A fine in Poland does not automatically mean a criminal record. The law sorts every punishable act into two tiers under two separate statutes: a wykroczenie (petty offence), which leaves no entry in the national criminal register, and a przestępstwo (crime), which does. Which side of that line your incident falls on decides whether it can follow you into a visa application, a job background check, or a residence-permit renewal, or whether it quietly disappears once you have paid.
This guide maps the line as it stands in 2026: where it falls for theft, drink-driving, and tax; how the two registers behind a clearance certificate differ; what a conviction can mean for a foreigner’s stay; and how long any record lasts.
Crime or just an offence? The two-tier answer
Start with the answer, because it is the whole point: a wykroczenie does not create a criminal record, and a przestępstwo does.
These are two different bodies of law. Crimes live in the Kodeks karny (Criminal Code) of 1997. Petty offences live in the Kodeks wykroczeń (Code of Petty Offences) of 1971. They run through different courts, carry different penalties, and end up in different registers.
Within the crime tier, Polish law splits further (art. 7 KK). A zbrodnia (felony) is an act punishable by 3 years’ imprisonment or more, and can only be committed intentionally. A występek (lesser crime) is everything else in the Criminal Code: a fine above 30 daily units or above 5,000 zł, restriction of liberty for more than a month, or imprisonment of more than a month, committed intentionally or through negligence. Both are crimes, and both go on the record.
The petty-offence tier (art. 1 and Rozdział II KW) has its own, lighter menu of penalties: a reprimand (nagana), a fine of 20–5,000 zł, restriction of liberty for one month, or arrest of 5 to 30 days. There is no “real” prison here.
| Przestępstwo (crime) | Wykroczenie (petty offence) | |
|---|---|---|
| Statute | Kodeks karny, 1997 | Kodeks wykroczeń, 1971 |
| Procedure / court | Kodeks postępowania karnego | Kodeks postępowania w sprawach o wykroczenia, before the sąd rejonowy (district court) |
| Penalties | fine, restriction of liberty, imprisonment | reprimand (nagana), fine 20–5,000 zł, restriction of liberty (1 month), arrest (5–30 days) |
| Criminal record (KRK)? | Yes | No, except when the penalty is arrest |
The right-hand column is the answer most people came for. The rest of this guide is about which tier a given act lands in.
The translation trap: występek is not wykroczenie
These two words look and sound similar, and English makes the confusion worse by rendering both as “misdemeanour.” They are not the same thing.
A występek is a crime. It is one of the two kinds of przestępstwo (the other being a zbrodnia), it lives in the Criminal Code, and a conviction goes to the national criminal register. A wykroczenie is not a crime. It lives in the Code of Petty Offences and, as a rule, does not reach that register.
There is no single agreed English translation for either term. Statistics Poland (stat.gov.pl) calls a wykroczenie a “petty offence”; the UNODC translation of the Criminal Code uses “summary offence” for występek and “indictable offence” for zbrodnia. To keep this guide consistent, the vocabulary here is:
- crime = przestępstwo
- felony = zbrodnia
- lesser crime = występek
- petty offence (or minor offence) = wykroczenie
So when you read that something is a występek, read it as a crime that creates a record, not as a minor ticket.
Will it show on your record? The KRK, KSIP, and your clearance certificate
A criminal conviction is entered in the Krajowy Rejestr Karny (KRK, the National Criminal Register). A wykroczenie is not, with one exception: if the petty offence is punished with arrest, that does enter the KRK. A fine, restriction of liberty, a reprimand, or an accepted on-the-spot fine does not.
This matters for the document foreigners and employers actually ask for. A zaświadczenie o niekaralności (certificate of no criminal record, the Polish equivalent of a police clearance certificate) is drawn from the KRK. Because an ordinary wykroczenie never reaches the KRK, it does not appear on that certificate.
There is an honest caveat. The KRK is not the only place an incident can be recorded. The police keep their own information system, KSIP, which is separate from the KRK. An on-the-spot fine that never touches the KRK can still be logged there. How long such police entries stay is not something public sources set out clearly, so treat informal claims that they remain “forever” with caution: what is well established is that they are not the same as a KRK entry and do not show on a standard clearance certificate.
