Poland is introducing new medical examination standards for drivers, focusing on hearing assessment and health declarations, effective June 3, 2026.
Driver Medical Examinations: Key Provisions
The impetus for change was not a decision by the Ministry of Health, but the earlier amendment to the Act on Drivers of Vehicles from October 2025. This amendment paved the way for new solutions that must now be translated into medical practice.
The draft regulation of the Minister of Health of January 29, 2026 does not change the examination procedure itself, but its key elements. It primarily concerns two areas.
These changes are not recorded in the main paragraphs but in annexes to the regulation—and it is these annexes that in practice determine the outcome of the medical examination.
Driver Examinations: Doctors to Assess Health Under New Rules
The most important change concerns the assessment of hearing, which—along with vision—is one of the key elements of driver medical examinations. The draft regulation for the first time precisely describes when hearing loss actually constitutes a contraindication to driving and when it should not automatically prevent obtaining or renewing a license.
Under the proposed regulations, doctors will no longer rely solely on the general statement of “hearing loss.” The functional criterion will be key, namely whether the person being examined is able to understand speech from a distance of one meter or less. Importantly, this assessment is also to be made taking into account hearing aids or implants if the driver uses them.
The draft also clearly distinguishes between total hearing loss and partial hearing loss, indicating that both cases require individual assessment in the context of a specific driver’s license category. This is particularly important for professional drivers, as the new criteria are intended to enable assessment of fitness to drive vehicles in situations that were previously automatically treated as disqualifying.
The Ministry of Health emphasizes in its justification that the goal is to unify medical practice and limit discrepancies in decisions. In other words: two drivers with similar health conditions should not receive radically different decisions just because the examination was conducted by a different doctor or facility.
Health Declaration No Longer a Formality
The second important change concerns the health declaration. The draft regulation changes its content in a way that clearly refers to criminal liability for providing false information. In the new version of the declaration, there is a direct reference to the Criminal Code, which—doctors themselves admit—will strengthen the importance of the document and limit cases of concealing health information. This signals that the Ministry wants to shift some responsibility to the person being examined, not just to the examining doctor.
For Which Drivers Will These Changes Be Most Noticeable
Although the regulation applies to all applicants for or renewing a driver’s license, the effects will vary depending on the group. According to government data, we are talking about a system covering over 22.5 million drivers in Poland, although the actual scale of changes will affect a narrower group.
There Is a Specific Date. When Driver Examinations Will Take Place Under New Rules
The draft regulation has been officially entered into the list of legislative works of the Minister of Health under number MZ 1864. Public consultations last for 30 days, and any further comments may still affect the final wording of the provisions.
According to the draft, the new regulations are to take effect on June 3, 2026. This date is not coincidental—it coincides with the entry into force of earlier legislative changes and is intended to ensure system coherence. For drivers, this means that examinations conducted before this date will still take place under current rules, but subsequent ones will be according to the new regulations.
