Poland Company Lookup: The Past Is in the Free Extract

A Poland company lookup runs through the Krajowy Rejestr Sądowy (KRS), the National Court Register, kept under the Ministerstwo Sprawiedliwości — the Ministry of Justice — with the courts. The register is searched at ekrs.ms.gov.pl, and the Ministry's services portal is prs.ms.gov.pl. This guide covers what the free search gives you, what the Ministry's portal adds, and which register holds the question you may actually be asking. If you need the Polish population rather than one company at a time, the Poland company directory covers the same registered entities with industry, size and contact breakdowns attached, and the Poland business database is the same file described as a dataset.

Poland company lookup: the short version

• Anyone can search the KRS and obtain information corresponding to either the odpis aktualny — the current extract — or the odpis pełny, the full one.
• The full extract also contains deleted data: dane wykreślone. A struck-out director, a former registered office, a changed name.
• Searching requires no account in the system at all.
• Insolvency is a different register. The Krajowy Rejestr Zadłużonych (KRZ) is kept by the Minister of Justice and holds information on entities in restructuring and bankruptcy proceedings.

The full extract contains deleted data

Most registers treat a company's history as a separate product. You get the present for free and you pay, or apply, or wait, for the past. Poland puts both in the same dropdown, and says so in one sentence:

"Każdy może wyszukać podmiot w KRS i uzyskać informację odpowiadającą odpisowi aktualnemu lub odpisowi pełnemu (taka informacja zawiera także dane wykreślone). Wyszukiwanie podmiotów w Krajowym Rejestrze Sądowym nie wymaga posiadania konta w systemie."

Anyone can search for an entity in the KRS and obtain information corresponding to the current extract or to the full extract — and such information also contains deleted data. Searching for entities in the National Court Register does not require having an account in the system.

Three things arrive together there, and each is unusual on its own. Każdy — anyone. No account. And the full extract, with the deleted entries in it.

The operational consequence is a single decision most readers do not know they are making. Choosing the odpis pełny rather than the odpis aktualny is the difference between the company as it is and the company as it has been — and it costs nothing and needs no registration. A director struck from the record, a registered office that has moved, a name the company used to trade under: all of that sits behind a choice of extract type, not behind a paywall or a request form.

That matters most in exactly the cases where a current extract is least informative. A company whose current record looks unremarkable may have a history that does not, and in Poland the history is one click away rather than one process away.

The neighbouring register treats the same data as a caveat rather than a feature, and the contrast is worth carrying. The Netherlands company lookup guide covers a register where an entrepreneur can shield a visiting address, and where KVK warns: "Houd er rekening mee dat na het afschermen het bezoekadres wel in de historie van je bedrijf of organisatie te zien blijft" — bear in mind that after shielding, the visiting address remains visible in the company's history. The Dutch register frames its history as something that survives an attempt to remove data; Poland frames the same kind of data as a standard search option. Same material, opposite framing — one register's leak is the other register's dropdown. Neither is the better design, and a reader should not expect either country's habit to hold in the other.

What the Ministry's portal does

Beyond the search, the Ministry of Justice runs a services portal at prs.ms.gov.pl, and what it exposes goes further than extracts.

For KRS matters it offers filing applications and letters to the courts, submitting notifications concerning financial statements, downloading odpisy, viewing financial documents, and access to the Przeglądarka akt rejestrowych — the register-file browser.

That last one deserves its own sentence. Beyond extracts and documents, the Ministry exposes the register file itself. An extract is the register's summary of an entity; the file is what the court holds. A reader who has exhausted the extract has somewhere further to go, and it is an official route rather than an application for special access.

The portal is also reached through System Tożsamość, which provides user identification across Ministry of Justice systems using trusted identity providers, removing the need for a separate account per system. And electronic documents issued by the Central Information of the Register of Pledges, the National Court Register and the Land and Mortgage Registers can be obtained through it — three registers, one portal.

What a Polish company register entry contains

A self-contained summary. Poland's company register is the Krajowy Rejestr Sądowy (KRS), the National Court Register, kept under the Ministerstwo Sprawiedliwości with the courts, and searched at ekrs.ms.gov.pl; the Ministry's services portal is at prs.ms.gov.pl. Anyone can search for an entity in the KRS and obtain information corresponding either to the odpis aktualny, the current extract, or to the odpis pełny, the full extract, and the full extract also contains deleted data (dane wykreślone). Searching for entities in the register does not require having an account in the system. Through the Ministry's portal, KRS matters include filing applications and letters to the courts, submitting notifications concerning financial statements, downloading odpisy, viewing financial documents, and access to the Przeglądarka akt rejestrowych, the register-file browser. Electronic documents issued by the Central Information of the Register of Pledges, the National Court Register and the Land and Mortgage Registers can be obtained through the portal. The System Tożsamość provides user identification across Ministry of Justice systems using trusted identity providers, removing the need for separate accounts per system. The Krajowy Rejestr Zadłużonych (KRZ) is a separate public register kept by the Minister of Justice in an ICT system, containing among other things information on entities subject to restructuring and bankruptcy proceedings. This summary does not describe the fields of a KRS entry, because none was established from the register's own pages on the date shown.

