General spatial plans from 1 September 2026: a construction firm’s register of plots, WZ decisions and permits
On 17 August 2026 Rzeczpospolita described the rush to file development-conditions (WZ) applications before 31 August. Forsal followed on 19 August with Ministry of Development and Technology figures from early August: only about 19 per cent of gminas had adopted a general plan. From 1 September, in a gmina with neither a general plan nor a local spatial plan, a new WZ application will not proceed. This piece sets out the fields a construction firm should keep on each job before a crew reaches the plot and before accounts issue an advance invoice.
On 17 August 2026 Rzeczpospolita published “31 sierpnia mija ważny termin dla właścicieli działek. Szturm na urzędy o wydanie wuzetek”. The 23 August update did not move the dates. Municipalities have until the end of the month to adopt general spatial plans. Most will not. Developers and contractors are therefore filing applications for a decision on development conditions (WZ) while the office will still take them.
Two days later Forsal used the same horizon and added a ministry figure. “Warunki zabudowy tylko do końca sierpnia, jeśli gmina nie uchwali planu ogólnego” — 19 August, Urszula Wilk-Winter. The Ministry of Development and Technology (MRiT) said in early August that about 19 per cent of gminas had adopted a general plan. The remainder, mainly smaller authorities, account according to that article for 65 per cent of the country’s built-up area. We do not round those percentages. We do not guess how many gminas in your county will make the deadline. There is one source, and it is from early August.
For a firm running eight or fifteen jobs at once this is not an urbanists’ argument. It is whether the panel shows which plot sits in a local spatial plan, which is waiting on a WZ filed on 28 August, and which from 2 September has no path because the gmina has neither a general plan nor an MPZP. A register of developments and WZ decisions should hold the date of receipt, the registry number and the legal basis, not a yellow tag reading “WZ in progress”. The site manager will not settle that from memory in the council car park.
GESOFT — Paweł Matusiak, Laravel, Vue, Android — builds that panel when an off-the-shelf subscription does not know your gminas, powers of attorney and BIP attachments. We do not replace the municipal office, e-Budownictwo, the building inspectorate (PINB) or a law firm. We do not scrap working construction software if it already holds the job, the crew and the cost. Write via contact: how many live jobs, how many gminas, whether you use ZPI or only WZ and a building permit. A proposal comes back in 24 hours. If a spreadsheet for two sites is enough, we will say so.
The 17 August Rzeczpospolita report and the ministry figures
The Rzeczpospolita piece is by Małgorzata Krzystała. She rests it on the Act of 30 April 2026, which moved the deadline for adopting general plans to 31 August. Those documents are to replace studies of conditions and directions of spatial development. A general plan will set planning zones and — if the gmina draws them — infill areas (obszary uzupełnienia zabudowy). Those designations decide whether, once the plan is in force, a WZ can still be issued for a given plot.
The paper quotes wnp.pl: in some gminas the number of WZ applications rose by several hundred per cent, in places around 1,000 per cent. We do not treat that as a national average. We do not know the gminas in that paragraph and will not invent them. What the text states is that planning departments are swamped, headcount has not risen, and deadlines are slipping. Forsal says the same in other words — processing an application takes at least several months in practice.
From 1 July 2026 proceedings on penalties for delay in issuing WZ decisions were discontinued. Time limits for issuing decisions were also stayed. Rzeczpospolita had covered that earlier and returned to it on 17 August: plot owners lost a lever that could once push the office. In the register, a column “expected delay penalty” is not worth keeping. There is no such sum today. There is a queue.
MPs from Konfederacja tabled an interpellation to MRiT. They pointed to staff shortages and the risk that some proceedings will not even start, even though applications arrived before the cut-off. The ministry — according to Rzeczpospolita — is not promising extra money or posts. Deputy minister Tomasz Lewandowski said WZ decisions issued before the new rules take effect will remain valid. That sentence belongs on the job card, next to a scan of the decision, not on a meeting slide.
MRiT’s spatial-planning reform FAQ answers directly what happens after 1 September in a gmina without a general plan. A WZ may be issued only in proceedings started before that date. The restriction does not apply to location decisions for public-purpose investment (LICP) or to WZ on closed areas. The FAQ cites Articles 59(2a) and (4) of the amending Act. That does not shorten to “everything is blocked”.
