FDI in Software Development & Digital Services in Poland, 2026

Poland is an established location for software engineering, product development and digital services, whether as captive centres of international groups or as partners to them. Verified data describes the scale of this activity and the talent behind it.

IT and R&D centres

ABSL counts 990 IT business services centres employing 158,900 people, and 282 R&D centres employing 56,600, in early 2026. ABSL covers business services centres only; independent software houses and product companies outside that definition are not included. ABSL also estimates that 58.2% of work in business services centres is knowledge-intensive.

Centres operated by US-headquartered companies account for 28.3% of business services employment, a useful benchmark for North American firms.

Foreign capital in professional services

The National Bank of Poland reports an FDI stock of PLN 165.9 bn in professional, scientific and technical activities at the end of 2025, with net inflow of PLN 18.3 bn in 2025. Software publishing and IT services are classified in other sections, so this is an adjacent rather than a direct measure.

Talent pipeline

Statistics Poland records 1,322,800 students in higher education in the current academic year, with 12.3% in engineering, manufacturing and construction fields. Poland ranks #3 by total medals in the history of the International Olympiad in Informatics, an indicator of depth in algorithmic talent rather than of labour supply.

Cost signals

Average gross wages in the enterprise sector grew by +6.8% year on year in July 2026. This economy-wide figure is not a salary benchmark for engineers, but it signals that wage budgets should be indexed and refreshed with current market data.

Tax regimes

The standard corporate income tax rate is 19%, with a preferential rate of 9% for qualifying small taxpayers and companies starting activity. Qualifying income from software and other intellectual property developed in Poland may be taxed at 5% under the IP Box regime, which requires careful documentation of the development process. These are headline rates, not a calculation of a project's effective tax burden.

Reading the evidence

The data supports Poland as a deep market for engineering talent. The choice of city, the employer brand needed to compete for senior engineers, and the tax structure for intellectual property should be decided together.

How Poland FDI can help

Poland FDI helps foreign companies test these indicators against a specific project, location shortlist and timeline. Assess your Poland readiness or contact our team.