Poland's e-signature framework rests on two pillars: the EU-wide eIDAS Regulation (No. 910/2014) and the Polish Civil Code (Kodeks cywilny), implemented domestically through the Act of 5 September 2016 on Trust Services and Electronic Identification (Ustawa o usługach zaufania oraz identyfikacji elektronicznej), which replaced Poland's earlier, pre-eIDAS Electronic Signature Act.

eIDAS establishes three tiers of electronic signature recognized across the EU. Simple Electronic Signatures (SES) are the baseline: any data in electronic form logically associated with other data and used by the signer to sign. Advanced Electronic Signatures (AES) add stronger requirements, including unique linkage to the signatory, creation using data under their sole control, and tamper-evidence that reveals any later change to the signed data. Qualified Electronic Signatures (QES) require a qualified certificate from a trust service provider on Poland's national trusted list, registered through the National Certification Center (NCCert, operated by the National Bank of Poland) and supervised by the Ministry of Digital Affairs (Ministerstwo Cyfryzacji).

Polish civil law layers its own form hierarchy on top of these eIDAS tiers. Article 60 of the Civil Code lets parties express their intent in any form, including electronically, unless a statute or the parties themselves specifically require otherwise, so most commercial contracts carry no form requirement at all. Where a statute does require forma pisemna (written form), Article 78¹ defines forma elektroniczna (electronic form) as its electronic equivalent, satisfied only by a qualified electronic signature. SES and AES fall short of written-form equivalence but still produce a valid forma dokumentowa (documentary form) under Articles 772-773, a lower tier introduced alongside the same 2016 reform and sufficient for any statement whose author can be identified from a durable record, which covers the overwhelming majority of ordinary commercial dealings.

The most significant recent development is the electronic contracting platform at praca.gov.pl, launched January 7, 2026 for small employers and expanded to all employers and employees on June 19, 2026. Within the platform, employers can conclude employment contracts, non-compete agreements, training agreements, joint material-liability agreements, and volunteer agreements electronically, using a qualified, personal, or trusted signature; personal and trusted signatures carry the same legal effect as a handwritten signature, but only for documents concluded inside the system, using its fixed templates. That system sits outside any third-party e-signature API, including Firma.dev; it's a direct government-to-employer channel, not a signature type a SaaS platform can plug into.

A specific, named list of documents still requires QES or a stronger form. Employment contracts concluded outside the praca.gov.pl system need written-form equivalence under Kodeks pracy Article 29, satisfiable electronically only by QES. Copyright and IP transfer agreements require QES too, under Article 53 of the Act on Copyright and Related Rights; a transfer made without QES or a handwritten signature is void. Consumer credit agreements and non-merchant suretyship declarations likewise require written form. Real estate sale and transfer contracts, and any document creating a right for entry in the land and mortgage register, require a notarial deed under Article 158 of the Civil Code, where a notary rather than the signing parties applies the relevant qualified signature. Wills and other inheritance documents, including agreements dividing an inheritance or waiving succession rights, require handwritten form or notarization under Articles 949-950 and 1037-1052.

Real estate leases longer than one year sit in a different category: Article 660 requires written form, but skipping it doesn't void the lease. It converts to an indefinite term, dropping the fixed end date, a real but survivable practical risk rather than a hard block.

For the standard B2B SaaS use case, software licenses, subscription agreements, MSAs, NDAs, vendor contracts, and most ancillary HR paperwork short of the employment contract itself, SES and AES cover what Polish businesses need to sign day to day.