Can it cost you a visa or residence permit?
This is the fear behind most of the questions, and the answer tracks the same line.
A conviction for an intentional crime can place a foreigner in the register of foreigners whose stay in Poland is considered undesirable. Under art. 100 of the Ustawa o cudzoziemcach (Act of 12 December 2013 on Foreigners), being in that register is grounds to refuse or withdraw a visa or a residence permit. The consequences are sharper for an intentional crime carrying a sentence of 3 years or more, which bears most directly on permanent-residence status.
Calibrate this honestly. A crime conviction can jeopardise a permit; how much depends heavily on the offence and the sentence. A wykroczenie does not create the criminal-register entry that drives this consequence in the first place. So the visa question, like the record question, comes back to which tier your incident fell into.
The money line: theft and shoplifting (800 zł, since 1 October 2023)
For theft and similar property offences, one number decides the tier: 800 zł.
Take property worth up to 800 zł and it is a petty offence under art. 119 §1 KW. Take property worth more than 800 zł and it is a crime under art. 278 §1 KK, punishable by 3 months to 5 years’ imprisonment.
This is the figure older write-ups get wrong. The threshold rose to 800 zł on 1 October 2023 (the change came in through Dz.U. 2022 poz. 2600; the consolidated Code text is Dz.U. 2023 poz. 2119). You will still see the previous, lower figure of 500 zł quoted, and you will see the change misdated to 2024. The current rule is 800 zł, in force since 1 October 2023. The amount is now fixed and changes only when Parliament amends it.
The same 800 zł boundary moved for the sibling property offences that split the same way: theft of forest wood (art. 120 KW), receiving stolen goods (paserstwo, art. 122 KW), and damaging or destroying property (art. 124 KW).
Two rules trip people up:
- Small thefts add up. Several small thefts carried out under a single, pre-formed intent count as one continuing act (czyn ciągły, art. 12 KK). Their values are added together, and if the total passes 800 zł the whole thing becomes a crime.
- Some thefts are always crimes, whatever the value. Burglary or theft with a break-in (kradzież z włamaniem, art. 279 KK), robbery (rozbój, art. 280 KK), and particularly brazen theft (kradzież szczególnie zuchwała, art. 278a KK, added in the 2023 reform) are crimes regardless of how little the item was worth. A 5 zł item taken by forcing a lock is a crime, not a petty offence.
The value ladder
Most “what happens if I took something worth X” questions answer themselves once you place the amount against the 800 zł line.
| Value of what was taken | Crime or petty offence? | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 800 zł (10, 50, 100, 500 zł…) | Petty offence, art. 119 §1 KW | a Code-of-Petty-Offences penalty (fine, restriction of liberty, or arrest); no criminal record |
| Over 800 zł (1,000 zł and up) | Crime, art. 278 §1 KK | 3 months to 5 years’ imprisonment; criminal record |
| Any amount, if by break-in, robbery, or brazen theft | Always a crime, art. 279 / 280 / 278a KK | criminal record regardless of value |
Edge cases: CCTV, repeat thefts, minors
Caught on store CCTV. Being recorded does not change which tier the act falls into; the value taken and the manner of taking it still decide that. What footage changes is proof, not classification.
Repeated trips to the same shop. This is where the summing rule above bites. If a series of small thefts shares one pre-formed intent, the amounts are added together under art. 12 KK, and a string of sub-800 zł incidents can cross into crime territory as a single continuing act.
Minors. The thresholds here decide how the act is classified. Where the person who took the item is a minor, a separate juvenile-justice track applies, which this guide does not cover.
The drink-driving line: 0.2‰, 0.5‰, and losing the car
Driving after drinking falls across three bands, and the middle band is the petty offence while the top band is a crime. Poland’s legal limit, 0.2‰, is one of the strictest in the EU.
