39,616,730 — 38,175,374 — or maybe 37,437,422 — or the lowest number: 36,687,353.

When it comes to the population of Poland, there are as many answers as there are researchers. Everyone has their own method, and even the official institution responsible for counting Poland’s population — GUS (Statistics Poland) — calculates it differently than its counterparts in Germany or the UK.

The truth is, the number of people living in Poland has increased sharply after 2022, as can be seen in the government report from February 2025 ("Report on Ukrainian Citizens as of February 28, 2025"). This number continues to grow, but only a few institutions record it, due to how the Polish state classifies these individuals. Unlike in Western countries, most foreigners in Poland don’t receive permanent residency cards or asylum (nowadays, no one receives that at all). Instead, the special law on the "UKR PESEL" is extended year by year indefinitely, or temporary residence cards are issued for 3 years — which means that over a million people are not included in population estimates.

Over 900,000 people have a "UKR PESEL," and between 2022 and 2025, 609,050 residence cards (mostly for 3 years) were issued. But even these cards don’t guarantee someone will be counted in the population. If Germany or the UK counted their populations the way Poland does, they’d show yearly losses in the hundreds of thousands.

Population figures are not just trivia for high schoolers — they’re a real economic indicator. They impact key foreign investments, the allocation of EU funds, and many other things. So, have a great day — and remember: there are 39 million people living in Poland, because you don’t have to be Polish to truly live here.

(Links to data in the comment)

by LucianFromWilno

5 comments

  1. [government report on people holding valid residence permit and overall raport on ukrainian citizens in poland](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.gov.pl/attachment/63a33038-f3c7-4430-8776-159d3fbfb637&ved=2ahUKEwi_15jgnMuNAxWtlP0HHewtMDkQFnoECBQQBg&sqi=2&usg=AOvVaw3fkkoSNOldzZs5Yfu5OEe3), [poland population according to the UN](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/poland-population/), [Polish population with inclusion of all people with walid resistance permit for longer then a year ](https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/pol/poland/population)

  2. Ok but counting Ukrainian refugees separatley is not purerly nationalistic want.
    When discussing long term demographics issues you have to ask yourself if those people are going to stay here long term. It is very propable that most of them will return to their country when the war ends. Hence our population crisis is not solved, only temporarly swept under the rug.

  3. No i don’t think you read the sentence correctly tbh

    It talks only about foreigners. So out of the ~2m total foreigners, around 78% are from Ukraine

    ~2m foreigners out of like ~40m people in Poland it’s ~5%, Ukrainians ~4%

  5. Poland doesnt count most of immigrants but we also dont count our emmigrants!

    Gus literally said that we have freedom of movement and we cant say if someone wont come back so we still consider millions of our emmigrants as citizens.

    During brexit around 1 million polish people applied for residency there, but all of these people didnt disappear from our statistics all of the sudden. Its ridiculous but but now both countries include this million as their own.

    I would be surprised if there were more than 35 milion permanent residents in Poland right now.

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