Nearly one in three Poles is late with paying their bills. Most often it is payments for housing, loans and telecommunication services, according to the survey ‘How Poles pay their bills’ commissioned by the National Debt Register.

29 % % of respondents admit that they sometimes experience a delay in bill payment. Most often, in almost 7 out of 10 cases, it concerns housing expenses, but also telecommunication services (91 %) or credit obligations (17 %), the research report reads.

Every 10th person declares that they have not paid at least one obligation at all in the last 12 months. Two-thirds of these relate to housing maintenance, 30 % have failed to pay utility bills and 15 % have neglected a credit obligation.

As the president of the National Debt Register of the Economic Information Bureau, Adam Łącki, points out, serious payment delays can have real consequences.

“PLN 200 in arrears is enough to be entered in the National Debt Register. Being late also simply costs money. Suppliers may charge penal interest. In addition, we may lose some of the discounts that, for example, telecom operators offer us for paying invoices on time”, warns the president.

The survey shows that 35 % of respondents explain the delay by missing the payment deadline, while one-quarter indicate that rising maintenance costs were the cause. The same number say they had to cover other unexpected expenses, which meant they did not have enough for cyclical payments.

The most frequent cyclical payments made by Poles are related to housing. In the last 12 months, 94 % of respondents declared such expenses. 83 % of respondents incur costs for electricity and gas, rubbish collection (78%), water and sewage (77%), rent (54%) and heating (50%). The second category is utilities, i.e. fees such as the RTV licence fee (28 % of respondents pay it), for the telephone (77 %) or the Internet (76 %).

Arkadiusz Słomczyński