On 1 June 2026, amendments to Article 131¹ᵃ § 1 and § 1¹ of the Polish Code of Civil Procedure entered into force. The changes arise from the Act of 5 August 2025 amending the Code of Civil Procedure, the Civil Code and certain other acts (Journal of Laws of 2025, item 1172). It is important to distinguish the principal part of the regulations concerning the Information Portal, which entered into force on 1 March 2026, from the provisions relating to Article 131¹ᵃ § 1 and § 1¹ of the Code of Civil Procedure. The latter, introduced by Article 1(11)(a) and (b) of the amending Act, entered into force pursuant to Article 16 of that Act at a later date than the remaining provisions concerning the Portal, namely on 1 June 2026.

Under the current legal framework, a court may serve documents through the Information Portal not only on legal representatives, but also directly on a party who elects to use this method of service. Importantly, opting for this method also triggers the 14-day deemed service mechanism. For parties, this means that the decision must be made consciously: the convenience of electronic service comes with the risk of inadvertently missing a procedural deadline.

By way of preliminary clarification, service through the Information Portal of the ordinary courts should be distinguished from service via the e-Delivery system, governed by the Act of 18 November 2020 on Electronic Deliveries. These are two separate channels of communication, operating independently and being implemented in stages, and they should not be treated as interchangeable in practice. The comments below concern exclusively court service effected through the Information Portal.

New categories of recipients and the party’s right to opt in

Under the amended provisions, courts may now also effect service via the Information Portal on new categories of recipients, namely court enforcement officers and permanent mediators, as well as on parties who have elected to receive documents in this manner.

The party’s choice is voluntary and is made in relation to a specific case. In practice, this mechanism is particularly relevant to parties acting without professional legal representation, since professional legal representatives are already subject to service through the Portal by operation of Article 131¹ᵃ § 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, irrespective of whether they have submitted any declaration.

Accordingly, from 1 June 2026, documents may also be served through the Portal directly on a party to proceedings, provided that the party has submitted a declaration opting for this method of service.

Expanded range of documents

The amended provisions also broaden the range of documents that may be served through the Information Portal. Under the current rules, service is no longer limited to “court documents”. It may also include copies of pleadings or other documents not originating from the court, provided that the court holds them in electronic form.

In other words, the court may use the Information Portal to serve documents originating from the opposing party or from entities other than the parties and the court, provided that the documents are available to the court electronically. This applies, in particular, to documents not covered by the direct service mechanism under Article 132 § 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

Service through the Portal and direct service between professional legal representatives

Court service effected on a party via the Information Portal should be distinguished from another mechanism introduced by the same amending Act, which entered into force on 1 March 2026: the possibility for professional legal representatives to effect direct service on one another through the Information Portal pursuant to Article 132 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

As a general rule, advocates, attorneys-at-law, patent attorneys and the General Counsel to the Republic of Poland remain required to serve copies of pleadings directly on one another. The Portal has, however, been introduced as one of the permissible means of doing so.

This procedure must be distinguished from service effected by the court on a party who has opted for service pursuant to Article 131¹ᵃ § 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure. In the latter case, the copy is served not by the opposing party or its legal representative, but by the court.

Likewise, a party who has elected to receive documents through the Information Portal does not itself use that mechanism to serve documents directly on the opposing party or its representatives.

It should also be noted that a party who has opted for this form of service is not subject to the direct service mechanism. Accordingly, an electronic copy is served on that party by the court rather than directly by the opposing party or its legal representative.

Deemed service and its impact on procedural deadlines

It should be emphasised that, by electing to receive documents through the Information Portal, a party also becomes subject to the deemed service mechanism under Article 131¹ᵃ § 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

A document is deemed to have been served at the time indicated in the document confirming service. If no such confirmation is generated, service is deemed effective 14 days after the date on which the content of the document is made available in the Information Portal.

This has significant consequences for the running of procedural deadlines, particularly for parties who are not represented by professional legal counsel. A party choosing this method of service for reasons of convenience assumes the responsibility of regularly monitoring its account on the Portal. Failure to do so may result in service being legally effective even where the party has not in fact read the document.

Where a party has opted for Portal service, the court is always required to serve court documents through that channel. Copies of pleadings and other documents not originating from the court are served in this manner only if the court holds them electronically.

The court will, however, always have an electronic copy of a pleading where it has been filed by the opposing party through the Information Portal.

Declaration opting in and withdrawal from Portal service

Pursuant to Article 131¹ᵃ § 1¹ of the Code of Civil Procedure, a declaration opting for the method of service referred to in § 1, or a declaration withdrawing from it, must be submitted by the party through the Information Portal and signed with a qualified electronic signature, trusted signature or personal signature.

A declaration withdrawing from this method of service may also be submitted in writing. Such withdrawal takes legal effect when the court is notified of it.

The fact that withdrawal takes effect upon notification of the court constitutes a departure from the general rule set out in Article 165 § 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, under which posting a pleading at a Polish postal facility operated by a provider of universal postal services in the Republic of Poland, or at a postal facility operated by a provider of universal postal services in another Member State of the European Union, is equivalent to filing that pleading with the court.

In this way, the legislature has limited the potential for the mechanism to be used to obstruct proceedings. If a party were to opt for service via the Information Portal and subsequently withdraw from it by registered post, electronic service by the court would remain effective until the withdrawal declaration was actually received by the court.

It is nevertheless easy to imagine situations in which this mechanism could generate irregularities in the service process, particularly where a party frequently changes its preferred method of service. The author’s experience as a professional legal representative shows that court correspondence may sometimes continue to be sent to addresses that have repeatedly been identified as incorrect – an issue familiar to many litigators who have, for example, changed their law firm’s address.

Assessment

Notwithstanding the concerns outlined above, the expansion of the range of documents that may be served through the Information Portal should be viewed positively, as should the possibility of extending such service directly to parties to proceedings who choose this option, including those not represented by professional legal counsel.

The amendment undoubtedly represents a further step towards making fuller use of the Information Portal and advancing the digitalisation of civil proceedings.