Background information

According to the Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and Russia’s policy lead to high oil and gas prices, thus affecting inflation. It resulted in higher interest rates and increased loan repayments. In order to support and help families with loan payments in PLN, the government has introduced a new bill, which proposes further measures to alleviate high prices for citizens.

Content of measure

The bill targets families with mortgages in PLN. It consists of four pillars.

1. It amounts to PLN 3 billion (approx. €652 million) per year and provides four months of “payment holidays”, which means no interest on the mortgage value for the holiday period. All borrowers can apply.

2. It provides assistance for borrowers with temporary problems. This support amounts to PLN 1.4 billion (approx. €304.3 million) in 2022 and PLN 2 billion (approx. €434.8 million) in 2023. Family can obtain up to PLN 2,000 per month for 3 years. PLN 72,000 has to be paid back and PLN 22,000 can be remitted. To be eligible, the family has to fulfil one of the conditions:

3. one of the borrowers is unemployed;

4. the monthly servicing fee of a mortgage exceeds 50% of the monthly income;

5. monthly income in 2022 after deduction of the servicing fee does not exceed PLN 1,552 / person in one-person households or PLN 1,200 / person in multi-person households.

6. It introduces a new interest rate indicator instead of WIBOR in 2023. It will cost PLN 1 billion (approx. €217.4 million) per year. The change in the interest rate decreases borrowers’ payments by PLN 1 billion per year.

7. It introduces an Assistance Fund.

Use of measure

The government estimated that around two millions of citizens will benefit from this bill. As of 30 August 2022, 873,000 of accounts were granted the "payment holidays" status. The total value of the accounts was PLN 228,000,000,000 (€48,511,000,000). A total of 44,3% of eligible mortgages used the payment holidays.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Does not apply to workers	Does not apply to businesses	Applies to all citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government	National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Unknown	Unknown
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• Unknown
• Main level of involvement: N/A

Involvement

Unknown.

Views and reactions

Unknown.

Sectors and occupations

This case is not occupation-specific.

Sources

• 25 April 2022: The government will help Polish families with mortgage payments (www.gov.pl)
• 17 May 2022: Help for borrowers is getting closer. The government adopted the bill (www.gov.pl)
• 10 August 2022: Złożonych zostało ok. 850 tys. wniosków w sprawie wakacji kredytowych - Pietraszkiewicz, ZBP (biznes.pap.pl)
• 01 September 2022: August 2022 data on payment holidays in money.pl article (www.money.pl)