Poland just posted its largest annual jump in brokerage accounts on record, and a new FM Intelligence report sets out what that growth means for brokers weighing the country as a place to set up.

The headline number is hard to ignore. Brokerage accounts reached 2.86 million in May 2026, up 713,711 in a year, putting the market on course to pass 3 million within months, according to the Polish Central Securities Depository.

Much of that has flowed to one name. XTB became the first broker in the country to top 1 million domestic accounts and reported first-quarter net profit of PLN 535 million, up 176% year over year, a run FinanceMagnates.com has tracked through the year.

What Tilts the Math Toward Poland

For years, Cyprus was the default EU home for CFD brokers. That gap has closed. Capital floors are now harmonized across the bloc, so a market-making license costs the same EUR 750,000 in Warsaw as it does in Limassol. The decision shifts to cost base, talent and supervision instead.

FM Intelligence estimates Polish labor costs run 40% to 60% below Western European levels, drawing on a deep pool of engineers and compliance staff who already serve global firms operating from the country.

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Poland also offers a product hook that pure ESMA jurisdictions cannot match. Under a KNF carve-out, an "experienced retail client" can use leverage up to 1:100 on major FX, gold and major US indices, against the standard retail cap of 1:30.

A standalone brokerage also sits outside the 30% bank levy that hit Polish lenders in 2026.

The Catches Worth Pricing In

That 2.86 million counts securities accounts, not CFD clients, so the contestable derivatives layer is far smaller.

It is not small in absolute terms, though. KNF data counted roughly 370,000 active forex clients in Poland in 2025, a heavy single-country base at a time when the whole industry was running near 6 million active CFD accounts.

The contrast with Germany is sharper. Europe's biggest economy reported about 63,000 active CFD and forex traders over a comparable period, leaving Poland among the continent's larger retail trading bases by head count.

The catch is the outcome, with 72.2% of those clients losing money over the year, according to the regulator.

The KNF fined XTB PLN 20 million over CFD marketing rules, a penalty the broker is contesting, which any entrant should treat as part of the Poland case rather than an exception.

FM Intelligence maps three paths for the account base by end-2027, ranging from about 3.2 million in the bear case to near 4 million in the bull case.

The full study, with the entry routes, the cost tables and the Poland-versus-Cyprus comparison, is in the FM Intelligence report.