How Long Does It Take to Sell a Flat in Poland? Stages and Timelines in 2026

How long does it take to sell a flat? The formalities alone – from the preliminary contract to the notarial deed – usually take from 2–3 weeks (a cash buyer) to 6–10 weeks (a buyer with a loan). The longest and least predictable stage is finding a buyer: according to the NBP (National Bank of Poland), flats on the secondary market in large cities sell on average more than a year after the listing goes up. Below we set out each stage with deadlines, the legal basis and three scenarios: cash, the buyer's loan and selling a flat with your own mortgage.

Key facts

• The average time to sell flats on the secondary markets of the six large cities analysed by the NBP was at the end of the first quarter of 2026 about 4.8 quarters (only transactions completed by a sale; a year earlier about 4 quarters).
• A certificate from a public office (e.g. the municipality) is issued without undue delay, at the latest within 7 days (art. 217 § 3 of the Code of Administrative Procedure, KPA); a certificate from the tax office – also within 7 days (art. 306a § 5 of the Tax Ordinance).
• The buyer's bank gives its credit decision on the 21st day from the application, unless the buyer agrees to earlier delivery (art. 14 para. 2 of the Mortgage Loan Act).
• If the preliminary contract sets no deadline and no one sets one within a year, you can no longer demand conclusion of the final contract (art. 389 § 2 of the Civil Code).
• The notary files the application for entry in the land and mortgage register at the latest on the day of the deed; deleting a repaid mortgage costs PLN 100 in court fees.

How long it takes to sell a flat – stages and deadlines in a table

A sale consists of two parts with completely different dynamics. The first – preparation and finding a buyer – depends on the market, the price and the quality of the listing, so it is hard to plan to the week. The second – the formalities after a buyer is found – has largely statutory or contractual deadlines and can be laid out in a calendar. A full description of each step (documents, taxes, costs) is in the guide Selling a flat step by step; here we focus solely on time.

Stage	Typical time	What it depends on	Basis / deadline
1. Documents and certificates	1–3 weeks	form of ownership, inheritance, owners' association or cooperative	office certificate – up to 7 days (art. 217 § 3 KPA), tax office – up to 7 days (art. 306a § 5 of the Tax Ordinance)
2. Energy performance certificate	a few days	availability of a qualified person	obligation on sale (Act on the energy performance of buildings), no statutory deadline
3. Valuation and asking price	a few days (valuation report: usually up to a week)	whether you order a surveyor's report	no statutory deadline
4. Marketing, viewings, negotiations	from a few weeks to over a year	price against the market, location, condition, season	on average about 4.8 quarters according to the NBP (first quarter of 2026)
5. Preliminary contract	1–2 weeks from agreeing the price	form (ordinary or notarial), earnest money	art. 389–390 and 394 of the Civil Code
6. Buyer's loan	3–6 weeks	the bank, the bank's valuation of the unit, completeness of documents	decision on the 21st day from the application or earlier with the client's consent (art. 14 of the Mortgage Loan Act)
7. Right of pre-emption (only exceptionally)	+1 month	revitalisation area, a monument entered in the register	the municipality has a month from notification (art. 110 of the Real Estate Management Act)
8. Notarial deed	1 visit (about 1–2 hours)	notary's availability	form of a notarial deed (art. 158 of the Civil Code); application for entry on the day of the deed (art. 92 § 4 of the Notary Law)
9. Payment of the price	from the day of the deed to a few working days	transfer, notarial deposit, release of the loan	agreement of the parties; deposit – art. 108 of the Notary Law
10. Handover of the unit	usually 0–4 weeks after the deed	your move, payment of the whole price	date from the notarial deed
11. Deleting the mortgage	weeks to months	the seller's bank, court workload	bank consent after repayment, fee PLN 100 (art. 46 in conjunction with art. 42 of the Act on court costs in civil cases)

How long does a flat take to sell? NBP data for the secondary market

In its report on the property market, the NBP gives the average time to sell flats on the secondary markets of six large cities. At the end of the first quarter of 2026 it was about 4.8 quarters, i.e. about 14 months – compared with about 4.1 quarters a quarter earlier and about 4 quarters a year earlier. The indicator is averaged over the last four quarters and covers only transactions from the BaRN database completed by a sale. The NBP stresses that the data are understated, because they do not include offers still waiting for a buyer.

How to read this? The average covers both flats priced accurately and offers priced well above the market that hang on portals for months. The same report shows that asking prices on the secondary market are still rising, while transaction prices in Warsaw fell in the first quarter of 2026 by 2.2% quarter on quarter – the gap between sellers' expectations and what buyers pay is the main cause of long exposure. A flat priced close to transaction prices usually finds a buyer much faster than the average. How to set such a price we write in How much is my flat worth?, and ways to shorten this stage we collected in the article How to sell a flat quickly.

