Transport & Logistics Licences

The national licence (licencja krajowa) covers commercial carriage inside Poland. The Community licence (licencja wspólnotowa) covers carriage between EU member states and is what allows your vehicles to work across the internal market. They are separate documents with separate applications, and a certified copy of the Community licence has to be carried in each vehicle it applies to.

Four, and they apply together: professional competence, evidenced by a certificate holder genuinely managing transport; financial standing, evidenced against the fleet size; good repute, which looks at the record of the company and its managers; and — since the Mobility Package — a real operating base in the member state of establishment. Failing any one of them is enough to stop the application.

No, and this is the most common and most expensive misunderstanding we see. A registered address and an operating base (baza eksploatacyjna) are different things answering different rules: a registered address is where correspondence is delivered, while an operating base has to be a real place where vehicles can be parked and the documentation kept. A virtual office satisfies the first and not the second.

Under the EU rules the amount is set per vehicle: EUR 9,000 for the first vehicle and EUR 5,000 for each additional one for vehicles over 3.5 tonnes. For vans between 2.5 and 3.5 tonnes brought into scope by the Mobility Package, the figures are lower — EUR 1,800 for the first and EUR 900 for each additional. The amounts are converted into złoty at an exchange rate published for the year, so the PLN figure moves annually.

A transport licence covers carrying goods with your own vehicles. A forwarding permit covers organising carriage performed by others — matching the load to a carrier and contracting in your own name. What decides which one you need is how you contract and who bears the carrier obligations, not which word you use to describe the business.

The new vehicle needs its own certified copy of the licence, the financial-standing evidence has to cover the larger fleet, and the vehicle has to be reflected in the records the inspectorate expects to see. It is not a fresh application, but it is not automatic either — an unrecorded vehicle in operation is a straightforward finding at a roadside check.

KREPTD is the national electronic register of road transport undertakings. It records serious infringements against the operator, and accumulated infringements can lead to a good-repute assessment that puts the licence at risk. Because the register is national, a problem recorded on one route follows the whole company — which is why periodic self-checks are worth more than a good day at the roadside.