Poland implements fuel tax cuts and new license plate rules

Poland has implemented a fuel price relief program, reducing the VAT on gasoline and diesel from 23% to 8% and establishing daily price caps. This measure, intended to assist citizens returning from holidays, has led to a significant surge in German motorists crossing the border to refuel in Polish towns like Świnoujście and Zgorzelec to take advantage of the lower costs.

The price disparity has made Poland an attractive destination for German drivers, with some reporting savings of nearly 4 PLN per liter of diesel. This phenomenon has sparked political debate in Germany, with some officials calling for similar relief or windfall taxes on oil companies, while others criticize the Polish model as inefficient.

Separately, the Polish Ministry of Infrastructure is addressing a shortage of registration numbers for short-format license plates, commonly used on vehicles imported from the US and Japan. To expand the available pool of numbers by 255,000, the government plans to introduce a reversed character layout on these plates, placing the vehicle identifier before the provincial code.