Best City in Poland for Expat Starting Business

I am planning to setup business in Poland and need help to decide which city I should choose.

My consideration to choose city will be :
Safe for foreigners/expats
Average cost of living in Poland
Acceptance of expats by local people
Number of english speaking people, local and foreigners

Razz

Shouldn't you be rather asking questions specific to your business? I would rather choose the city with respect to my business opportunities rather than whether people like me or not ... especially that this won't differ too much from town to town.

Anyway, to answer some of your questions - IMHO any large Polish city will do. Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk, Poznan, Wroclaw, Katowice, Lublin. In all those you will find several english speaking people (mainly local, but also, of course, foreign) and it will be as safe for foreigners as it gets. Then there is the skin colour issue, you're probably safer if you're caucasian, but then again the racist issue seems to be behind us and I haven't heard for a long time (I mean years) of a race-connected assault of any kind.

Also, those cities will probably be the best markets for most businesses as they "house" the most wealthy people (and a lot of people in general). On the dowside, the operating costs, such as rent for instance, will be highest in Poland (especially Warsaw).

Hey, what about Stettin???

TRY GLIWICE. IT IS CONSIDERED TO BE THE BEST CITY FOR BUSINESS IN POLAND. YOU CAN ALSO GET FINANCING HERE. CONTACT ME WHEN YOU DECIDE.

Why Gliwice? I am also considering setting up my business soon. And who gives financing help in Gliwice. I would appreciate some explanation. Tanks

Razztex is 100% right to be considerate and ask about acceptance of expats by the local people and safety besides asking questions specific to business opportunities, because of growing nationalistic movements in the whole of Europe not only Poland, albeit latent at times. People are increasingly becoming weary of foreigners and everything foreign and will not buy or will refuse your services if you're foreign enough. Through very painful lessons, the Europeans are learning to live with themselves and to depend only on self-service and that that is by far the best kind of existence to lead.

Would you mind telling where you come from, Razztex, and what your business is about?


Hmm, you never know. After some 300 years of occupation, 3 to 4 partitions, and an exterminating bloodshed, Poles are increasingly fed up with foreigners, and behind the silly formalities and some polite smiles, you will find 3 to 4 rows of finely sharp teeth!


YOU'VE GOT THAT RIGHT!!! Much safer being a caucasian in Poland, much safer:) The rest of Europe should follow.


All races are equal staying in their respective places. And just because you haven't heard of race-connected attacks due to the censored media to go along with EU dreams, desires, and consequently regulations, doesn't mean the attacks are not happening. It's business as usual.

Oh my God, some of you guys really need to educate yourselves. Europe stopped being the land of opportunity long ago, and now America follows. There is an increasing need for people from other countries to invest in Europe and America now, especially the Asians. Please, stop dreaming. The only way forward for Poland when the european union money stops coming in (which by the way is not far off), is to have investors come in. And ding ding ding... investors are foreigners. It so happens that the biggest investments around the world today are carried out by the chinese.

Lastly, Poland, Europe and even America cannot win the war on economic protectionism. You need third world countries to buy cheap stuff; ready made products from Asia and raw materials from Africa and South America. And you also need to sell your products.

One could write a whole thesis on this topic...

The Pomorskie region has the highest number of entrepreneurs in Europe. I would advice the Tri-city, Gdansk, Gdynia and Sopot.
Gdansk is the only port of consequence in Poland, it is 5 hours drive to Berlin and a 3 hour drive to Kalingrad (Russian enclave). Gdansk airport flys to the UK, France, Germany and Spain. The other major attraction is the number of tourists the cities attract specifically during the summer.

I ran a business one summer on the coast selling clothes and in the two month season that we had, we made really decent cash.

So my vote is for the Tri-City.

I wouldn't opt for Lublin though. In terms of communication a bit far from everywhere. Though with their new airport maybe that is changing.