What is the penalty for driving a car without the annual technical inspection?

I was wondering what the penalty is for driving a car without the certificate of technical inspection. Someone told me it was only a 50 PLN fine.

Anyone have experience with this?

What kind of inspection is it? Is it mainly for safety? Or for pollution?

For now I have bought a car with 10 months left before technical inspection, but I am wondering about all those nice old beaters that are for sale but need the inspection.

Rather more than that.


For safety and out of respect for the lives of other road users.


Not a good idea, especially with winter coming.

wheel alignment (toe in), brakes, lights, emission, oil - these are actually measured and need to meet the norms.
If they notice that any mechanical part is about to give up and needs replacing, they will point it out to you, but you'll get the stamp nevertheless.

The main penalty is that you lose your car papers called registration id. Without it, you mustn`t drive. Also, you might pay 50 zlotys fine. But if you run into an extremely disciplinarian policeman, he might call the road service to haul your car away.

I've known this happen.

To make it more accurate, you have to get the technical inspection`s stamp within a week, during which you can still drive.


Rarely, but it happens.

On a positive note: I got stopped speeding one time (very bizarre - I am the slowest driver in Poland) only to find out we did not have the inspection papers. My wife who is Polish, didn't even know about the requirement (she had been out of the country for a long time). The officer held our registration

and told us that if we went and got it done now, he would meet us back at the police station in a few hours when he got off work and return the paperwork to us when he saw the inspection had been done. We did, and he gave us the registration docs back when we met him at the station.

He told us that if we had been involved in an accident and didn't have the inspection paperwork we would have been in deep trouble.

Not everything that happens in Poland is bad...

Not at all. The worst scenario is when you are the guilty party of an accident.
Then insurance company can refuse to pay the compensation and you are boiled.


suspension, shocks, arm bushes, brakes, lights, windscreen cracks, oil leaks and emission
of course tyres

Law is law, but life takes its own course.... :):):):)

Since it only costs 98 zloty to get that inspection and its very straight forward as well, Unlike the UK why not just pay it, as for the fine i was told it was 300 zloty

Thanks for your answers.

In Canada there is a 'collector' license plate you can put on your car and then it is exempt from inspections, etc. The car has to be 25 years old, and in decent shape, and there are restrictions on driving it to work and such. Is there a similar kind of thing in Poland? Is it difficult to obtain?

Yes, there are collector cars too but I am afraid they have to undergo the inspection like others.

I have a 'collector car' (1971 Steyr Pinzgauer 710K) and it had one big thorough test and that was it!!! I now have to maintain it and ensure it is mechanically good (which I always did anyway - which I do to all my vehicles anyway!!) As for the 'test'.....all they test here is lights on a machine, brakes on a machine and track rod ends/swivels...takes 10 minutes. We (my wife and I) always joke that if they brought in a UK style test for cars, trucks and busses here....what do you think? I,d say 90% of the road vehicles would fail on major items.....Poland's road transport system would fold up overnight.....so no chance of things changing for Oh.....I,d say 10 years or maybe more.

If you have a classic car and you want "zloty tablice" - classic car registration, then you have one massive inspection and then that's pretty much it. They believe that by owning a classic you'll be responsible for maintaining the car.

On the other side, standard cars go through a standard test as Dreadnought says. It's all computerised so you get a print-out report on the strength of your brakes, the balance and power of your suspension, your steering alignment and so on. Exhaust emissions, lights and beam pattern and horn are also tested. What it doesn't check is for structural corrosion, which is what most British cars fail on. If cars were failed for "sharp, jagged or protruding edges" then as Dreadnought says, 90% of cars would be off the road overnight, but it's not in the government's interest to allow that since a mobile workforce is a productive workforce.

In a few years, when Poland has enough of a middle class, the car manufacturers will lobby for stricter tests that will remove a significant proportion of junk cars each year to drive up new car sales. Combine that with accountable test stations, where cars involved in a crash have their condition checked against the latest technical report and the tester fined accordingly, and you'll get rid of all these Fat Jaceks giving out przeglad stamps for 50zl.

For me, I've driven once or twice without a technical stamp (naughty, I know). It was a lot easier to say I'd left all my documents at home and take the 200zl fine for lack of papers, than risk showing that my docs didn't have a valid stamp. But as others have said, if I was involved in an accident without papers I'd have suffered the full might of the law, and deservedly so.

i got my 1976 maluch that way in states in 2001 as antique.I suppose in Poland are usually same laws but not sure as I did see some american over 25 years old cars with antique plates.In states one can only drive I think 500 miles a year and have QQ plates lol no seat belt or inspection requirements, registration valid for 4 years and is free,even there is a insurance calleg Haggerty insurance company that charges me 250$ a year for insurance.

No emissions tests here in this part of the 'Podkarpacie' if there were? then one hell of a lot of cars would fail immediately and almost every bus I,ve ever seen. Half of the trucks on the road are ancient and their engines were not designed to meet any emissions requirements? Or when I take my vehicles for a test, did they do an emissions 'test' in which they just glance at the exhaust end and say....yep no black cloud...he,s OK to go.

I very much suspect it is like in other countries and based on the concept of proportionality. If the car in an accident does not have its annual inspection the extent to which the insurance company would be liable would be based on the extent that likely or proven mechanical faults caused the accident. It is not so easy for the insurance companies to get off that lightly (especially in the UK with Lord Denning etc).

So if you had an accident and it was caused by your brakes not working, and they had probably not been working from before you were supposed to have the technical inspection, and you killed someone on a zebra crossing, then the insurance company could get out of a big chunk of the amount liable in an insurance claim. If the cause of the accident was not attributable to any fault then the insurance company would have to pay up.