The 31 August and 1 September deadlines for WZ applications
The calendar is short and dislikes shorthand. 31 August 2026 is the statutory deadline for adopting general plans, moved by the 30 April Act. The ministry note from that day is here: Wydłużony termin sporządzania planów ogólnych. From 1 September, in a gmina without a general plan, as a rule neither a new local spatial plan nor a new WZ will start. Article 67(4) of the 7 July 2023 reform (Journal of Laws item 1688) says so without ornament.
Forsal adds a working rule the FAQ does not put in the same sentence: applications filed after 31 August, in a gmina with neither a general plan nor an MPZP, wait for the plan to be adopted. Earlier applications are examined under the previous rules. For your job card the date of receipt therefore matters more than the date someone typed in a spreadsheet as “planned start”. A registry stamp, an ePUAP UPO, a mailbox acknowledgement — one of them must sit on the record. A verbal account from the counter is not a date.
If the gmina adopts a general plan and it enters into force, a new WZ application — Forsal writes — will be examined only within the infill area. A plot outside that area, with no MPZP, will not receive a WZ after the plan merely because “people have always built here”. MRiT’s FAQ warns against automation: existing housing is a planning condition, not a ticket. A zone allowing housing is drawn after the analysis in Article 13b of the spatial planning Act. Your panel will not decide that. It should show whether anyone checked the infill layer in BIP or in the resolution.
The housing special Act of 5 July 2018 (lex deweloper) expires on 1 September 2026. Until then, MRiT writes, applications to locate a housing investment can still be filed. After that date the path closes. If your pipeline holds “lex deweloper” next to an ordinary WZ, those are two regimes, two deadlines, two sets of attachments. Mixing them in one column labelled “location decision” ends with someone taking a file to a procedure that no longer exists on 2 September.
Record the filing channel as well. An application dropped on the registry desk at the end of 29 August and an application sent via ePUAP at 23:40 on 31 August carry different risks. The second has a UPO with a date. The first depends on whether the registry assigned a case number. In the channel field, “electronic” is not enough. ePUAP, e-Deliveries, e-mail with acknowledgement, paper with proof of posting — each has a different evidence trail. From 1 October 2026 CEIDG firms registered before 2025 must have an e-Deliveries address in any event; if your attorney already uses it for letters to the gmina, the consignment number sits on the card next to the UPO. Do not mix e-Deliveries with KSeF. Two authorities, two numbers.
The general plan, planning zones and the infill area
Adopting a general plan is obligatory. MRiT repeats that in the FAQ and in the 30 April note. The plan is an act of local law (Article 13a(7) of the planning Act). Its substantive content does not sit in a traditional textual annex to the resolution — the findings live in a spatial-data annex. The resolution keeps formal matters: entry into force, area, cross-reference, repeal. For your register that means a PDF of the resolution from the provincial official journal is not enough if you have no layer, or at least a note of which zone the plot sits in.
The general plan specifies planning zones and municipal urban standards. It may specify infill areas and downtown built-up areas. The 30 April Act added that downtown areas may be carried into local spatial plans and WZ decisions. That is a sentence from the ministry note, not our gloss. On the job card you need fields: zone, in infill area?, in downtown area?, date checked, source (BIP, Urban Register, letter from the gmina). An empty field is better than “probably residential”.
Until 30 September 2026 drafts of planning acts sent for agreement, consultation or to the council are published in the office BIP and at its premises — Article 52(3) of the reform. The Urban Register is meant to take this over. The April Act gave gminas three extra months of BIP publication after the register starts, until 1 October. The deadline for expanding spatial data for local plans in the register was moved to 1 July 2029. That does not mean your panel should replace the register. It should store a BIP link and the date someone opened it.
The justification of a general plan does not go into the official journal, because it is not a norm. It will go into the Urban Register, and until that exists — into BIP. Constraints from nature-protection designations, flood areas and heritage assets must still enter the plan’s findings, not remain in the justification. If a surveyor sends you only a plot extract with no zone note, that is an e-mail attachment, not a basis for sending a crew. Someone in the office must copy it onto the card or reject it as incomplete.
WZ, LICP and the local plan in a gmina that missed the general plan
The simple case stays simple. A plot in a binding local spatial plan does not need a WZ. A change of use then follows the plan and a building permit or a notification. The register needs the resolution number, the date of the provincial official journal and the land-use designation. Do not overwrite that with a status “waiting for WZ” because someone in the firm is used to every job “going through conditions”. You then spend two months on an application that was never required.
