A foreign supplier has an unpaid invoice against a customer in Warsaw. Another creditor is pursuing a debtor in Gdańsk, while a third has a payment claim against a company registered in Kraków.
For many types of Polish litigation, the debtor’s location matters when determining which court should hear the case.
Electronic writ-of-payment proceedings work differently.
Poland has one court handling electronic writ-of-payment proceedings, or EPU, for the entire country: the Lublin-West District Court in Lublin, Sixth Civil Division. A qualifying monetary claim can therefore enter the same electronic system regardless of whether the Polish defendant is based in Warsaw, Poznań, Kraków or another part of the country.
That centralisation makes EPU an unusual debt-recovery tool. It can reduce filing costs, does not require evidentiary documents to be attached to the electronic claim, and gives a creditor access to a nationwide procedure without selecting a different EPU court for each debtor.
But the apparent simplicity is deceptive.
EPU has strict limits concerning the age of the claim, the place where the payment order must be served and what happens when the debtor objects. For an international creditor, misunderstanding one of those rules can turn an apparently efficient electronic claim into a discontinued proceeding.
One court handles EPU claims from across Poland
Electronic writ-of-payment proceedings are regulated by Articles 505²⁸–505³⁹ of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure.
The proceedings are centralised in the Lublin-West District Court in Lublin. This is the only ordinary e-court handling EPU cases in Poland, and its EPU jurisdiction covers the whole country.
The practical consequence is important.
A creditor does not select an EPU court according to the defendant’s city or registered office. The claim is filed electronically through the EPU system and handled in Lublin.
This does not mean that the Lublin e-court has become Poland’s universal court for every debt dispute. EPU is a special procedural track with its own eligibility rules.
Article 505²⁸ §2 provides two fundamental exclusions: a payment order cannot be issued in EPU where the claimant seeks something other than a monetary claim or where the payment order would have to be served on the defendant outside Poland.
EPU is therefore nationwide, but it is not unlimited.
The claim must be monetary — but EPU is not only for small debts
The first gateway is straightforward: EPU concerns monetary claims.
A supplier seeking payment of an overdue invoice may potentially use the procedure. A claimant asking a contracting party to deliver goods, transfer property or perform another non-monetary obligation cannot convert that demand into EPU merely because the underlying dispute has economic value.
What is less obvious is that EPU is not designed only for very small debts.
The official court-fee schedule currently applies different charges depending on the value of the claim. For claims above PLN 20,000 and up to PLN 2,000,000, the EPU court fee is 1.25% of the value of the claim. For claims above PLN 2,000,000, the fee is PLN 25,000.
For example, the court fee on a PLN 100,000 EPU claim is PLN 1,250.
This can make EPU economically attractive where the claim is straightforward and the creditor expects that the debtor may not raise a substantive dispute.
The size of the claim, however, should never be considered in isolation. A large claim involving disputed performance, complicated set-off allegations or extensive technical evidence may be a poor candidate for EPU even if it formally falls within the procedure.
The three-year EPU rule is not the same as limitation
One of the most important traps is Article 505²⁹a of the Code of Civil Procedure.
It provides that EPU may be used only for claims that became due during the three years preceding the filing of the electronic claim.
This is a procedural restriction specific to EPU.
It should not be confused with the substantive limitation period governing the underlying debt.
A commercial claim can therefore still exist and potentially remain enforceable under the applicable limitation rules while already being too old for EPU.
Consider an invoice that became due three years and four months before the planned filing date. Even if a substantive limitation analysis shows that the creditor can still pursue the debt, the electronic writ-of-payment route may no longer be available.
The creditor must then consider another Polish procedure.
For that reason, the first date to establish is not simply when negotiations failed or when the creditor decided to litigate. It is the exact maturity date of the claim.
Where several invoices are involved, each due date should be checked separately.
Evidence is identified, not attached
EPU is sometimes described too casually as a procedure in which “no evidence is required”.
That is incorrect.