Time to sell a flat in Warsaw and Wroclaw – the NBP does not publish this indicator separately for each city, so we do not give a figure "for Warsaw" or "for Wroclaw". In both cities the buyer compares your offer with new flats: according to TM Invest offer data as of 27.09.2026, the median price of a new 2-bedroom flat is PLN 755 824 in Warsaw and PLN 662 405 in Wroclaw. If your price is similar and the unit needs renovating, expect a longer sale.

Preparation: documents, certificates and the energy performance certificate

This stage is worth closing before you post the advert – then after finding a buyer you do not lose weeks collecting papers. Certificates issued by public offices (e.g. on the absence of registered residents, if the office issues them under the Code of Administrative Procedure) should be issued by the authority without undue delay, no later than within 7 days. The tax office also has 7 days, e.g. for an inherited flat, when the notary needs confirmation that inheritance tax has been settled. Certificates from the association, cooperative or bank have no statutory deadline – you simply have to ask how long they take.

Remember also the energy performance certificate: on a sale it must be handed to the buyer at the deed, and if one has been prepared its indicators should appear in the advert. Who issues it and how much it costs we explain in Energy performance certificate when selling a flat. A full list of documents is in the checklist of documents for selling. Preparation takes longest for a flat inherited or after a divorce – there, inheritance proceedings or division of property may be needed before the sale (see selling an inherited flat).

From the preliminary contract to the deed – how long?

After agreeing the price the parties usually sign a preliminary contract with earnest money (zadatek). You write the deadline for concluding the final contract (the deed) into it yourselves – the Civil Code does not impose one. If there is no deadline, either entitled party may set one, but if no one does so within a year of signing, the claim to conclude the contract lapses (art. 389 § 2 of the Civil Code). Details of the form, earnest money and clauses are in the article Preliminary agreement for the sale of a flat.

How much time to allow? It depends on how the buyer is financing the purchase. With cash, you only need time to book a notary and check the documents – usually 2–3 weeks. With a loan you must add the bank procedure: the application, the bank's valuation of the unit, the decision (delivered on the 21st day from the application, unless the client agrees to earlier delivery), and then signing the loan agreement. It is sensible to write 6–10 weeks into the preliminary contract and a clause for the case of a refused loan. If the flat lies in an area where the municipality has a right of pre-emption, you add another month: first a conditional contract is concluded, and the municipality has a month to decide from notification by the notary.

Want to sell your flat to a predictable timetable? Our experts will help set the price on the basis of transaction data, prepare the documents before the offer is published and plan the schedule from the preliminary contract to handing over the keys – see the flat sale and valuation service.

How long a flat sale takes – 3 scenarios with a calendar

Below we count the time from the day the price is agreed (day 0) to handing over the keys. We assume the documents were prepared earlier and the notary has a free slot within a week. These are our own calculations on example assumptions, not guaranteed deadlines.

Step	A. Cash buyer	B. Buyer with a loan	C. Sale with your mortgage + buyer's loan
Preliminary contract	day 7	day 7	day 7 (earlier: certificate from your bank on the balance)
Buyer's loan application	–	day 10	day 10
Credit decision	–	day 31 (21st day from the application)	day 31
Buyer's loan agreement	–	about day 38	about day 38
Notarial deed	day 21	about day 45	about day 45
Money in your account	day 21 (transfer before the deed or deposit)	about day 50 (release of the loan)	about day 50 – repayment of your loan, the rest to you
Handover of the unit	about day 28	about day 55	about day 55
Clean land and mortgage register	–	–	after bank consent and the court's entry – from a few weeks to a few months
Total from price to keys	about 4 weeks	about 8 weeks	about 8–10 weeks

Scenario A: a cash buyer

The fastest path. Some parties even skip the preliminary contract and book the deed straight away. A safe payment solution is a transfer before the deed or a notarial deposit: the notary accepts the money into a special account and releases it to the named person at the agreed time, against a receipt (art. 108 of the Notary Law). The fee for accepting a deposit is half of the maximum rate calculated on the amount – with large sums this is a real cost, so agree beforehand who bears it.

Scenario B: how long a sale takes with the buyer's loan

Here the bank procedure dominates. The buyer's bank orders a valuation of your unit, so prepare for a visit from the surveyor. After the deed the bank releases the loan within the period in the loan agreement – often after delivery of an extract of the deed and confirmation that the application for the mortgage entry has been filed. That is why it is worth writing into the deed explicitly within how many working days of the deed the price is to reach your account and that you hand over the keys only after payment in full.