A gmina with neither an MPZP nor a general plan after 1 September is a different shelf. There will be no new WZ, except proceedings already opened. LICP — yes. Closed areas — yes. MRiT’s FAQ is unambiguous. If you are building a municipal road, a network or another public-purpose investment, do not drop it into the same queue as a terrace of houses on a private plot. Different authority, different application, different deadline. A panel with one status “location decision” will mix those files in the first report to the board.
The 30 April Act narrowed who may apply for a WZ: the decision is issued to persons who have the right to dispose of the property for building purposes. Applications used to be filed “just in case”, before a preliminary contract even mentioned building. Now a scan of the title, lease or power of attorney must hang on the card, with a date and a scope. An attorney who arrives with a reservation agreement and no right to build will come back with the file. The cost of that trip is not a construction cost. It is the cost of messy papers.
Every WZ and LICP is agreed with the State Sanitary Inspectorate as to hygiene and health requirements — Article 53(4)(2a) of the planning Act. That is not “an extra stamp if we can get it”. It is a field: date sent to SANEPID, date of agreement, letter reference. Without it the decision will not issue, and the crew still stands. Nobody on site thinks about SANEPID until someone in the office shows that the agreement has sat in another folder for three weeks.
MRiT also answers the question you will hear from a client after a general plan enters into force: does a final WZ from before the plan still support a building permit if the plan now says something else. Yes. Entry into force of the plan does not void issued WZ decisions. New applications after the plan must comply with it. The card therefore needs two dates side by side: the date the WZ became final, and the date the general plan entered into force. Their order tells you whether you go for a permit or for a new analysis.
Integrated investment plans, urban contracts and the housing special Act
A ZPI is a special form of local spatial plan (Article 37ea(3) of the planning Act). Forsal describes what happens without a general plan: if public consultations were not announced by 31 August, a ZPI can be adopted only after the general plan enters into force. The two acts must be consistent. In the register a ZPI is not a “faster WZ”. It is a separate card: application date, date consultations were announced, state of urban-contract talks, draft plan. Anyone who types ZPI into a “WZ type” field will lose the job in a report.
The draft urban contract is drawn up by the wójt, mayor or president of the city. MRiT is not publishing a template. The investor in a ZPI procedure may also be a natural person — the Act does not close that route to companies. The ZPI draft may change in negotiation, including as to the investment area. After a change there is no automatic duty to repeat the whole procedure from the application. For the panel that means version history, not one PDF. If you keep only the latest scan, you will not reconstruct what was agreed in May when in August the gmina adds a strip of greenery.
The 30 April Act was also meant to make the ZPI procedure more flexible and to start a so-called planning newsletter — electronic notices of steps in the procedure. The ministry note announces that; it does not give a mailbox address or a format. We therefore do not put “integration with the MRiT planning newsletter” in an offer as a ready API. The question to the gmina is: do you keep a list, which address should notices go to, or is BIP enough. You record the answer on the gmina card, not in the designer’s head.
Lex deweloper ends on 1 September. If by then you have not filed an application to locate a housing investment, that Act will not help you. A ZPI will not replace it of its own accord. A WZ in a gmina without a plan will not replace it. A sales timetable that in a developer CRM hangs as “sales start in October” must have, in the footer, the date of the location application or the date of the MPZP. Otherwise the sales team promises flats on land whose administrative path closed on Saturday 29 August because someone counted on “September still catching it”.
The job card: fields to hold before anyone goes to the office
The list below is not a model application. It is the minimum without which a register of developments and WZ decisions lies at the first call from the gmina. Most of these fields already sit in your mail, on a drive and in paper files. The point is that they sit on the job, not in a folder “to sort” on an attorney’s laptop.
- Gmina, precinct, cadastral plot number, area, whether the plot is joined with a neighbour for the investment.
- Whether an MPZP applies: resolution number, date of the provincial official journal, designation, BIP link.
- Whether a general plan has been adopted: resolution date, date of entry into force, planning zone, whether the plot lies in an infill area, source and date of the check.
- WZ application: date of receipt, channel (registry, ePUAP, post), registry number, date proceedings opened, applicant, attorney.
- Right to dispose of the property for building purposes: type of title, date, scope, scan.
- SANEPID agreement: date sent, letter reference, date of agreement.