Article 505³² §1 requires the claimant to identify the evidence supporting the allegations, but provides that the evidence itself is not attached to the electronic statement of claim.
A creditor may therefore identify, for example:
- the underlying contract;
- invoices;
- purchase orders;
- delivery or acceptance documents;
- correspondence concerning payment;
- an acknowledgement of debt; or
- records of partial payments.
The distinction is significant.
The creditor does not upload a conventional bundle of evidentiary documents at the EPU filing stage, but still needs a coherent factual case supported by identifiable evidence.
If the allegations themselves raise doubts, the simplified electronic route can fail. Under the rules applicable to writ-of-payment proceedings, a payment order should not be issued where, among other things, the claim is obviously unfounded, the factual allegations raise doubts or satisfaction of the claim depends on a reciprocal performance that remains relevant.
Article 505³³ then provides a particularly important EPU consequence: if there are no grounds for issuing the payment order, the court discontinues the electronic proceedings.
The creditor should therefore not use the absence of document attachments as a reason to file a poorly prepared claim.
The underlying documents should already be organised before EPU begins, because they may become essential if the dispute later moves outside the electronic procedure.
Correct debtor identification matters
The simplified nature of EPU also places particular importance on identifying the defendant correctly.
Article 505³² requires specified identification data, including PESEL or NIP in applicable cases for individuals and relevant register or tax identification data for defendants that are not natural persons.
The Code even permits the court to impose a fine where the claimant, its statutory representative or its lawyer supplies specified identifying information incorrectly in bad faith or through a lack of due diligence.
For an international creditor, this makes pre-filing verification more than an administrative formality.
Before filing, the creditor should verify the Polish debtor’s current legal name, registered details, identification numbers and address rather than relying exclusively on an old invoice or a contract signed several years earlier.
A change of registered office, corporate transformation or incorrectly identified company can create problems precisely where EPU is intended to operate quickly.
The service-address rule can defeat an otherwise suitable claim
The most important cross-border limitation appears in Article 505²⁸ §2.
An EPU payment order cannot be issued if it would have to be served on the defendant outside Poland.
This rule is easy to overlook because the procedure itself is electronic.
The fact that the claimant communicates electronically with the court does not mean that EPU is a borderless online procedure for defendants anywhere in the world.
For the defendant, service remains critical.
Suppose a German supplier has a clear unpaid invoice against a Polish company with a current registered address in Poland. Subject to the other requirements, the foreign identity of the creditor does not by itself create the service problem addressed by Article 505²⁸.
Now change the facts.
The claim is against a defendant on whom the payment order must be served in Germany, France, the United Kingdom or another country. EPU is no longer the appropriate route because the statutory condition concerning domestic service is not satisfied.
The decisive question is therefore not merely whether the dispute has an international element. It is where the EPU payment order must be served on the defendant.
Where service abroad is required, another procedure must be considered. For certain uncontested cross-border civil and commercial claims within the European Union, the separate European Payment Order procedure may be relevant. It is an EU mechanism and should not be confused with Poland’s domestic EPU system.
There is also a safeguard for a service problem discovered after an EPU order has already been issued.
Under Article 505³⁴ §2, if it subsequently turns out that the payment order cannot be served on the defendant in Poland, the court sets the order aside and discontinues the proceedings unless the claimant removes the obstacle within the period set by the court, which cannot exceed one month.
An inaccurate or outdated debtor address can therefore destroy the procedural advantage that brought the creditor to EPU in the first place.
What does the official 49-day average actually mean?
Speed is one of the reasons EPU attracts creditors.
The Polish government’s official EPU information service reports that the average waiting time for a payment order in 2025 was 49 days.
This is a useful real-world figure, but it must be interpreted correctly.
Forty-nine days is not a statutory deadline and not a guarantee that a particular creditor will receive an order within seven weeks. The government expressly states that the time required depends on the complexity of the matter and the court’s current workload.
A properly prepared straightforward claim may move differently from a filing containing identification problems, procedural defects or facts that cause the court to question whether a payment order should be issued.