| Blood alcohol | Polish status | Classification | Headline penalties |
|---|---|---|---|
| Below 0.2‰ | — | No offence | none |
| 0.2–0.5‰ (0.1–0.25 mg/dm³ in breath) | stan po użyciu alkoholu | Petty offence, art. 87 §1 KW | fine 2,500–30,000 zł, arrest up to 30 days, driving ban 6 months–3 years, 15 penalty points |
| Above 0.5‰ (over 0.25 mg/dm³ in breath) | stan nietrzeźwości | Crime, art. 178a §1 KK | up to 3 years’ imprisonment, driving ban 3–15 years, a cash payment (świadczenie pieniężne) of 5,000–60,000 zł, 15 penalty points |
On top of those penalties comes the car itself. Since 14 March 2024, forfeiture of the vehicle, or of its monetary value (przepadek pojazdu, art. 44b KK), is mandatory when the driver’s blood alcohol exceeds 1.5‰ (or 0.75 mg/dm³ in breath), and always for repeat offenders under art. 178a §4 KK.
A more recent change, in force since 29 January 2026, addresses cars the offender does not own outright (a leased car, a company car, or one owned jointly with a spouse). In those cases the court does not seize the vehicle; instead it orders a nawiązka (a court-ordered payment) of 5,000–500,000 zł to the Fundusz Pomocy Pokrzywdzonym (the Victims’ Support Fund).
Drunk on a bicycle
The crime tier above (art. 178a §1 KK) is about driving a pojazd mechaniczny (a motor vehicle). Cycling under the influence sits outside the motor-vehicle rules described here and is treated separately, so do not read the imprisonment and confiscation figures above as the penalties for a bicycle.
The fiscal line: tax and customs (24,030 zł in 2026)
Tax and customs offences have their own statute, the Kodeks karny skarbowy (KKS, the Fiscal Penal Code), and their own moving boundary. Under art. 53 §3 KKS, an offence is a fiscal petty offence (wykroczenie skarbowe) when the public due that was reduced or put at risk, or the value of the object, is no more than five times the minimum wage. Above five times, it becomes a fiscal crime (przestępstwo skarbowe).
Because the boundary is pegged to the minimum wage, it climbs every year the minimum wage climbs. With the 2026 minimum wage at 4,806 zł, the line for 2026 is 5 × 4,806 = 24,030 zł, in force from 1 January 2026. An on-the-spot fine (mandat) for a fiscal petty offence in 2026 runs from 480.60 zł to 24,030 zł, that is, from one-tenth of the minimum wage up to five times it.
This branch has two escape hatches the others do not. Czynny żal (voluntary disclosure, literally “active repentance”) lets you report your own lapse to the tax authority before it finds out, and can avoid the penalty altogether. Dobrowolne poddanie się odpowiedzialności (voluntary submission to liability) is a negotiated settlement that, importantly, keeps the matter off the criminal record.
How long does it stay? Expungement (zatarcie)
Nothing here is permanent on the books. The clock differs by tier.
A wykroczenie can be prosecuted for 1 year after it is committed (and for 2 more years if proceedings are opened within that first year). Once you have been punished, the penalty (ukaranie) is treated as never having happened after 2 years.
For crimes, expungement (zatarcie skazania) takes longer and scales with the penalty.
| Penalty | Treated as never having happened after |
|---|---|
| Petty offence (wykroczenie) | 2 years from when the penalty is carried out |
| Crime, fine | 1 year after it is paid |
| Crime, restriction of liberty | 3 years |
| Crime, imprisonment | 10 years (a court may reduce this to 5 on request if the sentence was 3 years or less and conduct was good) |
Once a conviction is expunged, it is treated as never having happened, which is what clears the corresponding entry from a future clearance certificate.
The process: a mandat, refusing it, and the two courts
The two tiers run through two separate procedures. Petty offences go through the Kodeks postępowania w sprawach o wykroczenia before the sąd rejonowy (district court); crimes go through the Kodeks postępowania karnego.
If an officer offers you an on-the-spot fine (mandat) for a petty offence, you can refuse it (art. 99 k.p.w.). Refusing does not end the matter: the authority then files a wniosek o ukaranie (a motion to punish) and the court takes over, where it can impose a higher fine plus costs. Once accepted, a mandat is final and can be annulled only on narrow grounds (art. 101 k.p.w.), for example where the act it punished was not actually an offence.
One act can break both laws at once. Under art. 10 KW (zbieg, concurrence), a single act that is both a petty offence and a crime is judged under both, but only the heavier penalty is carried out, and the crime side is the one that drives the criminal record.