Highlights

• The Ministry of Climate and Environment has prepared a draft bill on assistance for victims of the Clean Air programme.
• The draft provides, among other things, for the possibility of suspending the collection of unsettled advance payments from affected beneficiaries and seeking recovery. 
• This is a response to the problems of beneficiaries – often poor families – who have been harmed by dishonest companies in the previous version of the Clean Air programme, which was suspended in autumn 2024.
• The new rules of the Clean Air programme better protect beneficiaries and ensure effective thermal modernisation.
• The aim of the new Clean Air programme is to comprehensively thermally modernise residential buildings in Poland and protect them from high heating bills.

The draft bill is a response to the problems faced by beneficiaries who wanted to take advantage of the previous version of the programme, in force until autumn 2024, and received advance payments but were unable to settle them due to the contractor's unreliability.

That is why, over the past few weeks, we have been working at the Ministry with the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management (NFEP&WM) and voivodship funds on the assumptions for a special Act on assistance to victims of the Clean Air programme. The prepared provisions include, among other things, the possibility of suspending the collection of unsettled advance payments from beneficiaries affected by unreliable companies

– wrote Paulina Hennig-Kloska.

The State Treasury will, of course, seek to recover every single Polish zloty from dishonest companies. In such a situation, the power of the State is greater than that of a retired couple who have no way of accounting for tens or hundreds of thousands of PLN because someone disappeared with the money for the thermal modernisation of their house. Law enforcement agencies are already analysing 470 reports

– emphasised the Minister of Climate and Environment.

The draft bill was approved by the management of the Ministry of Climate and Environment and forwarded to the Government Work Programming Team on Thursday with a request for urgent consideration.

The Clean Air Programme is one of the largest and most complex subsidy programmes in Europe. The subject of the programme – thermal modernisation and replacement of heating sources – means that each application requires an individual and thorough approach. An additional complication is the programme's structure established in previous years, which allowed for unfair practices by some contractors to the detriment of beneficiaries. Only the rules amended on 31 March 2025 guarantee full security and protection of the beneficiaries' interests.

Financing
The previous government failed to secure financing for the programme while simultaneously accepting applications. This resulted in a huge backlog in the assessment of applications and payments, which is now gradually being reduced.

We have secured stable funding for Clean Air. The current management of the ministry has allocated PLN 13 billion from the National Recovery Plan, PLN 8 billion from FEnIKS and PLN 10 billion from the Modernisation Fund

– wrote the Minister of Climate and Environment.

From January 2024 to the end of October 2025, we made record payments under the programme of over PLN 10 billion. In less than two years, we paid out more subsidies than the Law and Justice party paid out in five years! (PLN 8.7 billion paid out in 2019-2023)

– noted Paulina Hennig-Kloska.

These data show the scale of acceleration in the implementation of the programme by individual voivodship funds for environmental protection and water management.

Processing applications
Until its suspension in autumn 2024, the Clean Air Programme allowed practices that caused delays and backlogs and meant that submitted applications did not result in the signing of contracts and the payment of grants. Beneficiaries could submit incomplete, even blank, or duplicate applications. There were as many as 115,000 such applications in total. This practice prolonged the processing of all applications by employees of voivodship environmental protection and water management funds, which generated backlogs.

At present, all correctly submitted payment applications for 2024 have already been settled. Only 4,634 applications are awaiting completion by beneficiaries, e.g. with additional explanations regarding the costs incurred. This is less than 2% of the more than 197,000 payment applications submitted in 2024. Currently, voivodship environmental protection and water management funds are already settling payment applications submitted in 2025.

Changes to the Clean Air programme  
To curb the abuses that have occurred in the programme, from 31 March 2025, it will have new rules that better protect beneficiaries. The entire procedure begins with an energy audit. As a result, the optimal heat source is selected, which will consume the minimum amount of energy to heat the house. At the end of the investment, the beneficiary receives an energy performance certificate, which shows whether the ecological effect has actually been achieved and whether the thermal modernisation and replacement of the heat source have been effective. This eliminates the risk of so-called ‘horror bills’.

The application itself requires better preparation, so it is not submitted immediately, but is reliable and realistic.

To date, 42,000 applications have already been submitted under the new rules. In addition, over 24,000 draft applications are currently being completed. Before the reform of the programme, in addition to incomplete or empty applications, there were also applications for individual elements, such as the replacement of windows or doors. Such applications further inflated the statistics. In Clean Air, what counts now is the effect in the form of comprehensive thermal modernisation that protects against high heating bills.

Remedial measures
The Ministry of Climate and Environment has obliged all voivodship environmental protection and water management funds to organise talks with contractors and industry organisations to answer any questions and address any concerns in dialogue. This is also in line with the proposal put forward in an open letter from the Clean Air Employers' Association.

The procedures for assessing applications and making payments are constantly being improved. The number of employees involved in assessing documents in voivodship funds has been increased, consultation points have been set up, and it is now possible to arrange meetings online. Beneficiaries can also check the status of their application using an online search engine.

The NFEP&WM and voivodship funds maintain regular dialogue with contractors, who are an important part of the programme. This dialogue and corrective measures are primarily conducted out of concern for the people who have applied for grants and based on regulations on the management of public funds. These regulations require that such funds must be managed with care, both when granting subsidies and when settling accounts. Under the programme, subsidies are paid from European funds, among others, and are subject to restrictive rules on control and settlement.