Scenario C: selling a flat with a mortgage

If your flat has a mortgage, the buyer's bank will usually transfer part of the price directly to your bank, and to you only the surplus. Before the preliminary contract, order from your bank a certificate of the outstanding balance and ask about consent to delete the mortgage after repayment – the time to issue these documents is set by the bank, not by statute. After repayment the bank issues consent to deletion, and the entry in the land and mortgage register depends on the court's workload. The whole mechanism is described in the guide Selling a flat with a mortgage step by step.

How long do you wait for the money from selling a flat?

The rules set no deadline here – what you write into the deed decides. The most common variants:

• Transfer before the deed – the notary checks confirmation of receipt and only then reads out the deed. You have the money on the day of the deed.
• Notarial deposit – the buyer pays the money to the notary, who releases it to you at the time and on the terms in the deposit record (e.g. after the unit is handed over).
• Buyer's loan – payout within the period in the loan agreement, usually a few working days after the deed. With your mortgage, part goes first to repay the loan.
• Earnest money – you receive it already at the preliminary contract; at the deed it is credited towards the price.

Example: you sell a flat in Wroclaw for PLN 600 000, with a mortgage of PLN 250 000 to repay, and the buyer paid PLN 30 000 of earnest money. At the deed PLN 570 000 remains to be paid from the loan: PLN 250 000 the buyer's bank will transfer to your bank, and PLN 320 000 to your account. Together with the earnest money you receive "in hand" PLN 350 000. If you want to buy a new 2-bedroom flat with it (the median in our Wroclaw offer is PLN 662 405, as of 27.09.2026), a loan will cover the difference. Matching the two transactions in time is described in How to buy a new flat while selling the old one, and you will find completed units in the catalogue of new flats in Wroclaw (428 available in developments already completed) and in Warsaw (673).

After the deed: handover, mortgage and tax

You write the date of handing over the flat into the deed. If you need time to move, negotiate it in advance – usually from a few days to a few weeks, and the keys are handed over only after the whole price is paid. The formalities after the sale (protocol, meters, association, deregistration) we laid out in the checklist What to do after selling a flat?.

Two deadlines may extend far beyond the day of the deed. The first is deleting the mortgage – the application with the bank's consent and the PLN 100 fee is handled by the land registry court, and the time depends on the division. The second is tax: if you sell within 5 years of the end of the year of acquisition, you file PIT-39 from 15 February to 30 April of the year after the sale, and for expenses covered by the housing relief you have 3 years from the end of the year of sale.

Frequently asked questions

Summary

Selling a flat is usually first a long search for a buyer – on average over a year according to the NBP, shorter with an accurate price – and then 4–10 weeks of formalities. The latter can be planned: prepare the documents before the advert, write realistic deadlines into the preliminary contract (with time for the buyer's loan and any pre-emption), set in the deed the date of payment and handover, and with a mortgage – start talking to the bank before signing the preliminary contract.

If you want to sell a flat in Warsaw or Wroclaw without surprises in the schedule, contact us about selling and valuing your flat – we have been on the market since 2016 and will also help match the sale with buying a new unit.

Legal position as of September 2026. Deadlines without a stated legal basis and the scenarios are indicative calculations on example assumptions. The article is not legal or tax advice.

Sources

• NBP, Information on housing prices and the situation on the residential and commercial property market in Poland in the first quarter of 2026 (time to sell on the secondary market, chart 70)
• Code of Administrative Procedure, consolidated text Dz.U. 2025 item 1691 – art. 217 § 3
• Tax Ordinance, consolidated text Dz.U. 2026 item 622 – art. 306a § 5
• Act on consumer credit secured by a mortgage (the Mortgage Loan Act), consolidated text Dz.U. 2025 item 720 – art. 14
• Civil Code, consolidated text Dz.U. 2026 item 795 – art. 158, 389, 390, 394
• Notary Law, consolidated text Dz.U. 2026 item 614 – art. 92 § 4, art. 108
• Regulation on maximum notary fee rates, consolidated text Dz.U. 2024 item 1566 – § 6 point 13
• Real Estate Management Act, consolidated text Dz.U. 2026 item 399 – art. 109–110
• Act on court costs in civil cases, consolidated text Dz.U. 2025 item 1228 – art. 42, 46
• Act on the energy performance of buildings, consolidated text Dz.U. 2024 item 101 – art. 11, 13
• Personal Income Tax Act, consolidated text Dz.U. 2026 item 592 – art. 10 para. 1 point 8, art. 21 para. 1 point 131, art. 45 para. 1a point 3
• Flat prices: TM Invest investment catalogue, as of 27.09.2026