Prices in Poland 🇵🇱
In Poland, mobile data costs $0.37, beer costs $0.65 and milk costs $1.06. That is 16 of the 16 everyday items in the game, priced in US dollars, in PLN, and as roughly how long someone on the average local wage works to buy one.
Poland is among the cheapest EU countries in the game while having wages well above the global median, which makes its work-time figures unusually good. The złoty floats independently of the euro, so Polish prices move against eurozone neighbours from year to year. Basic food carries 5% VAT against a 23% standard rate, so a Polish grocery basket is taxed at roughly a fifth of the rate applied to everything else. Poland is the best illustration here of why work time is a better comparison than dollars: on price alone it looks like a poor country, and on hours worked it does not.
What things cost
| Item | USD | Local | Work time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Big Mac | $6.25 | 22.7 PLN | 47 min |
| Coca-Cola (330ml can) | $1.47 | 5.99 PLN | 11 min |
| Cappuccino | $3.82 | 14.29 PLN | 29 min |
| Milk (1 litre) | $1.06 | 3.97 PLN | 8 min |
| Eggs (dozen) | $3.65 | 13.65 PLN | 27 min |
| Apples (1 kg) | $1.19 | 4.45 PLN | 9 min |
| Gasoline (1 litre) | $1.63 | 6.1 PLN | 12 min |
| Diesel (1 litre) | $2.14 | 8.01 PLN | 16 min |
| Electricity (100 kWh) | $24.50 | 91.4 PLN | 3.1 h |
| Natural gas (100 kWh) | $12.00 | 44.7 PLN | 1.5 h |
| Cigarettes (20-pack) | $4.91 | 19.5 PLN | 37 min |
| Beer (330ml) | $0.65 | 2.56 PLN | 5 min |
| Spirits (750ml bottle) | $13.02 | 51.66 PLN | 1.6 h |
| Vape e-liquid (1 ml) | $3.39 | 13.45 PLN | 25 min |
| Mobile data (1 GB) | $0.37 | — | 3 min |
| A day's healthy diet | $2.45 | 9.23 PLN | 18 min |
Most local-currency figures are printed as the source published them. The cappuccino, milk, egg, apple and petrol rows are converted from US dollars at recent exchange rates; the healthy-diet row is converted the other way. A dash means the source publishes dollars and nothing else. Work time divides the dollar price by an estimated average hourly wage, the roughest number on this page. See methodology.
How Poland compares
Relative to the rest of the game, Poland is most expensive for vape liquid, where it ranks 5th out of 20 countries at $3.39, against a global median of $2.88.
It is relatively cheapest for mobile data at $0.37, which is 38th of 49, only 11 countries in the game are cheaper.
Measured against local earnings rather than dollars, the item that takes the longest to afford here is electricity (100 kWh), at roughly 3.1 hours of the average wage. Dollar prices and work-time prices often rank countries very differently, and that gap is usually the more interesting number.
What the state takes
Standard rate in Poland: 23% VAT. Ordinary groceries: 5% on basic food. Where these come from.
Play a puzzle
Poland comes up in the daily puzzle roughly once every 49 days, paired with a different item each time. Play today's puzzle or browse the archive of past rounds.
Other countries
- Argentina
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- Saudi Arabia
- Singapore
- South Africa
- South Korea
- Spain
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- Switzerland
- Tanzania
- Thailand
- Turkey
- United Arab Emirates
- United Kingdom
- United States
- Uruguay
- Vietnam
Why a country's prices look the way they do
- Why poor countries are cheap, and why it is not what you thinkThe real answer has nothing to do with profits or standards. It is a sixty-year-old piece of economics about haircuts, and it explains most of the price map.
- A fifth of what you paid was tax, and you never saw the lineConsumption tax is the largest single wedge between two countries' prices for an identical product, and the one shoppers are least able to see.
- The salary comparison you keep seeing online is wrongConverting a wage at the market exchange rate answers a question nobody asked. Purchasing power parity answers the one you meant, and has its own traps.
- How to compare two countries without fooling yourselfCost-of-living comparisons go wrong in the same six ways every time. What follows is a method that survives contact with a real decision.