Part of the AI Regulation News hub.
Poland's Ministry of Digital Affairs says the signed AI systems act gives KRiBSI the power to run AI regulatory sandboxes of six to twelve months
The interesting part is not that Poland built a sandbox. It is that the ministry says KRiBSI may grant a participant a temporary derogation from some AI Act obligations for the duration of a project.
Bottom line: This is a ministry announcement describing a mechanism created by the AI systems act signed by the President. The announcement itself binds nobody; it explains what the statute sets up. No competition has been announced on this page.
Who this affects: Founders and general counsel at Polish AI startups, compliance leads at Polish enterprises deploying AI systems, and digital transformation officers at local government units.
Issue date: 10 August 2026. The ministry page states no application window, no competition date and no fee schedule.
What changed: The ministry set out the operating shape of the sandbox: KRiBSI creates and supervises it, participation runs 6 to 12 months, projects are chosen by competition that KRiBSI both organises and decides, and participants leave with a confirmation of participation and a final report.
Analysis: Read the exit path, not the entry path. On the ministry's account, the final report is not itself a compliance ruling; a participant may then apply for an individual opinion on whether the system complies with the law. Those are two separate documents, and only the second speaks to legality.
Primary sources: Ministerstwo Cyfryzacji announcement (PL)
- Instrument (EN)
- AI regulatory sandboxes: supporting innovation through safe testing in practice (ministry announcement)
- Authority
- Ministerstwo Cyfryzacji; sandbox operated and supervised by the Komisja Rozwoju i Bezpieczenstwa Sztucznej Inteligencji (KRiBSI)
- Jurisdiction
- Poland
- Status
- Announcement describing a mechanism created by the signed AI systems act
- Bindingness
- The announcement is explanatory and binds nobody. The statutory mechanism it describes is the binding instrument.
- Issue date / next deadline
- 10 August 2026. No competition date or application deadline is given on the page.
- Participation term
- 6 to 12 months, per the ministry
- Eligibility
- Entrepreneurs including startups; public administration bodies including local government units
- Primary source
- https://www.gov.pl/web/cyfryzacja/piaskownice-regulacyjne-ai--wsparcie-innowacji-poprzez-ich-bezpieczne-testowanie-w-praktyce
What the ministry actually announced
The page describes an AI regulatory sandbox as a controlled test environment in which a company or an institution can check an AI system before putting it on the market. The ministry says the AI systems act signed by the President creates the legal basis in Poland for such sandboxes to operate, and it claims Poland is among the first states in Europe to implement them.
Responsibility for creating the sandboxes and supervising them sits with the Komisja Rozwoju i Bezpieczenstwa Sztucznej Inteligencji, abbreviated KRiBSI. Participation lasts from six to twelve months. Projects that take part are selected through a competition that KRiBSI organises and decides.
The ministry frames the whole thing as discharging an obligation under the EU AI Act rather than as a national initiative of its own design.
The derogation, and what it is not
Four forms of support for participants are listed. KRiBSI may grant a participant a temporary derogation from the application of certain obligations arising from the AI Act for the purposes of carrying out the project. KRiBSI may also help a participant reach compliance with those requirements.
Note the qualifiers the ministry uses. The derogation is temporary, it is tied to certain obligations rather than all of them, and it is granted for the purposes of the project. The page does not enumerate which obligations can be waived, and no reader should assume any particular Article of the AI Act is on that list.
Who pays and who does not
Participation by micro-enterprises and by small and medium-sized enterprises is free of charge. Fees for participation by local government units are described as preferential. The page says nothing about what larger companies pay.
That fee structure tells you who the mechanism is aimed at. A sandbox that charges a large deployer full freight and a startup nothing is a subsidy for the party least able to absorb a compliance mistake, which is a reasonable design choice and also a limit on how much of the Polish market will ever pass through it.
The two documents you get at the end
Deputy Minister Dariusz Standerski, who supervises the AI systems act on behalf of the ministry and is responsible there for breakthrough technologies, described the sequence: participants can safely test their models and verify compliance before releasing them to users; after finishing they receive a confirmation of participation and a final report; and they may then apply for an individual opinion on whether the system complies with the law.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski was quoted more briefly, saying the arrangement will enable the safe development and commercial use of AI systems and calling it important support for the Polish economy and business.
For a practitioner the operative point is that the confirmation and the final report come automatically at the end, while the opinion on legality is a separate application made afterwards. A firm that plans to wave the final report at a customer or an insurer as proof of conformity is waving the wrong piece of paper.
What we did not verify
We opened the Ministry of Digital Affairs announcement dated 10 August 2026 in full and took every fact and both attributed statements from it.
We did not open the promulgated text of the AI systems act, its journal citation, or any chapter or article numbering. We did not open any KRiBSI competition notice, application form, fee schedule or implementing regulation, and the ministry page links to none.
We will not state which specific AI Act obligations KRiBSI can suspend, what the application criteria are, when the first competition opens, or what fees apply to large enterprises. The announcement does not say, and we did not find it stated elsewhere in a source we opened.
If you are planning a Polish sandbox application, budget for two steps rather than one. The sandbox produces a participation confirmation and a final report at the end of a six to twelve month run; a statement about whether your system actually complies with the law is a separate request you make afterwards. Treat the temporary derogation as project-scoped relief, not as a licence, and do not describe it to counterparties as approval.
Source File
Open the gov.pl announcement and confirm three things: the 10.08.2026 date at the top, the sentence naming KRiBSI as responsible for creating and supervising the sandboxes with participation of 6 to 12 months, and the bulleted support list stating that participation by micro, small and medium enterprises is free of charge.
Participants in the AI regulatory sandbox will be able to safely test their models and verify their compliance with the rules before making them available to users. (translated from the Polish original) ยท Dariusz Standerski, Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs, 10 August 2026
FAQ
Does joining a Polish AI sandbox make my system AI Act compliant?
Not on the ministry's account. Finishing the programme produces a confirmation of participation and a final report. A statement about compliance with the law comes from a separate individual opinion that a participant may apply for after the sandbox ends.
Can KRiBSI switch off AI Act obligations for me?
The ministry says KRiBSI may grant a temporary derogation from the application of certain obligations under the AI Act for the purposes of carrying out the project. It does not list which obligations, and the relief it describes is temporary and project-scoped.
Who can apply?
Entrepreneurs, including startups, and public administration bodies, including local government units. Selection is by competition that KRiBSI organises and decides.
What does it cost?
The announcement says participation is free of charge for micro-enterprises and for small and medium-sized enterprises, and that fees for local government units are preferential. It gives no figure for anyone else.
Related briefings
Sponsored Training
Practical AI training for regulated professionals, built around verification, documentation and a defensible process. See the courses.