One in ten new companies in Poland were founded by Ukrainians in first half of 2023

If we consider the data for the first half of this year, almost every tenth company in Poland was founded by Ukrainians.

The data is analyzed by the Polish Institute of Economics (PIE).

In the first half of 2023, the number of Ukrainian entrepreneurs increased to almost 14,000, almost the same number as in 2022 (16,000). At that time, the number of Ukrainian businesses was 6% of all created enterprises.

In January 2022, before the full-scale war, Ukrainians had only 188 enterprises in Poland. In April, the number of companies from Ukraine increased almost threefold, and from May 2022, at least 1,000 new Ukrainian companies were registered monthly.

The pace decreased slightly from October to December 2022, but in 2023 they reached record figures, according to the Polish Institute of Economics. Since the beginning of the year, more than 2,000 Ukrainian companies have been established monthly.

More than half (61%) of foreign individual entrepreneurs registered from January 2022 to June 2023 have an owner with Ukrainian citizenship (in 2022, this number was 57%, and in the first half of 2023, almost 67%).

Dominating industries are construction (23%), information and communication (18%), and service sector (14%).

At the same time, only 3% of companies were closed (933 companies for 2022 and half for 2023).

Background

More than 20 Ukrainian IT companies opened offices in Poland because of the war. Most of the companies are based in Warsaw and Wroclaw. Also, Ukrainian offices appeared in Kraków, Poznań, and Łódź.

Ukrainians in Poland buy the most apartments among foreigners. For 2022, 9,900 agreements were made regarding the purchase of apartments by foreigners, and 4,275 were sold to Ukrainians.