Highways in Poland


Controlled-access highways in Poland are part of the national roads network and they are divided into motorways and expressways. Both types of highways feature grade-separated interchanges with all other roads, emergency lanes, feeder lanes, wildlife crossings and dedicated roadside rest areas. Motorways differ from expressways in their technical parameters like designated speed, permitted road curvature, lane widths or minimal distances between interchanges. Moreover, expressways might have single-carriageway sections in case of low traffic densities.
The development of modern highways began in the 1970s, but proceeded very slowly under the communist rule and for the first years afterwards: between 1970 and 2000 only 434 km of highways were constructed in total. Further 1050 km were opened from 2001 to 2010, followed by 2773 km constructed between 2011 and 2020. It is planned to open about 2450 km in the 2020s, while the last about 1500 km would be completed in the 2030s.
, there are 5456 km of motorways and expressways in operation, while contracts for construction of a further 1112 km are ongoing.
Except for the single-carriageway expressway sections, both types of highways fulfill the definition of a motorway as specified by OECD, WRA or Vienna Convention. Speed limits in Poland are 140 km/h on motorways and 120 km/h on expressways. Some motorway stretches are tolled.

Technical parameters

  • Motorways are public roads with controlled access which are designated for motor vehicles only, and feature two carriageways with at least two continuous lanes each, divided by a median. They have no single-level intersections with any roads or other forms of land and water transport, and have wildlife crossings constructed above the road. They feature emergency lanes and feeder lanes, and are equipped with dedicated roadside rest areas. Motorways are the only roads in Poland which use blue background on road signs; others use green road signs.
  • Expressways share most of the characteristics of motorways, differing mainly in that:
  1. Expressways are designated for lower speed than motorways. For example, the road curvature can be more severe and the lanes are usually narrower. Emergency lanes are also narrower and in exceptional situations expressways might not have them at all.
  2. Expressways can have a single carriageway on sections with low traffic density.
  3. Motorways can have interchanges only with main roads, and the distance between interchanges is typically not less than 15 km, while expressways typically have more frequent interchanges. In exceptional situations, expressways might not have dedicated feeder lanes on interchanges.

    List of motorways and expressways

In 2004, the government published the ordinance defining the planned highway network of length about. Notable changes introduced in later amendments include re-routing S8 and adding S61 instead, introducing S16, S52 and A/S50, as well as extending S5, S8 and S10, raising the total length to about. The planned network consists of 16 major highways : A1, S3, S5, S7, S11, S17, S19, S61 running north to south and A2/S2, A4, S6/A6, S8/A8, S10, S12, S16, S74 running west to east, as well as 9 shorter highways.

Cross-sections

As of 1st January 2026, the operational sections of highways utilize the following cross-sections:
  • 7% – motorways and expressways with 2×3 or 2×4 or more lanes,
  • 90% – motorways and expressways with 2×2 lanes,
  • 3% – single-carriageway expressways, of which 55 km with dual-carriageway fragments around the interchanges.
All single-carriageway expressways are constructed with allocated space for a possible upgrade to dual-carriageway and all bridges above such highways are prepared to accommodate the second carriageway. Most of those sections are planned to be widened to full profile by 2033, the exceptions being S1 and S22 where widening is currently not expected.

Substandard highways

Motorways and expressways constructed before 1999 do not have to fulfill technical parameters defined by the ministry ordinance. As of 2026, one notable case of a substandard highway remains:
  • A4 on the section Krzyżowa – Wrocław was constructed in years 1934 – 1937 and renovated in years 2002 – 2006. The road received new high quality surface but the geometry was kept unchanged and many overpasses above the motorway were kept. In effect, this part has no emergency lanes and the speed limit is decreased to 110 km/h. Its full reconstruction is scheduled for years 2027 – 2031.
Notable historical cases are:
Historical cases

  • Expressways were formerly allowed to admit an at-grade intersection with a minor public road in exceptional cases. The last such section which remained operational past 1999 was S3 near Szczecin, opened in 1979, which featured two at-grade road intersections until the reconstruction conducted in years 2019 – 2020. Since 2020, all expressways in Poland have only grade-separated intersections. In 2022, the provision allowing at-grade intersections to exist on expressways was formally removed from the ordinance.
  • A6 near Szczecin was constructed by Nazi Germany and kept using the original surface made of concrete slabs until the reconstruction conducted in years 1996 – 1999 and 2017 – 2021.
  • A18 had its southern carriageway constructed by Nazi Germany. The northern carriageway was constructed in 2004 – 2006, while the southern carriageway kept using the original concrete slabs until the reconstruction conducted in years 2020 – 2023.

