According to “Office Occupier – Office Market in Regions”, a report published by real estate advisory firm Newmark Polska, the third quarter of 2025 saw exceptionally low levels of new office supply in Poland’s largest regional city markets amid steady occupier activity. The overall vacancy rate continued to trend upwards, while the availability of larger units over 3,000 sqm in business districts shrank sharply.
At the end of the third quarter of 2025, the combined office stock of Poland’s eight largest regional city markets – Kraków, Wrocław, Tricity, Katowice, Poznań, Łódź, Lublin, and Szczecin – stood at 6.73 million sqm. By the end of September, 18,050 sqm of new office space had been added, marking the lowest volume since records began for regional cities. The third quarter saw three office completions totalling approximately 15,650 sqm, more than 63% of which was delivered in Kraków’s Stella Office.
“Similar to Warsaw, regional cities are also experiencing a growing trend of upgrading and repurposing obsolete and inefficient office buildings. As a result, more than 74,000 sqm has been withdrawn from the stock year-to-date, with more than 66% of that space in projects completed before 2010. Although new supply remains limited, developers are keeping large office projects on hold while closely monitoring occupier activity, occupancy levels in existing buildings and demand for prelets,” says Karol Wyka, Executive Board Director, Head of Office Department, Newmark Polska.
At the end of the third quarter of 2025, approximately 198,000 sqm was under construction, down by more than 5% from the second quarter of 2025 and nearly 6% year-on-year. Additionally, only six of more than 20 projects in the pipeline are expected to deliver 10,000 sqm each, indicating that developers are tying larger project starts to securing pre-lets.
Occupier activity in the third quarter was moderate compared with the first half of the year, with just over 134,400 sqm transacted, accounting for approximately 26% of total office takeup recorded between January and the end of September 2025. Gross take-up for the first three quarters reached almost 521,800 sqm, up little over 6% year-on-year.
Between January and the end of September 2025, leasing activity hit its highest in Kraków, which saw 203,850 sqm of office transactions. The runner-up was Wrocław with 107,400 sqm transacted while office take-up in Tricity amounted to just over 71,700 sqm.
“Kraków, Wrocław and Tricity together accounted for more than 73% of the total leasing activity across the regional markets in the first three quarters of 2025. Regional cities – like Warsaw – are experiencing shrinking availability of larger units over 3,000 sqm in centrally located office buildings featuring modern technological and ESG solutions,” adds Karol Wyka.
Regearing continues to dominate leasing activity. Lease renegotiations and renewals accounted for 42% of total take-up in the third quarter of 2025 and 54% in the first three quarters of the year. Between January and September, new leases made up 34% of all transactions, while the remaining 12% came from expansions (6%), owner-occupier deals (4%) and pre-lets (2%).
Despite constrained new supply and the withdrawal of obsolete and inefficient office buildings from the market, the overall vacancy rate in the key regional cities has remained above 17% since the third quarter of 2023. At the end of September 2025, it stood at 17.7%, up 0.2 pp from the previous quarter and 0.4 pp year-on-year. Two regional markets saw their vacancy rates surpass 20%, with one reporting a vacancy rate below 10%. Total office availability across the eight largest regional markets amounts to nearly 1.2 million sqm.
“Prime office rents in the core regional markets remain relatively stable at approximately EUR 16.00-17.00/sqm/month. However, as larger units – especially in business centres – become increasingly scarce, rental rates can reach EUR 18.00/sqm/month. Meanwhile, owners of office buildings with high vacancy rates tend to ramp up lease incentive packages to attract tenants,” comments Agnieszka Giermakowska, Research & Advisory Director, ESG Lead, Newmark Polska.