- Decision: date issued, date it became final, whether an appeal was filed, whether it was transferred to another party.
- Building permit or notification: reference, date, authority (starosta / president of the city).
- ZPI or special housing Act: a separate card type, date consultations were announced or date of the LIM application.
- Person responsible in the firm, site manager, crew, planned arrival on site.
The source of each field should be visible. “General plan — no” with no check date is nothing. The gmina may have adopted the plan on Tuesday, and you last opened BIP on the previous Friday. Against general plan in force? you record who looked, when, which URL. You attach the BIP PDF to the job, not as a screenshot in the crew chat. The screenshot vanishes when someone changes phone.
Do not multiply statuses. A few that cannot be confused will do: plot draft, documents complete, application filed, consultations, decision, final, permit applied for, permit, suspended, closed. “In progress” says nothing. “With the client” says nothing. If the case is stuck because a map for design purposes is missing, that is a missing document, not a mood. A block field with a reason — map, title, SANEPID, no infill area — saves a week of e-mail.
The site manager does not need the whole application. From a field-service app three answers suffice: whether they may enter, whether they may set up the compound, whether they may dig. Yes/no plus a decision number. The rest stays in the office. If the ganger has twenty undated PDFs on the phone, they will call anyway. A panel that shows three flags and an address ends that call before the crew leaves the national road.
The card name should be dull and unambiguous. Gmina X / precinct Y / plot 123/4 / Kowalski terrace can be found. Project Vistula 2 says nothing when Vistula 2 is a marketing name for an estate on three plots in two gminas. One card = one property, or one set of plots covered by the same application. An estate with three WZ decisions is three cards and one group. A report “how many WZ in gmina X” then works. Leave the marketing code in the sales CRM, not as the only identifier in the permits register.
Three jobs in three gminas in one week
Monday. A warehouse on a provincial road. The plot has sat in an MPZP for years, industrial-and-services designation, 2019 resolution, provincial journal linked on the card. The site manager asks whether “this general plan messes us up”. It does not. The building permit follows the local plan. In the register the status stays permit. Nobody files a WZ “just in case”. Accounts issue an advance to the earthworks contractor. The KSeF number lands on the job, not in a general folder “August invoices” — we wrote about tying invoices to the panel in the piece on mandatory KSeF.
Tuesday. A terrace of houses on the edge of a village. No MPZP. The WZ application was received on 28 August 2026, ePUAP UPO attached, registry number entered in the morning. The gmina has not adopted a general plan. Proceedings were opened before 1 September, so — according to MRiT’s FAQ and Forsal — they continue under the previous rules. SANEPID has not yet replied. On the card: consultations, block SANEPID, planned arrival struck through. The crew that was to set up the compound on Wednesday gets “do not enter” on the phone. Idle hours go to another job or to leave. Not to “idle with no reason” in the time record.
Wednesday. A client rings about a plot in a third gmina. They want to file a WZ on 2 September. BIP shows no general plan. No MPZP. The attorney says “they’ll get it moving, the application is simple”. They will not. MRiT leaves no gap here except LICP and closed areas. You open a card with status suspended and reason no general plan / no MPZP / application after 31 August. You issue the earthworks quote with a note that start depends on adoption of the plan, not on your calendar. The client may take offence. Better now than after the footings are poured.
In the same week the surveyor sends three maps, each to a different mailbox. The secretary drops them “into jobs”. Without a plot number on the file, Tuesday’s map lands on the warehouse. The site manager on the terrace stands with an extract of the wrong plot. A panel in which an attachment sticks to a person rather than to a job produces this every season. The rule is dull: the file lives on the investment. The person has a permission, not a folder.
Thursday. The warehouse site manager rings: the building inspector wants the site diary and the board. There is a permit, no WZ was needed, the board is up. In the register this job should not appear in the filter “awaiting WZ”. If the filter shows it next to the terrace, someone set the path type wrongly. PINB does not ask about the general plan when the job goes from an MPZP and a final permit. Mixing inspection with planning in one status ends with the director hearing “inspection” and thinking “the WZ has fallen over”.
Friday. The director asks how many jobs will start in September. A report from the register, if the fields are filled, looks like this: warehouse — yes, permit; terrace — no, waiting on SANEPID, WZ filed 28 August; third plot — no, no path after 1 September. A spreadsheet report in which all three have status “in delivery” will tell the director nonsense. The difference between those two reports does not need a new methodology. It needs a receipt date and an open BIP page.
