# EU261 in Poland: 1 year to sue, settled by the Supreme Court Source: https://airtravelrights.com/eu261/claim-in-poland/ > Article 778 of Poland's Civil Code time-bars an EU261 claim one year after the flight; the ombudsman's own form rejects a request filed even a day late. # How long you have to claim compensation for a flight in Poland 1 year: that is how long Poland's own law gives an EU261 claim to run, the shortest period any of the nineteen countries checked for this site has actually settled on. If you read "6 years" elsewhere, that number is not yours. ## How long do you have to bring an EU261 claim in Poland? 1 year is Poland's limitation period for an EU261 compensation claim, running from the day of the flight, under article 778 of the Kodeks cywilny, the Polish Civil Code. Poland's Supreme Court has confirmed that this article, written for an ordinary passenger-carriage contract, covers EU261 compensation specifically, not just a domestic bus or rail ticket. Source: Kodeks cywilny art. 778 - isap.sejm.gov.pl; Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów admissibility rule - pasazerlotniczy.ulc.gov.pl, checked 2026-09-18. No other country checked for this site has settled on anything shorter. Spain and France give five years; England and Wales give six; the [full country-by-country list](https://airtravelrights.com/flight-compensation-time-limits/) sets them side by side. A passenger whose flight left Warsaw, Kraków or Gdańsk can lose a genuine claim simply by trusting a British or Spanish guide's number instead of a Polish one. The [LOT Polish Airlines](https://airtravelrights.com/airlines/lot-polish-airlines/) card leads with that one year for the same reason. Poland's passenger ombudsman repeats the same figure on its own complaint form: a request filed after the one-year mark is refused outright. There is no six-month grace period, and no separate, longer period for a cancelled flight against a delayed one; article 778 covers both the same way. File a written claim with the airline now if your flight was within the last year, rather than gathering documents first. Today's date, not the date you eventually hear back, is the one that counts down. ## Where does that deadline come from, and what starts the clock? C-139/11, Cuadrench Moré, settled in 2012 that EU261 sets no limitation period of its own: each Member State's own rules on the limitation of actions decide it instead. Poland answered that question in article 778 of its Civil Code, giving one year from the day the carriage was performed, or should have been. Source: Cuadrench Moré, C-139/11 (2012), operative part - eur-lex.europa.eu; Kodeks cywilny art. 778 - isap.sejm.gov.pl; Sąd Najwyższy, uchwała III CZP 111/16 - sn.pl, checked 2026-09-18. Article 778 reads, in the original: "Roszczenia z umowy przewozu osób przedawniają się z upływem roku od dnia wykonania przewozu, a gdy przewóz nie został wykonany – od dnia, kiedy miał być wykonany." In English: a claim time-bars a year after the carriage was performed, or, if it was not, a year after the day it should have been. That second clause fixes the date for a cancelled flight. One cancelled outright on 10 March 2026 starts its clock on 10 March 2026, the day it was due to fly, not the day the airline emailed the cancellation. In 2017, Poland's Supreme Court, the Sąd Najwyższy, settled the point for EU261 directly: article 778's one-year period, written for an ordinary carriage contract, reaches a compensation claim under article 7 of Regulation 261/2004 too. Write the flight date down the day something goes wrong, a cancellation notice, a boarding pass, a gate announcement. That date decides your deadline, not the date you later get around to claiming. ## Which flights does Poland's deadline govern? 1 year is short enough that coverage has to be settled first, and on a departure it settles itself: article 3(1)(a) of Regulation 261/2004 reaches every flight out of a Polish airport, on any airline, and hands the claim to a Polish court under the one-year rule. Source: Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, art. 3(1)(a)-(b) and art. 16 - eur-lex.europa.eu, checked 2026-09-18. Warsaw Chopin, Kraków Balice, Gdańsk, Katowice: on the way out, the airport is the whole test, and the operating airline's nationality changes nothing about it. Arrivals are where this goes wrong. Flying into Poland from outside the EU, article 3(1)(b) covers you only if a Community carrier operated the flight, and only if the country you left had not already given you compensation and assistance. Fail either limb and the flight was never an EU261 flight, so the one-year