Workplace accident statistics
Poland's official accident figures and EU comparisons — as charts you can download, embed and cite.
Workplace accident statistics for Poland show 67,000 people injured at work in 2024, including 250 fatalities — a rate of 4.74 per 1,000 workers. This free tool turns the official GUS and Eurostat data into charts you can download, embed on your own site and cite: the yearly trend, the split by region, industry and cause, and where Poland sits in the EU.
How workplace accidents in Poland have changed
The number of people injured in accidents at work in Poland fell sharply from around 88,000 a year in the 2010s to the mid-60,000s after 2020, while the incidence rate per 1,000 workers roughly halved. Fatal accidents follow a slower downward path, but move year to year with the economy and reporting.
People injured at work in Poland, by year
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| Year | Injured (total) | Fatal | Severe | Rate per 1,000 workers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 87,052 | 406 | 780 | — |
| 2010 | 94,207 | 446 | 645 | — |
| 2011 | 97,222 | 404 | 703 | 8.34 |
| 2012 | 91,000 | 350 | 627 | 7.78 |
| 2013 | 88,267 | 277 | 538 | 7.54 |
| 2014 | 88,641 | 263 | 530 | 7.45 |
| 2015 | 87,622 | 304 | 502 | 7.19 |
| 2016 | 87,886 | 243 | 467 | 7.0 |
| 2017 | 88,330 | 270 | 671 | 6.8 |
| 2018 | 84,304 | 211 | 527 | 6.3 |
| 2019 | 83,205 | 184 | 396 | 6.06 |
| 2020 | 62,740 | 190 | 378 | 4.54 |
| 2021 | 68,777 | 219 | 375 | 4.75 |
| 2022 | 66,606 | 168 | 1,251 | 4.76 |
| 2023 | 68,663 | 168 | 331 | 4.85 |
| 2024 | 67,000 | 250 | 459 | 4.74 |
Accidents by region (voivodeship)
Absolute counts concentrate in the most industrialised and populous regions — Śląskie, Mazowieckie and Wielkopolskie lead. The incidence rate per 1,000 workers tells a different story: it is highest in industrial voivodeships and lowest in Mazowieckie, whose large service economy dilutes the rate.
People injured at work by voivodeship
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| Category | Injured (total) | Rate /1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Silesian | 10,523 | 6.68 |
| Masovian | 8,848 | 2.91 |
| Greater Poland | 7,632 | 4.8 |
| Lower Silesian | 5,970 | 5.49 |
| Lesser Poland | 4,681 | 3.61 |
| Łódź | 4,149 | 5.18 |
| Pomeranian | 3,965 | 4.66 |
| Kuyavian-Pomeranian | 3,560 | 5.78 |
| West Pomeranian | 3,047 | 6.03 |
| Lublin | 2,790 | 5.07 |
| Subcarpathian | 2,770 | 4.6 |
| Warmian-Masurian | 2,241 | 5.72 |
| Opole | 1,815 | 6.35 |
| Podlaskie | 1,776 | 5.39 |
| Holy Cross | 1,680 | 5.35 |
| Lubusz | 1,553 | 5.03 |
Accidents by industry (NACE section)
Manufacturing accounts for the largest single share of people injured, followed by trade and repair, health care and transport. These are the sectors where physical hazards, machinery and manual handling put the most workers at risk — and where structured, repeatable safety training pays back fastest.
People injured at work by industry
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| Category | Injured (total) |
|---|---|
| Manufacturing | 20,972 |
| Wholesale & retail trade; vehicle repair | 9,209 |
| Human health & social work | 7,324 |
| Transportation & storage | 5,975 |
| Education | 4,264 |
| Construction | 3,442 |
| Public administration & defence | 2,704 |
| Administrative & support services | 2,500 |
| Mining & quarrying | 2,311 |
| Water supply & waste management | 2,181 |
| Accommodation & food service | 1,068 |
| Professional, scientific & technical | 1,066 |
| Agriculture, forestry & fishing | 838 |
| Arts, entertainment & recreation | 689 |
| Real estate activities | 632 |
| Electricity & gas supply | 520 |
| Financial & insurance activities | 508 |
| Other service activities | 425 |
| Information & communication | 372 |
What causes workplace accidents
In the GUS classification the dominant cause is improper behaviour of the worker, ahead of improper handling of a material agent and organisational factors. One accident is coded with several causes, so the categories sum to more than the number of accidents — read them as contributing factors, not a share of a whole.
Accidents by cause
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| Category | Injured (total) |
|---|---|
| Improper behaviour of the worker | 50,823 |
| Improper handling of a material agent | 12,023 |
| Other cause | 9,252 |
| Independent event / third parties or animals | 9,133 |
| Improper organisation of the workstation | 7,884 |
| Non-compliance with OSH rules | 7,661 |
| Improper organisation of work | 6,445 |
| Improper psychophysical state of the worker | 2,874 |
| Not using protective equipment | 2,311 |
Poland in the EU ranking
Where every EU and EFTA country sits on Eurostat's standardised accident rate. Fatal accidents are the reliable comparison; non-fatal rates carry an under-reporting caveat.
