Public consultations on the draft regulation of the Minister of Finance governing the operation of the Central Register of Contracts (CRU) are open until 3 March 2026. The draft, published by the Government Legislation Centre under legislative work reference number 8/2026, sets out the technical and organizational rules for the system that will soon become mandatory for all public finance sector entities.
The Central Register of Contracts will come into force on 1 July 2026 and will require the publication of information on contracts concluded by government administration bodies, public finance sector entities, and other institutions obliged under the law. The register is intended to provide citizens with access to information on who enters into contracts with whom and for what amount, whenever public funds are involved.
For the past two years, the Institute of Public Finance has been actively engaged in the issue of the CRU—analyzing the draft legislation, publishing expert opinions, and indicating what a modern and user-friendly public contracts register should look like. The introduction of the CRU as a systemic transparency mechanism has been one of the key elements of our recommendations for improving public finance transparency.
The current consultations concern the content of the regulation that will determine whether the CRU becomes a real tool for public oversight or merely a formal register.
The Central Register of Contracts (CRU) has the potential to become a cornerstone of public oversight of state spending and to strengthen trust between citizens and the state. However, simply publishing information is not enough. For the data to be useful, it must be accessible, comparable, and interoperable.
Interoperability of the CRU means that data on public contracts will be able to connect automatically with other government systems, such as e-Zamówienia, TREZOR, National Court Register, CEIDG, and dane.gov.pl. This would make it possible to quickly verify who signs contracts with the public sector and for what amount, how contract values change over time, and how spending compares across institutions—without the need to manually search and combine fragmented data.
The proposal to integrate the CRU with the dane.gov.pl portal and to apply open data principles—including machine-readable formats and interoperability—is consistent with the Open Data Programme for 2021–2027, adopted by the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Poland. This programme defines the state’s policy directions for public data openness and reuse. If the CRU is to serve as a high-value public data infrastructure, it should comply with the standards and solutions provided for in this programme.
On 27 February 2026, the Institute of Public Finance submitted detailed comments to the Minister of Finance on the draft regulation governing the operation of the CRU. Our goal is to transform the register from a simple list into a modern public data infrastructure.
What needs to be changed in the draft?
We have proposed that the regulation be supplemented with key technical and regulatory standards:
- API access: Without a public API interface, analyzing thousands of contracts by civil society organizations and the media will be practically impossible.
- Update history: We call for the introduction of a change log to prevent non-transparent modifications to contract status or value.
- International standards: We recommend basing the system on proven solutions such as the Open Contracting Data Standard and CKAN.
- An end to excessive anonymization: The CRU should minimize restrictions on transparency in order to uphold citizens’ constitutional right to information.
Join the consultations!
We encourage NGOs, the media, and all citizens to actively participate in the legislative process. The quality of this regulation will determine whether the CRU becomes a real tool for monitoring public spending, and achieving this requires a strong voice from civil society.
