Wealthy refugees from Ukraine are driving growth in Poland’s luxury market

Wealthy refugees from Ukraine are driving growth in Poland’s luxury market

The luxury goods market in Poland grew to 42.4 billion zlotys ($10.8 billion) last year, of which more than half were cars. The development of the luxury market was stimulated by wealthy refugees from Ukraine.

This is stated in the report of the auditing firm KPMG.

As noted, about 60% of the luxury market in Poland is made up of premium and luxury cars. In second place are hotels and spas, in third place are clothes and accessories.

Market growth amounted to 12.2%, outpacing inflation (11.4%), and was partially provided by Ukrainians.

“It is interesting that, despite the increase in the tax threshold, the number of people who earn more than 120 thousand zlotys per year has increased. This increase can be explained, among other things, by high inflation and a significant increase in wages. In addition, the influx of Ukrainian citizens to Poland work in international corporations and earn good money, could also contribute to such growth,” KPMG partner Andrzej Marczak commented on the research results.

Business of Ukrainians in Poland

As reported, citing data from Diya.Business, Ukrainians in Poland usually try to launch a business that requires less costs for the acquisition of fixed assets. Most of these are services, online trading, but popular areas are also education, construction, beauty, consulting services, tourism, real estate services, cafes and IT companies.

Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Digitalization of Poland Krzysztof Gawkowski said that almost 60% of startups who want to leave Ukraine plan to move to Poland.

In Poland, by the end of 2023, every tenth new individual entrepreneur was Ukrainian. Last year, Ukrainians opened 30,325 new companies in Poland.

Before the start of the full-scale invasion, the average number of registrations of new businesses by Ukrainians in Poland did not exceed 200 per month.

After the start of the full-scale invasion in the spring of 2022, this figure amounted to about 1,700 enterprises.

Most often, Ukrainians organize their own businesses in Warsaw (9,406 companies), Krakow (2,661) and Wroclaw (2,128).