Fatal accidents at work — EU ranking
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| Country | per 100,000 employed |
|---|---|
| Netherlands | 0.6 |
| Iceland | 0.71 |
| Germany | 0.91 |
| Poland | 1.28 |
| Slovakia | 1.44 |
| Greece | 1.47 |
| Finland | 1.47 |
| Estonia | 1.55 |
| Sweden | 1.55 |
| United Kingdom | 1.6 |
| Belgium | 1.67 |
| Denmark | 1.68 |
| Ireland | 1.85 |
| Hungary | 1.86 |
| Czechia | 2.04 |
| Spain | 2.28 |
| Switzerland | 2.3 |
| Norway | 2.52 |
| Austria | 2.53 |
| Italy | 2.62 |
| Croatia | 2.95 |
| Slovenia | 3.08 |
| Romania | 3.12 |
| Malta | 3.29 |
| Luxembourg | 3.43 |
| Portugal | 3.44 |
| Lithuania | 3.66 |
| Latvia | 4.01 |
| France | 4.42 |
| Bulgaria | 4.5 |
| Cyprus | 5.63 |
Non-fatal accidents at work — EU ranking
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| Country | per 100,000 employed |
|---|---|
| Romania | 58.48 |
| Bulgaria | 86.41 |
| Greece | 164.39 |
| Latvia | 316.25 |
| Lithuania | 411.03 |
| Cyprus | 424.56 |
| Slovakia | 424.82 |
| Poland | 435.73 |
| Norway | 492.95 |
| Croatia | 547.83 |
| Malta | 620.75 |
| Hungary | 623.32 |
| Czechia | 676.8 |
| Iceland | 704.99 |
| United Kingdom | 834.17 |
| Sweden | 955.39 |
| Estonia | 956.49 |
| Ireland | 959.43 |
| Netherlands | 1,221.96 |
| Italy | 1,282.06 |
| Finland | 1,424.55 |
| Austria | 1,481.4 |
| Slovenia | 1,504.23 |
| Belgium | 1,513.93 |
| Denmark | 1,578.6 |
| Germany | 1,620.1 |
| Luxembourg | 1,728.65 |
| France | 2,643.9 |
| Spain | 2,707.68 |
| Portugal | 2,955.51 |
| Switzerland | 3,413.99 |
Polish pages use GUS figures (national definitions); cross-country charts use Eurostat's standardised rate per 100,000 employed, which corrects for the industry mix of each economy. The two series are never mixed on one chart.
Cross-country comparisons of non-fatal accidents are distorted by under-reporting: countries with insurance-based systems record more accidents than declaration-based ones. Eurostat says so explicitly, which is why the country ranking leads with fatal accidents — reliably comparable — and shows non-fatal rates only with this caveat.
GUS codes each accident with more than one cause, so the causes add up to more than the number of accidents. Treat each figure as a contributing factor, not a slice of a pie.
As of 2026-07-22 · Source: GUS — Wypadki przy pracy (Bank Danych Lokalnych)
Workplace accident statistics — FAQ
- How many workplace accidents are there in Poland each year?
- In the most recent year, GUS recorded about 67,000 people injured in accidents at work in Poland, of whom a few hundred were fatal. The number has fallen markedly since the 2010s, when it was close to 88,000 a year, and the incidence rate per 1,000 workers has roughly halved.
- Which industry has the most workplace accidents in Poland?
- Manufacturing (NACE section C) accounts for the largest single share of people injured at work, well ahead of trade and repair, health care and transport. These sectors combine machinery, manual handling and physical hazards, which is why they dominate the accident figures.
- Is Poland more or less dangerous for workers than the rest of the EU?
- On Eurostat's standardised rate of fatal accidents per 100,000 employed, Poland sits close to or slightly below the EU average and well below the most dangerous member states. Its reported non-fatal rate looks low, but that mostly reflects under-reporting rather than genuinely safer workplaces.
- Where does this data come from?
- The Polish figures come from GUS (Statistics Poland) via the Local Data Bank; the cross-country figures come from Eurostat's European Statistics on Accidents at Work (ESAW). Both are official open data and are cited on each chart. We update the tool when new GUS releases and Eurostat data appear.
- Can I embed these charts on my own website?
- Yes. Every chart has an “embed” snippet that drops an iframe onto your page, plus a ready-made attribution link back to the source. Reuse is free with attribution to GUS/Eurostat and Skillsive. Journalists and safety professionals are welcome to use the charts in articles and reports.
Related tools & reading
- Poland vs GermanyTwo countries side by side on Eurostat's standardised rate per 100,000 employed — the only workplace-accident measure built to be compared across the EU.
- Poland vs the EU averageTwo countries side by side on Eurostat's standardised rate per 100,000 employed — the only workplace-accident measure built to be compared across the EU.
- Workplace accident cost calculatorTurn these accident numbers into a euro figure for your own organisation.
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