Passenger boat licence
in Poland

We grade Poland Easy with paperwork at twelve passengers and Moderate at twenty. It is the same boat at both counts.

PolandEasy with paperworkModerate

Who you deal with

The Director of the Inland Navigation Office is the inspection body. There are three, at Bydgoszcz, Szczecin and Wrocław, each acting through a technical inspection commission.

At twelve passengers

A simplified certificate of navigational capability, which is a dedicated light instrument written specifically for vessels under 20 m carrying a maximum of twelve passengers.

At twenty passengers

A Union inland navigation certificate, issued through the technical inspection commission.

Who may drive it

We have not established this against an official source, and we would rather say so than guess. Tell us you need it and we will read the rules properly before you commit.

Hiring it out without a crew

We have not established this against an official source, and we would rather say so than guess. Tell us you need it and we will read the rules properly before you commit.

Where the engine matters

We found no national Polish engine restriction. Above twelve passengers on this country's inland waterways, petrol is not an admissible fuel at all, so the twenty-passenger inland configuration would need a different form of propulsion. This does not apply at sea, and it does not apply at twelve passengers.

We researched these rules for the LR9 Safari, a river and lake boat.

What the marks mean

Easy with paperwork: The boat needs a national licence or certificate of its own, sometimes after an examination against a defined list. Usually days to weeks, modest fees, and no change to the boat expected.
Moderate: An individual survey against a published national standard. Weeks to months, real documentation work, and occasionally a change to the layout.

30 of the 31 European countries here were read against an official source or the statute itself, current at 16 August 2026. Cyprus was not, and says so in its own row. The countries under Beyond Europe are market research and are not confirmed with their own authorities. Where only one passenger count is established (Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta), the missing half says so too. None of this is legal advice and the final word is your own authority's, so do your own research beyond what is listed here — or ask us and we will confirm your country before you commit to anything.