Insolvency is a different register

A reader checking whether a Polish company is in trouble is not looking in the KRS.

The Krajowy Rejestr Zadłużonych (KRZ) is a public register kept by the Minister of Justice in an ICT system, containing among other things information on entities subject to restructuring and bankruptcy proceedings.

That is what the source states, and this page will not go further than it. What the KRZ contains beyond that, how far back it reaches, how it is searched, and how its records relate to a KRS entry are all questions the material read here does not answer — and answering them from general knowledge would be the kind of plausible detail that makes a guide useless precisely when someone relies on it.

The practical point stands without the detail: two registers, two questions. The KRS tells you what a company is. The KRZ is where information about restructuring and bankruptcy proceedings lives, and an absence from one says nothing about the other.

Where a Poland lookup stops

This page describes no field of a KRS entry. Nothing read here enumerates what a Polish register record actually contains, so nothing is listed — a field list assembled from vendor guides would read better and be worth less.

It also stops short of one thing readers will reasonably expect a Polish company-lookup guide to cover, and the omission is deliberate rather than an oversight. There is a well-known division in Polish business registration between entities in the KRS and another population registered elsewhere, and it is probably the single most useful fact about looking up a Polish business. It is not officially sourced here, so it does not appear. POLAND_REPORT.md names it first, with what would confirm it, because a thinner page that is right is worth more than a fuller one that might not be.

Where the question is a population rather than a company, a firmographic directory covers the same registered entities with classification, size and contact data attached and queryable as a set; the Europe company directory breaks the European file down by market.

Data quality pitfalls to avoid in Poland

Taking the odpis aktualny by default. The current extract is the company as it is; the odpis pełny also contains deleted data, and it costs nothing more.

Assuming an account is needed to search. Searching for entities in the KRS does not require having an account in the system.

Reading an absent director as never having been there. Struck-out entries are what dane wykreślone means, and they are in the full extract rather than absent from the register.

Checking the KRS for insolvency. Information on entities in restructuring and bankruptcy proceedings sits in the Krajowy Rejestr Zadłużonych, a separate public register kept by the Minister of Justice.

Stopping at the extract when the file is available. The Ministry's portal exposes the Przeglądarka akt rejestrowych, the register-file browser, beyond extracts and documents.

Assuming every Polish business is in the KRS. This page does not describe which populations are registered where, because that was not sourced — treat any assumption about coverage as unverified rather than as established.

A repeatable Poland company lookup workflow

1. Choose the odpis pełny rather than the odpis aktualny whenever history could matter.
2. Search without creating an account, because none is required.
3. Read deleted entries as removed rather than as never present.
4. Check the Krajowy Rejestr Zadłużonych separately for restructuring and bankruptcy proceedings.
5. Open the Przeglądarka akt rejestrowych when the extract has run out of answers.
6. Use System Tożsamość rather than creating a separate account per Ministry system.

Frequently asked questions

Can anyone search the Polish company register?

Yes. Anyone can search for an entity in the KRS and obtain information corresponding to the current or the full extract, and searching does not require having an account in the system.

What is the difference between odpis aktualny and odpis pełny?

The current extract is the company as it stands. The full extract also contains deleted data — dane wykreślone — so it shows what has been struck from the record as well as what remains.

Does the full extract cost more?

The source states that anyone can search and obtain information corresponding to either extract, without an account. It does not set out any charge for doing so, and this page does not state one.

Where do I check whether a Polish company is bankrupt?

In the Krajowy Rejestr Zadłużonych, a separate public register kept by the Minister of Justice in an ICT system, containing among other things information on entities subject to restructuring and bankruptcy proceedings.

Can I see the court's own file?

The Ministry's portal provides access to the Przeglądarka akt rejestrowych, the register-file browser, alongside downloading odpisy and viewing financial documents.

Do I need a separate account for each Ministry system?

No. The System Tożsamość provides user identification across Ministry of Justice systems using trusted identity providers, removing the need for separate accounts per system.

What else can I get through the portal?

Electronic documents issued by the Central Information of the Register of Pledges, the National Court Register, and the Land and Mortgage Registers.

Source Register

The Polish sentence quoted above is the Ministry's own wording, read on the date shown, carrying its diacritics as the source writes them, with an English gloss beside it rather than in place of it. No amount appears anywhere in this page's prose.

The page describes no field of a KRS entry, and it does not describe which populations of Polish business are registered where. Neither was sourced, and POLAND_REPORT.md names both with what would confirm them — the second is flagged first, because it is the most useful thing about Polish company lookup and its absence makes this page thinner than it should be.

The readings that are InfobelPRO's rather than the Ministry's: that the choice between odpis aktualny and odpis pełny is the page's one consequential decision, and that it is free and unregistered where most registers make history an extra step; that a current extract is least informative in exactly the cases where a history matters most; and that an extract is the register's summary while the register file is what the court holds. Those are ours. The comparison with the Netherlands is a comparison of how two registers frame the same kind of data, not a ranking of them.