For a creditor, the 49-day figure is therefore best treated as historical operational data for 2025 rather than a promised timetable.
A debtor can stop the EPU track with an objection
Receiving an electronic payment order is not the same as obtaining an uncontested final recovery.
Because an EPU order must be served in Poland, the ordinary domestic period applicable to an order issued in writ-of-payment proceedings is generally two weeks from service for payment or challenge.
The defendant may file an objection to the payment order.
Importantly, Article 505³⁵ provides that evidence is not attached to the objection.
If an effective objection is filed, the consequences differ sharply from a common description of EPU as a case that simply moves automatically from the e-court to the defendant’s local court.
Under the current Article 505³⁶, the e-court discontinues the proceedings to the extent in which the payment order has lost effect.
If the entire order is challenged, this can mean the end of the EPU proceeding itself.
The creditor that still wants to litigate the claim must then consider commencing the appropriate non-EPU proceedings.
This is strategically important.
Where the creditor already knows that the debtor will dispute delivery, quality, contractual performance, set-off or the amount of the debt, starting with EPU may merely add another procedural stage before ordinary litigation.
By contrast, where the debt is straightforward and a substantive defence is not expected, EPU can still provide a comparatively efficient route to an enforceable title.
The three-month rule can protect the original filing date
Discontinuance after EPU does not necessarily mean that the creditor loses every procedural benefit of the original filing.
Article 505³⁷ §2 creates an important three-month safety window.
If the EPU proceeding is discontinued and the claimant files a new action against the same defendant for the same claim in a procedure other than EPU within three months from the date of the discontinuance order, the legal effects that the law attaches to bringing the action arise from the date on which the original EPU claim was filed.
This rule can be extremely important where timing is sensitive.
It means that a creditor whose EPU route has failed should not simply place the file back into ordinary collection and return to it several months later.
The date of the discontinuance order should immediately be recorded and the three-month period assessed.
The later court may also, at the parties’ request, take account of costs incurred in the earlier EPU proceedings.
For an international creditor, this makes the transition from EPU to ordinary litigation a procedural step that should be planned rather than treated as a completely new collection project.
When EPU makes practical sense for a foreign creditor
EPU is strongest when its procedural simplicity matches the factual simplicity of the debt.
Before choosing it, an overseas creditor should be able to answer four questions clearly: Is the claim monetary? Did it become due within the previous three years? Can the defendant be served in Poland? Is the debt sufficiently straightforward that a serious factual dispute is not expected?
The creditor should also verify the debtor’s identification and address, prepare a precise chronology of the debt and have the underlying evidence organised even though those documents are not attached to the EPU claim.
If those elements are present, Poland’s centralised e-court can offer an unusual advantage: a creditor pursuing a qualifying monetary debt does not need a different EPU court merely because the debtor is located in another Polish region.
If one of those elements is missing, the apparent convenience of the electronic procedure may become a distraction.
The wider choice between negotiation, EPU, another payment-order procedure, ordinary litigation, a European procedure and subsequent enforcement should therefore be made as part of the overall strategy for debt collection in Poland.
Conclusion
Poland’s e-court is unusual because a single court in Lublin handles EPU claims from across the entire country.
But the real value of the mechanism lies not merely in centralisation.
A qualifying creditor can file electronically, pay a comparatively reduced court fee and identify evidence without attaching the underlying documents. Official statistics also show that the average wait for a payment order in 2025 was 49 days.
At the same time, EPU contains several hard boundaries.
The claim must be monetary. It must have become due within the previous three years. The payment order must be capable of service on the defendant in Poland. A debtor’s effective objection can bring the EPU proceeding to an end, and a creditor that intends to continue the claim should pay close attention to the three-month period for commencing another proceeding while preserving the legal effects of the original filing.
For an international creditor, the practical question is therefore not simply “Can we sue online in Poland?”
It is whether the particular debt fits the narrow procedural design that makes Poland’s one nationwide e-court efficient in the first place.
