in Article 115, and the transitional and commencement provisions in Articles 125 to 127.

We did not read every article of the 34-page statute, in particular the full regulatory sandbox chapter and the accreditation and notification chapter, and we did not read the explanatory memorandum or any implementing regulation. There is no official English translation and every quotation here is from the Polish text.

We refuse to state a fine ceiling for any specific infringement. The Act sets out the procedure for administrative fines and defers to Regulation 2024/1689 for scope, and we did not verify a numeric ceiling in the sections we read.

Related briefings

• Poland promulgates the AI Systems Act
• Germany names the Bundesnetzagentur as AI enforcer
• Austria still has no market surveillance authority
• Europe AI regulation hub
• AI Regulation News hub