Delay penalties discontinued from 1 July and the queue in the department
Until 1 July some investors counted on the gmina paying for silence. Rzeczpospolita described the change earlier and returned to it on 17 August: penalty proceedings were discontinued, time limits stayed. The deputy minister is not promising money for posts. The application sits in a queue, and the queue — according to Forsal — is measured in months, not weeks. In your register the date “statutory issue deadline” cannot be the date from which accounts plan the first house-sale invoice.
Three dates on a WZ application will do, if they are honest. Date of receipt. The date the office gave orally or in a request as a rough guide. The date of actual issue. The rest is commentary. If someone adds “penalty after 30 days”, you are back in rules that from 1 July no longer drive a penalty in that proceeding. We do not quote penalty amounts from the previous law, because the new law does not trigger them. We do not guess whether the Sejm will reverse this.
A request to complete the file stops a case more firmly than “no staff”. Wrong map, power of attorney without a date, no title after the April amendment — each of those gaps is yours. On the card a request field with a date and a list of gaps. Until the gaps hang, you do not promise the client a week. You promise the date on which you complete the reply, not the date of the decision. The site manager gets the same in the app: supplement, do not dig.
The interpellation Rzeczpospolita reports warns of another gap: the application arrives, but proceedings are not opened before 1 September. MRiT’s FAQ speaks of proceedings opened before that date. Receipt is not always opening. If the gmina has not assigned a case reference and you only have a UPO for filing, you ring and ask for confirmation that proceedings have started. You record the date of the call, the official’s name, the reference. That is not a “button in the GESOFT system”. It is a phone call. The panel has a place so that call does not vanish in a notebook.
Technical conditions after 20 September on the design card
Beside general plans, contractors are watching a second calendar. The current regulation on technical conditions for buildings and their siting, under Article 66 of the Act on accessibility for persons with special needs, was to expire on 19 September 2026. New technical conditions — Rzeczpospolita wrote in July — were slow to leave MRiT. On 10 August, updated on 11 August, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna described an MP amendment: investors who file a statement could, for 18 months from 20 September, keep applying the existing rules. The piece “Poselska wrzutka ratuje budowy” also notes constitutional reservations about how the amendment was introduced. We do not decide those. We record the fact: the Sejm worked on a statement and a vacatio, and DGP reported it.
On the design card you need a separate block, not one mixed with WZ. Which technical conditions the design uses: current / new / not settled. Statement filed: yes/no, date, who signed. Designer and licence number. Technical conditions do not replace a WZ. A WZ does not replace technical conditions. A client with a final WZ from July and a design under the old conditions must know whether on 20 September that design will still pass a permit. That is a question for the designer and for the wording of the transitional provision, not for an August slide.
We do not list polystyrene thicknesses, acoustic classes or window parameters from the draft regulation. The draft was on RCL, MRiT ran consultations in 2025, the text may have changed. Inventing parameters in a piece about a register helps nobody. A field does: “design complies with technical conditions dated … / regulation …”. When the designer changes the basis, you change the field and the PDF version. The old version stays in history. The site manager opens the current one.
If you are building a warehouse under an MPZP and a terrace under a WZ at the same time, the two designs may run on different technical conditions. A register with one global flag “old technical conditions for the whole firm” lies on the second job. The flag lives on the design, not on the firm. That detail surfaces at the first design check in the starost’s office, when the inspector asks for the basis and is handed a print-out from another site.
Questions for the surveyor, the planner and the software vendor
Before anyone sells you a “general-plan module”, ask the surveyor things they must know anyway. Whether the extract shows a binding MPZP or only the land register. Whether they can mark that the plot does or does not lie in an infill area once the gmina adopts a plan. In what format they deliver the boundary — PDF, DXF, GML. A PDF for the file is enough at the start. GML helps if you later attach a layer. Do not buy a GIS in the first week if you have twelve jobs and a holey BIP.
The planner or attorney should say: whether the WZ application of 28 August was opened, or only filed. What the case reference is. Whether the gmina confirms that the general plan is not in force. Whether a WZ is available for that plot at all after the amendment (right to dispose). Whether this is LICP, ZPI, the special housing Act, or an ordinary WZ. Four regimes, four answers. If the attorney says “it’s all development conditions”, change the attorney or give them a table from your panel and make them fill in the type.
