Current Draft Amendments to Polish Family Law
The long-standing issues of excessive caseloads and inefficiency in Polish courts continue affect many areas of law, including family law. According to the Ministry of Justice, the average duration of a first-instance divorce case is approximately nine months. Equally important is the authoritative nature of judicial divorce rulings, which significantly limits the autonomy of the parties in matters concerning their private lives.
The government has proposed corrective measures as part of a package of deregulatory acts planned for 2025. The result is the publication of the Draft Act amending the Family and Guardianship Code and certain other acts, which introduces the possibility of out-of-court divorce before the head of the Civil Registry Office. The draft has already gone through public consultation and review and, as of October 2025, is under consideration by the Legal Committee of the Government Legislative Centre.
It is also worth noting that on 23 June 2025, the Family Law Codification Commission adopted an additional draft amendment to the Family and Guardianship Code, proposing that divorce proceedings no longer involve any determination of fault. However, this draft is still at an early stage and has not yet been added to the government’s legislative agenda, meaning this change may take longer to materialize.
Another pressing issue in Polish family law is the lack of harmonization and frequent ineffectiveness in the enforcement of alimony obligations. Within the broader scope of family law reform, the Ministry of Justice also announced planned changes regarding alimony obligations. In July 2025, it published “alimony tables”, aimed at standardizing the amount of maintenance payments. As of October 2025, no further progress on this initiative has been reported.
Out-of-Court Divorce – notable limitations
Among all the proposed changes, the concept of out-of-court divorce has attracted the most attention, as it has already entered the formal government legislative process and is expected to reach parliament for a vote later this year.
Under current Polish law, marriage may only be dissolved by a court ruling upon a finding that the marital relationship has completly and permanently broken down (Article 56 §1 of the Family and Guardianship Code). Even when both parties agree and their marital relationship has de facto ended, they must initiate an adversarial court process. This requirement is often disproportionate, unnecessarily involving the court proceeding. At the same time, Article 18 of the Polish Constitution provides that: “marriage, being a union of a man and a woman, as well as the family, motherhood and parenthood, shall be under the protection and care of the Republic of Poland”. This imposes a duty on the state to ensure legal conditions conducive to the permanence of marriage. From the perspective of the parties’ minor children, the dissolution of marriage must also remain subject to significant safeguards.
The proposed out-of-court divorce procedure, to be carried out before the head of the Civil Registry Office, aims to address these issues. The authority would verify whether statutory prerequisites are met and record the dissolution in the civil registry. However, the draft introduces numerous limitations to safeguard the stability of marriage, the welfare of children, and legal certainty. The key conditions include:
- the spouses have no minor children in common,
- the marriage has lasted at least one year,
- the marital relationship has completely and permanently broken down (confirmed by statements from both spouses),
- both spouses are Polish citizens, or both reside in Poland without a common nationality.
It should be noted that spouses will not be required to submit a mutual agreement on matrimonial assets. If they opt for an out-of-court divorce, the spouses will then be able to initiate court proceedings for the division of joint property or conclude an agreement in this regard.
The spouses would submit consistent declarations before the Civil Registry Office confirming both the existence of the divorce prerequisites and their mutual intent to dissolve the marriage. Importantly, the new procedure would not prevent spouses from seeking a traditional court divorce, even if all conditions for an out-of-court divorce are met.
The draft also introduces the possibility of annulling an out-of-court divorce, which would fall under the jurisdiction of the common courts. The legal effects of such a divorce would be equivalent to those of a court-issued divorce. Additionally, spouses may choose any registry authority to handle their case, although selecting the authority that originally issued their marriage certificate would likely expedite the process, as the updated certificate could be issued immediately.
The authors of the draft point to positive experiences in other European countries, such as Latvia, Estonia, and Slovenia, where similar solutions are in place. However, unlike those systems, where notaries typically handle such matters, in Poland this competence would rest with the head of the Civil Registry Office.
The proposed reform does not address alimony arrangements arising from an out-of-court divorce — those matters would remain within the competence of the courts. As mentioned earlier, a similar problem arises with the division of joint marital property – due to the lack of new provisions in this regard in the draft law, spouses will still be forced to use the existing mechanisms (property division agreements or court proceedings). As a result, while the new solution could shorten the path to obtaining a divorce for many, it is unlikely to ease the overall burden on family courts, before which many family law proceedings will still be conducted.
Abolition of Determination of Fault in Divorce Proceedings
The Family Law Codification Commission’s draft act proposes to completely eliminate the concept of fault for the breakdown of the marriage in divorce proceedings. Article 57 of the Family and Guardianship Code, which currently mandates such a determination (however, only if the parties do not waive it), would be repealed. This would mean that “fault” would no longer influence decisions on spousal maintenance obligations.
This change aims to reduce conflict in divorce proceedings, particularly those harmful to the welfare of minor children. Under the new rules, alimony obligations would depend primarily on the spouses’ actual relations during the marriage — including their division of childcare and household responsibilities — rather than on a judicial finding of fault.
In 2023, only 17% of divorces in Poland included a determination of fault, meaning that in most cases either the spouses did not request such a determination, or, if requested, the court found that fault could not be assigned to either party. This statistic supports the argument that fault-based divorce no longer reflects modern social realities, supporting the case for reform.
Although the Commission published its draft in June 2025, the Council of Ministers has not yet adopted it as an official government proposal. Nonetheless, the scope of ongoing reforms shows an effort to modernize Polish family law comprehensively. If enacted, the removal of determinations of fault would mark a turning point in how Polish society understands marriage and divorce.
Reforms to Alimony Law – The Alimony Tables
Separate from the proposed abolition of determination of fault, the government also published guidelines for calculating alimony in the form of alimony tables. Under this model, the suggested maintenance amount would depend on the payer’s gross income, the number of children, and their ages — with the amount per child decreasing as the number of children increases.
It is essential to note that these tables were purely advisory and not legally binding. Judges are not required to apply them and must continue to assess each case individually.
The proposal was met with public scepticism, partly because it linked alimony amounts to the payer’s actual income. The Family and Guardianship Code, however, bases such obligations on the “financial capacity” of the obligated party — a broader concept. Tying payments to actual income could encourage underreporting or informal employment to conceal true earnings.
Moreover, since the tables use gross income, they may distort the picture of the payer’s real financial situation, which is better measured by net income.
Due to public controversy, the government has withdrawn the published tables and announced further work on the issue is underway. For now, any substantive changes in this area remain pending.
Summary
The introduction of out-of-court divorce, abolition of determination of fault, and standardized alimony tables are entirely new mechanisms in the Polish legal system. None of these reforms have yet been enacted into binding law. If implemented, they could simplify divorce and alimony proceedings. However, the out-of-court divorce procedure will remain subject to strict limitations, and the alimony tables — even if reintroduced — will not have the force of law. Out-of-court divorce will enable cases to be dealt with more swiftly, but only in a limited range of cases. It may be necessary to conduct parallel proceedings in court (alimony, division of property) which are not regulated by the new law.
All of these proposals are still in the draft stage, and their final form will only be determined in due course.
