- Decision
- Maintain
- Rate change
- 0 bps
- Reference rate
- 3.75%
Narodowy Bank Polski’s Monetary Policy Council kept all key rates unchanged, holding the reference rate at 3.75%, after fuel-price spikes tied to the Middle-East conflict pushed March CPI up to 3.0% from 2.1% while retail sales and industrial output remained resilient but construction activity and enterprise employment weakened. Following cumulative easing of 200 bp since May 2025, including a 25 bp cut in March 2026, the Council offered no additional liquidity measures and repeated that it may intervene in the foreign-exchange market to preserve stability. It highlighted surging global fuel prices against still-lower agricultural commodity costs, a rise in euro-area HICP to 2.5% and stronger US growth, all amid elevated geopolitical uncertainty. Policy will continue to be guided by forthcoming data on inflation, domestic activity, fiscal stance, wage developments and external price pressures to ensure inflation converges to the NBP target over the medium term.
Rate evolution
The Monetary Policy Council of the National Bank of Poland left the reference rate unchanged at 3.75% on 8 July 2026, judging that June CPI inflation had eased to 2.5% year on year from 3.1% in May, mainly on slower fuel and food price growth. The Council also noted that energy commodity prices had fallen over the previous month, including a significant decline in oil prices, while growth in the immediate environment of the Polish economy remained subdued and inflation was still higher than at the beginning of the year. In domestic data, retail sales, industrial output, and construction and assembly production rose on an annual basis in May, while annual wage growth in the enterprise sector was lower than in the first quarter of 2026 and employment was still declining.
The July projection, based on unchanged interest rates, put annual price growth at 2.4% to 3.3% in 2026, 1.5% to 4.0% in 2027, and 0.8% to 3.9% in 2028, while GDP growth was seen at 3.0% to 4.4%, 1.8% to 3.7%, and 1.9% to 4.1%, respectively.
On 8-9 September, the Council again held the reference rate at 3.75% after CPI inflation rose to 3.4% year on year in August from 3.0% in July, mainly due to stronger annual growth in fuel prices, while inflation excluding food and energy prices was also estimated to have increased. Annual GDP growth accelerated to 3.9% in the second quarter from 3.5% in the first, amid faster investment growth and slower consumption growth, while the Council said further decisions would depend on incoming information on inflation and economic activity, including global commodity prices and inflation, the geopolitical context, fiscal policy, domestic activity growth, and wage developments.