Ask the software vendor questions that can be answered yes or no. Does the job card have separate fields for MPZP, general plan, WZ, ZPI, permit. Is the receipt date a date field, not a comment. Does the BIP PDF hang on the job, not on a shared drive. Does the site manager on Android see three flags: may enter / may dig / do not enter. Can you set status “suspended — no general plan” without stuffing it into notes. Can you run a report: how many jobs sit on a WZ opened before 31 August, how many on an MPZP, how many have no path.
Questions to avoid: “is the system compliant with the planning reform”. The reform is dozens of articles and three amendments. Nobody is “compliant with the reform” by a button. “Do you integrate with the Urban Register” — until 1 October gminas may still sit on BIP, and full spatial data for local plans in the register have until 2029. A promise to integrate with a tool your gmina has not switched on is decoration on an offer. Ask about a BIP link and a check date. That works in August 2026.
Separately: who in your firm may change status from application filed to permit. If a ganger can do it, the register will fail the first internal check. Permission: office / attorney / director. The site manager acknowledges receipt of information; they do not edit the legal basis. The same point as in authentication in a panel: a named account, not a shared password on a tablet in the gravel pit.
Documents in the WZ application and a request to complete the file
A WZ application is not one PDF. It is a file whose missing piece stops the case more firmly than the queue in the department. A description of the investment, a base map or a map for design purposes, an extract and a drawing from the land register, a power of attorney, title after the April amendment, sometimes an environmental decision or a certificate that none is needed. Each of those files has a date. A register that holds “application filed” without a list of attachments will not tell you in October what the gmina asked for in September.
You record a request to complete as an event, not as a comment. Date of the letter, reference, list of gaps, deadline for reply, date the supplement was sent, channel. If the gmina asks for a new map, the surveyor gets a task with the job number, not the tag “WZ correction”. The old map stays in history as rejected by the office, the new one as filed with the supplement. The site manager need not see this. The office must, because it decides whether proceedings opened on 28 August are still alive or have died on a missing annex.
Powers of attorney fail more often than people admit. An end date, a scope “to file the application” without “to collect the decision”, a signature of a person who is not in the KRS. After 30 April you also add title to dispose of the property for building purposes. A reservation agreement, a preliminary contract with no building right, an e-mail from the owner — that is not title. A scan of the deed or of a lease with a building clause. A field title checked by with a name. If “anyone in the office” checks, nobody checks.
An environmental decision or a screening is a separate branch, not a footnote. Not every terrace needs one. A warehouse by a road, a car park, a demolition — more often yes. On the card a flag: environment required / not required / in progress, RDOŚ or office case reference, date. Do not fold this into the WZ status. Different desk, different deadline, different person in the firm. A panel with one status for both will show you “WZ in progress” when you have in fact been stuck on environment since June.
After the decision comes transfer. A subsidiary as investor, a sale of the plot, a change of party. Article 63(5) of the planning Act. For farmstead development MRiT reminds you: the new addressee must show a holding and an area above the gmina average with the same documents as at application. In the register a transfer is a new party card; the old decision stays with a note. The decision number does not change. Who may go for a permit does. Accounts invoice the person on the decision, not the person who rings.
What the office does when a job is stuck on a WZ
A standing job costs money even when nothing is on the plot. The earthworks subcontractor has a date in the contract. A crane is booked for September. A crew from another site was to “jump across”. An advance arrived from the client in July. If on 2 September it turns out there is no path to a WZ, someone must unpick those commitments in the same register, not in a separate notebook labelled “claims”. A field subcontractor contract: date, cancellation penalty, whether the work can move to Monday’s warehouse. That is still the job card, only another tab.
Accounts do not wait for the planner. The client’s advance sits in the bank. The advance invoice went through KSeF. If the job drops from planned arrival September to suspended — no general plan, a correcting invoice or a new payment timetable must know which job it concerns. The KSeF number on the card, not in a general export. Otherwise in October you will hunt which advance was “for that plot without a WZ”. With several companies in a group the mistake is expensive.
Crew time records — the same. The gang that did not enter the terrace on Tuesday must not hang as idle on job B for two weeks if on Wednesday they are digging at the warehouse. Hours go to the job they are actually on. Job B stays suspended, with no hours. Otherwise the terrace cost swells and the warehouse comes out “too cheap”. At settlement with the terrace client you will not defend a rate that was never in the ground. With time records on a construction job that is obvious; with a WZ people forget it, because “the crew was waiting on the office”.
