Depopulation affects 70% of Polish municipalities as public service costs rise

Shrinking municipalities and the scissors effect

A study published by the Polish Economic Institute (PIE), titled "Vanishing Local Poland. Financial consequences of municipal depopulation" and authored by Agata Mróz, shows that 70% of Polish municipalities have lost residents since 2004. The analysis describes the structural strain on local budgets as a scissors effect, where unit costs for public services climb rapidly while local tax revenue growth stalls. The report characterises this persistent population outflow as a hidden tax that systematically curtails the capacity of municipal administrations to generate independent budgetary revenues. Furthermore, in one in four Polish municipalities, the spending required to sustain basic public operations now surpasses all locally collected revenues combined.

Disproportionate growth in public service costs

Fixed infrastructure and service obligations prevent local spending from shrinking in proportion to population loss. Between 2015 and 2024, municipalities with the sharpest population losses recorded much faster per-capita spending increases than growing areas. Expenditure per resident on social assistance grew 99% faster in depopulating municipalities relative to expanding peers. Over the same nine-year span, per-capita spending on general administration rose 84% faster, while educational outlays increased 19% faster. These mounting unit expenses leave local authorities with fewer resources for capital investments.

Regional migration and losing counties

Internal migration has divided the country into distinct demographic winners and losers over the last two decades. Young residents have moved to large metropolitan centers offering stronger job markets, leaving rural and peripheral counties with shrinking workforces. In Lublin Voivodeship, almost 40% of young people moved away from Hrubieszów county and 36% left Krasnystaw county. A similar outflow affected Bartoszyce county in Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, which recorded a 37% departure rate among young residents. Demographers observe that such persistent youth departures entrench long-term economic stagnation across peripheral regions.

Demographer Piotr Szukalski of the University of Łódź evaluated the stark divergence between regions that attract workforce talent and those experiencing sustained outflows.

Demographic changes have divided counties and regions into winners and losers. Losers are those from which at least one in three young people migrated over two decades.

Municipal representatives have emphasized that the regulatory environment restricts how local governments can respond to structural shrinking. Marek Wójcik, an expert at the Association of Polish Cities, pointed to the necessity of statutory reforms to assist contracting communities.

It would be easier for local governments and local communities to cope with demographic challenges if the law were more favorable to such solutions.

Long-term national contraction

The municipal decline aligns with wider demographic figures published by the Central Statistical Office (GUS). At the end of 2025, Poland's population stood at 37,333,000, which was a decrease of more than 157,000 people compared to the end of 2024. The net annual loss rate was -0.42%, corresponding to a loss of 42 residents per 10,000 inhabitants. Long-term birth rates have dropped steadily across recent generations, falling from 794,000 live births in 1955 to 252,000 in 2024.

Annual deaths in Poland have consistently exceeded live births in every year since 2018, steadily expanding the natural population deficit. Average life expectancy has lengthened to more than 82 years for women and is approaching 75 years for men. The demographic age pyramid has shifted toward older brackets, with the population aged 20 to 69 standing at approximately 25 million in 2025. National projections indicate that the overall population of Poland will decline from roughly 37 million today to about 35 million by 2050.