What kind of housing policy do Poles expect?
Author: Małgorzata Omyła-Rudzka
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2025-11-03
The largest proportion of respondents believe that the state should primarily facilitate private ownership of apartments and the construction of privately owned houses (51%). Much smaller, similar groups of respondents believe that the state should first support municipal construction for the less affluent (22%) or should support social housing, i.e. rental or cooperative (20%). Eight out of one hundred respondents have no opinion on this matter (8%).
In your opinion, should the state primarily:
Percentages do not sum to 100 due to rounding
Opinions on the proposed state involvement in meeting housing needs are divided. About one-third believe that it should primarily be the citizens' responsibility (34%), while the same number believe it is mainly the state's role (34%), and slightly fewer believe it should be equally the responsibility of both the state and citizens (29%). Very few have no opinion on this matter (4%).
To what extent should the state and citizens be responsible for meeting housing needs?
Respondents answered on a scale from 1 to 7, where 1 means primarily citizens should be responsible for meeting housing needs, and 7 means the state. Responses from 1 to 3 were combined into the category "Primarily citizens," 4 into Equally citizens and the state," and responses from 5 to 7 formed the category "Primarily the state."
The largest proportion of respondents, i.e. over two-fifths (44%), believe that property tax should be calculated based on its size, while half as many (19%) believe it should be based on its market value. Those in favour of property tax based on the size of the property outnumber supporters of the cadastral tax, which is calculated based on the market value of the property, in almost all analysed socio-demographic groups. The notable exceptions are the youngest respondents aged 18–24, who prefer the cadastral tax (41% to 27%) and in socio-professional groups — students and pupils (48% to 26%).
In Poland, there is a property tax based on the size of the house or apartment. In some countries, tax is paid based on the market value of the property instead of its size. Which of these solutions do you think would work better in our country?
Of all the housing policy solutions included in our survey, financial support for social housing with the possibility of eventual purchase (75%) and increasing the availability of land for housing construction (75%) were considered the most conducive to housing availability. Other popular measures include verifying the income of all renters of municipal housing (64%) and state subsidies for housing loans (62%).
Here are various actions that the state or local governments can take to improve housing availability for citizens. Which do you assess as good, i.e. conducive to improving housing availability, and which as bad, i.e. detrimental to improving housing availability?
More information about this topic can be found in CBOS report in Polish: “What kind of housing policy do Poles expect?”, October 2025. Fieldwork dates for the sample: August 2025, N=917. The random sample is representative for adult population of Poland.