Demolishing a barn before the new warehouse is also BDO. You will not issue waste transfer notes in a GESOFT panel instead of BDO.gov — we do not touch that. You can keep the KPO number and the haulage date on the job so the site manager does not take rubble “by eye” in a week when they still must not dig footings. A standing WZ does not excuse waste if you demolished in August counting on entering with footings in September. The rubble has already gone. There are no footings. Two facts on the card, side by side, without varnish.
Correspondence with the client also has a date. Mail of 20 August: “we are filing a WZ, start in September”. Mail of 2 September: “gmina has no plan, an application after the deadline will not proceed, we wait for the council resolution”. Both mails as events on the card. When in October the client says “nobody told me”, you have a thread, not a memory from a meeting. This is not a law firm. It is order that later shortens a law firm’s work. The panel does not write pleadings. It holds who said what to whom, and when.
A spreadsheet, a ready-made product and bespoke software
Two or three jobs in one gmina, both in an MPZP, no ZPI — a spreadsheet will do if someone fills it in. Columns from the list above, BIP links, dates. You do not need a subscription to type a plot number. You need discipline. When the sheet lives in three copies on three laptops, there is no discipline. Then even a small firm loses the receipt date.
Ready-made SaaS makes sense when your model is standard: a job card, a bill of quantities, a crew, invoices. Check whether the vendor even has a field for the general plan and for the date WZ proceedings opened. Many construction products were built around the study and “WZ for ever”. The study loses force on 31 August. A study field in 2026 is a souvenir. Either the vendor replaces it with the general plan and the infill area, or you will keep that in notes. Notes do not filter in a report.
A bespoke panel — Laravel, Vue, Android, Paweł Matusiak — comes in when the standard does not fit. A dozen gminas at once, a mix of MPZP / WZ / ZPI / special Act, a crew in the field that should see three flags, KSeF invoices on the job, later BDO on demolition. We do not scrap a working bill of quantities or a parts store if they still calculate. We attach a job card with the fields the box product lacks, and we give the site manager’s phone what a spreadsheet will not carry onto the gravel. More on when a subscription stops adding up is in ready-made software or a custom build.
We do not promise that a panel will speed up issue of a WZ. The office has a queue, it did not get posts, delay penalties from 1 July do not discipline it. The panel speeds up your answer to whether there is anything to speed up. That is enough to stop you pouring footings on a plot whose path closed on 1 September.
If you already have software for bills of quantities, measurements and a parts store, we do not touch it for the sake of it. A register of developments and WZ decisions can be a separate module with the same login, the same job number and the same Android for the site manager. The bill of quantities still calculates. The store still issues. The new module adds: gmina, BIP, receipt date, infill area, SANEPID. Integration by job number, not by copying a spreadsheet once a week. Once a week someone forgets, and you again have two truths about the same plot.
A checklist for the last week of August and the first days of September
The points below are for ticking in the register, not for hanging on the wall as a poster. Each has an owner in the firm. If “everyone” is to check BIP, nobody will.
- By 31 August: a list of all plots without an MPZP. Against each — whether a WZ application has already been received and whether proceedings have opened. No case reference = a call to the gmina that day.
- By 31 August: applications under the housing special Act, if you use it. After 1 September the Act expires.
- By 31 August: ZPI — whether consultations have been announced. If not, a note that the rest of the path depends on the general plan.
- 1–3 September: a fresh BIP check for every gmina in the portfolio. A plan may have entered into force on the evening of 31 August. Record the check date.
- For every WZ already issued: date it became final, and a scan. After a general plan enters into force that decision remains the basis for a permit.
- For every design: which version of the technical conditions, and whether you plan a statement if the transitional rule enters in the shape DGP described.
- Permissions in the panel: who changes the job status. The site manager acknowledges receipt; the office edits the legal basis.
- A report for the board on the first Friday of September: how many jobs on an MPZP, how many on a WZ opened in August, how many with no path. No column “it will somehow start”.