Speed limits

Other restrictions

  • Pedestrians, bicycles, mopeds, and agricultural vehicles are not allowed on motorways.
  • Minimum speed on motorways is 40 km/h except in extraordinary circumstances.
  • It is forbidden to stop except in extraordinary circumstances, or to travel backwards.
  • Towing is not allowed on motorways, but is permitted on expressways.

    Tolls

Since 2023, all state-owned highways are free for vehicles up to 3.5 tons of permissible maximum weight. On some sections, old inactive infrastructure for toll collection is still in place.
The privately owned sections of A1, A2 and A4 are tolled. These sections are indicated by the motorway sign accompanied by the word Płatna.

Vehicles over 3.5 tons and buses

Using e-Toll is obligatory for buses as well as all vehicles with maximum permissible weight exceeding 3.5 tons while driving on the Polish roads. More details can be found on the e-Toll website.

Traffic volumes

Traffic volumes in Poland note rapid increase since the fall of communism in 1989: the annual average daily traffic recorded in 2020 amounts to over 360% of the average traffic recorded in 1990. With the increasing traffic, the length of overburdened single-carriageway national roads had also been steadily increasing until reaching the maximum of 1389 km in 2010. Due to the large number of highway sections opened between 2010 and 2020, in that decade the length of overburdened roads has fallen down for the first time in history, from 1389 km in 2010 to 1121 km in 2020.
The latest general measurement was conducted in 2025, but its results are yet to be published. The previous measurement was conducted in 2020, although some measurement days were moved to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic which would have caused the results from 2020 to be unreliable. The following highways recorded the highest volumes:
The other highest and lowest recorded AADT values were:

History

Before World War II

The first plans of creation of a national highway network in Poland were conceived in the interwar period:
Plans

The main promoter of this concept was Professor Melchior Wladyslaw Nestorowicz of the Warsaw University of Technology, who organized three Road Congresses, during which a group of specialists discussed the creation of the network. On 5 March 1939, in the trade magazine Drogowiec, Professor Nestorowicz proposed a very ambitious plan for the construction of almost 5,000 kilometres of category I and II roads, based on similar programmes in Germany and Italy. Nestorowicz sketched a map of the future system with the following routes:
First class roads would, according to the plans, consist of the following motorways, as well as A6 and S22. About half of them were constructed as single-carriageway with the intention of adding a second carriageway in later years. However, after 1938, warfare expenses meant little money would be invested into any infrastructure and only one 9 km single-carriageway piece west of Gliwice was constructed.
In Poland, a 28 km stretch between Warlubie and Osiek was constructed in 1937 – 1939 in the motorway standard of the time with a concrete surface, which was designed by Italian engineer Piero Puricelli. The motorway was planned to reach Gdynia, but the outbreak of the Second World War halted the plans.

1945 – 1972

The aforementioned fragments of the Third Reich motorways became part of the territory of the communist Poland after the Potsdam conference in 1945. Most of the motorway bridges had been destroyed by the warfare, but only a few were repaired or rebuilt in the first post-war years. The bridge over Ina river was reconstructed in 1972, and those on S22 only between 1996 and 2003. Apart from the bridges, almost all the motorways were left in the same condition as they were in 1945 until the mid-1990s. The only road left from Nazi times that was completed by the People's Republic of Poland was a one-carriageway small section between Łęczyca and Lisowo, which was built on the previous works of Nazis.
Plans

At the post-war year there were very ambitious plans to make a motorway network for the whole Poland. For example, engineer Eugeniusz Buszma has published his propositions to the network in the magazine "Drogowiec" :
  1. East – West – 680 km
  2. North – South – 650 km
  3. Silesia – Baltic I – 460 km
  4. Pomeranian – 280 km
  5. Silesian – 190 km
  6. Mazurian – 20 km
  7. Silesia – Baltic II – 260 km
  8. Łódź – Wrocław – – 310 km
  9. Katowice – – 60 km
  10. Poznań – Szczecin – 200 km
  11. Radom – Lublin – – 220 km
In total, the mileage, according to the proposal, would total more than.
After the addition of the sections built by the Third Reich the total network length had to be approx. 3700 km. In 1963 the Motorization Council at the Council of Ministers had presented the similar plan plus the motorways: Warsaw-Kraków-Zakopane, Kraków-Przemyśl, Warsaw-Bydgoszcz-Koszalin, Poznań-Koszalin i Warsaw-Terespol.

Despite announcing such pompous plans, no motorway was opened in the meantime.