rule never applied to it and [another regime's rules](https://airtravelrights.com/which-law-covers-my-flight/) may. Article 16 gives Poland's enforcement body those same two categories and nothing beyond them. Work out which one you are in before you start counting days. ## Who handles a complaint in Poland, and what can they do? Article 205a(15) of Poland's Prawo lotnicze, its Aviation Law, lets the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów, the Ombudsman for Passengers' Rights, refuse a request once a year has passed since the flight was due. That is the same one-year figure as article 778, applied by a different office for a different reason. Source: Prawo lotnicze art. 205a(15); Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów request form - pasazerlotniczy.ulc.gov.pl, checked 2026-09-18. Poland runs two related offices, not one. The Urząd Lotnictwa Cywilnego (ULC) is the national civil aviation authority; the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów sits under the ULC president but is the office that takes an individual EU261 complaint, through its own online form. The Rzecznik's admissibility rule and article 778's court deadline land on the same one-year mark, but they are two separate rules, not one shared clock: article 778 decides how long a court claim stays alive, and article 205a(15) decides only whether the Rzecznik's form will accept your request. Missing one does not by itself mean you have missed the other, even though in Poland both run out on the same day. What the Rzecznik's page does not state is whether it can order an airline to pay compensation, or only investigate and mediate. Treat a written claim to the airline, followed if necessary by a Polish court claim filed before the one-year mark, as the route that actually recovers money. ## What to do before the deadline runs out 1 year, and Poland's clock does not pause for anything recorded here: not extraordinary circumstances, not a claims company's own processing time, not an airline's silence while you wait for a reply. Filing early costs you nothing. Filing late costs you the entire claim, with no second chance. Source: Kodeks cywilny art. 778; Prawo lotnicze art. 205a(15), checked 2026-09-18. Work out the exact date your flight was due to depart, or the date it arrived, whichever article 778 assigns to your case, and write the one-year anniversary into your calendar today, not after gathering every document you think you need. Send a written claim to the airline citing article 7 of Regulation 261/2004 as soon as you can, and keep a copy with the date you sent it. An airline's silence does not pause article 778's year: use the Rzecznik's form or a Polish court claim well before the anniversary, not on the day it arrives. > If Poland's one-year deadline is already tight and you would rather not run the claim yourself, [AirHelp (third-party claim service)](https://airtravelrights.com/partner/airhelp?ref=atr-gd-eu261-pl-b) can take it on, no win no fee, and keeps a fee from any payout. The free routes above, the airline directly and the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów, stay open too. This page states Poland's limitation period as the statute, the Sąd Najwyższy and the Rzecznik's own pages read it on the date checked, not advice on your specific claim. General information, not legal advice: for your specific case, contact the Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów, a Polish consumer-advice service or a solicitor. If your one-year mark is close, act today. ## Sources - Kodeks cywilny (Polish Civil Code), art. 778 - [isap.sejm.gov.pl](https://isap.sejm.gov.pl/), checked 2026-09-18. - Sąd Najwyższy, uchwała III CZP 111/16, 17 March 2017 - [sn.pl](http://www.sn.pl/sites/orzecznictwo/OrzeczeniaHTML/iii%20czp%20111-16.docx.html), checked 2026-09-18. - Rzecznik Praw Pasażerów, request form and admissibility rule (Prawo lotnicze art. 205a(15)) - [pasazerlotniczy.ulc.gov.pl](https://pasazerlotniczy.ulc.gov.pl/zloz-wniosek), checked 2026-09-18. - Cuadrench Moré, C-139/11 (2012), CJEU, operative part - [eur-lex.europa.eu](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:62011CJ0139), checked 2026-09-18. - Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, arts. 3(1)(a)-(b) and 16 - [eur-lex.europa.eu](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32004R0261), checked 2026-09-18. - European Commission, National Enforcement Bodies - Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 (updated 27 August 2026) - [transport.ec.europa.eu](https://transport.ec.europa.eu/document/download/d7b5dd33-4083-4faa-8132-b6dc8b3a1c07_en), checked 2026-09-15.