After 1 September the register does not go into archive mode. Gminas will adopt plans late. Forsal writes that in a gmina without a plan an application filed in September waits for adoption. When the plan enters, you check the infill area. Plot inside — you can return to a WZ if you have the right to dispose and the other tests. Plot outside — a different conversation with the client, a different product, or an MPZP, or walking away. A new status on the card, a new date, the same plot number. Do not open a second card “to keep it tidy”. There should be one history.
In the first week of September someone in the office should walk the list of gminas alphabetically, not “from the jobs on fire”. A job on fire rings anyway. A quiet plot where nothing is happening drops out of mind and returns in November as a client complaint. Against each gmina: BIP link, date last checked, whether a resolution or a deposit for inspection has appeared in the notices. If the gmina publishes drafts in BIP until 30 September — Article 52(3) of the reform — that folder is worth watching before the plan enters. A note “no resolution on 3 September, draft in BIP” is worth more than silence in the status. Silence documents nothing.
Finally, a thing the calendar will not fix. Someone in the firm has to like reading BIP. Not a planner from the provincial city for every plot. A person in the office, with a list of gminas, with a reminder in the diary. The panel helps them because it holds the link and the date. It does not read the resolution for them. If that person is missing, 31 August will pass you by, and on 2 September the attorney will deliver an application the gmina will not take. Then a register will still appear — only in emergency mode, with complaints and an invoice for an empty crew trip.
A calendar on the office fridge, with a ring around 31 August and 1 September, still makes sense. The panel does not replace it. It reminds the person who opens BIP that those two dates are not “some time in September”, but two different shelves of applications. After 1 September you can wipe the ring. You keep the lists of gminas.
If after reading this one Monday task remains: open the list of plots without an MPZP and add the WZ receipt date, or a note that there is no application. You can fill the other fields during the week. That one column will split September into jobs that still have a chance and jobs that are already waiting on a council resolution.
Frequently asked questions
- Can you still obtain a WZ after 1 September 2026?
- Yes, if proceedings were opened before 1 September, or the gmina already has a general plan (then — according to Forsal — within the infill area), or the plot lies in a closed area. LICP has a separate path and does not share that restriction. A plot in an MPZP does not need a WZ.
- Is an application filed on 31 August enough if the gmina has not assigned a case number?
- MRiT’s FAQ speaks of proceedings opened before 1 September, not of parcels alone. Receipt and opening are two moments. Ask the gmina to confirm that proceedings have started and record the case reference on the card.
- Does a final WZ from July 2026 fall when the gmina adopts a general plan with a different designation?
- No. MRiT in the FAQ: final WZ decisions remain a basis for a building permit regardless of a later general plan. New applications after the plan enters must comply with it.
- How many gminas have adopted a general plan?
- Forsal, 19 August, citing MRiT from early August: about 19 per cent. The rest, mainly smaller gminas, account for 65 per cent of built-up area. We have no newer official figure and will not guess. Check your gmina’s BIP.
- Does GESOFT replace the application at the gmina or e-Budownictwo?
- No. The panel holds the job card, dates, scans and flags for the site manager. The attorney or the investor files the application at the office. The building permit goes through the authority and e-Budownictwo. We also do not scrap a working bill of quantities.
- What happens to lex deweloper after 1 September?
- The housing special Act expires on 1 September 2026. Until then MRiT allows applications to locate a housing investment. After that date the path closes. ZPI and MPZP are separate procedures.
- Will the penalty for delay in issuing a WZ return in September?
- Rzeczpospolita writes that from 1 July 2026 penalty proceedings were discontinued and time limits stayed. We do not announce a return of penalties. Do not plan income from that heading in the register.
- What fields are the minimum on a job card?
- Plot, MPZP or its absence, general plan and infill area with a check date, date of WZ receipt and opening, title, SANEPID, decision and finality, permit, person in the firm. A fuller list is in the chapter on the card.
- When is a spreadsheet enough, and when do you need bespoke software?
- Spreadsheet: two or three jobs, one gmina, MPZP. SaaS: a standard job card, if it has fields for the general plan and the date proceedings opened. Bespoke (Laravel, Vue, Android): many gminas, mixed procedures, an app for the site manager, KSeF on the job. A proposal from contact in 24 hours.
- Do technical conditions after 20 September mix with the general plan?
- They are two calendars. The general plan concerns WZ and local plans. Technical conditions concern the building design. DGP on 11 August described an amendment on 18 months and an investor statement. Keep a separate technical-conditions block on the design card, not the WZ status.
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