Thursday, 18 September 2025
Late payments remain a persistent issue for Polish businesses, but a growing number of entrepreneurs are showing a more confident approach to debt collection. According to a survey commissioned by BIG InfoMonitor, 62 percent of entrepreneurs believe that pursuing overdue payments does not damage their relationships with contractors. This positive perception is especially strong among larger companies and those in the manufacturing and trade sectors.
While unpaid invoices continue to affect many businesses, the reluctance to recover debts due to fear of harming client relationships is becoming less common. Debt collection efforts are proving effective: the SME Scanner survey by the BIK Group, which includes BIG InfoMonitor, found that most companies (44%) failed to recover only 1–5% of their receivables last year. Another 20% reported unrecovered debts in the range of 6–10%, while 14% saw 11–20% of receivables go unpaid. Only a small fraction of businesses (4%) reported bad debts exceeding half of their invoiced amounts.
Despite these figures, 82% of entrepreneurs say they still deal with clients who don’t pay on time. Among those facing payment delays, nearly 57% acknowledge that unpaid liabilities are affecting their company’s financial health. A common cause of delayed payments is the domino effect: many companies can’t pay their own invoices because they haven’t been paid by others. However, intentional payment delays are on the rise, with more companies deliberately postponing or avoiding payment altogether.
“Financial stability is the foundation of any company, regardless of its size. Unreliable customers are a major threat to this stability,” said Paweł Szarkowski, CEO of BIG InfoMonitor. “With access to a reliable debtor database and the ability to register overdue invoices, we help entrepreneurs manage risk and recover debts more effectively. A majority of businesses confirm that such efforts don’t harm relationships with contractors.”
Debt collection efforts are typically low-intensity and non-confrontational. Entrepreneurs most often rely on phone calls (48.3%) and email or SMS reminders (47%). When delays stretch beyond two weeks, 43% of companies send formal payment reminders. Legal actions are far less common: only 8.2% pursue court cases via e-Court, and 7% enter debtors into the BIG register. Interestingly, 10% of businesses take no action at all and simply wait for payment.
When it comes to effectiveness, entrepreneurs rate phone calls as the best method of debt recovery (27%), followed by payment reminders (21.3%). E-mails, text messages (14.9%), and negotiations around instalments or extended deadlines (14.2%) are also widely used. Szarkowski emphasises that debt collection doesn’t have to be adversarial. “Preventive and amicable measures work best. Even something as simple as a formal reminder with mention of legal consequences can prompt payment without damaging a relationship,” he said.
Economic pressure from inflation, rising energy prices, and increased labour costs continues to challenge businesses. Even so, 78% of SMEs still view their financial condition as positive, with just over 18% holding a negative outlook. Yet, late payments remain a key destabilising factor: 56.9% of those affected say it has harmed their financial condition.
What’s more troubling is that not all delays are caused by financial hardship. More than 13% of respondents suspect intentional avoidance, with some viewing it as a tactic to secure interest-free credit at another company’s expense—or even as an act of extortion. “This highlights the importance of ongoing financial education and reinforcing that debt collection is a standard business practice, not a last resort,” said Waldemar Rogowski, PhD, chief analyst at BIG InfoMonitor.
According to data from BIG InfoMonitor and the BIK database, as of the end of January 2025, the total unpaid liabilities of Polish businesses to banks and suppliers exceeded PLN 44.3 billion. Nearly 333,000 companies were listed as unreliable payers, and over the past year, the total debt burden rose by almost PLN 2.7 billion, with 16,000 new companies added to the list.
Source: InfoMonitor
