Institutional Lease
A form of residential lease reserved for landlords conducting a rental business, offering an eviction path similar to the occasional lease's but without the requirement that the tenant name a fallback address.
Applies to Poland.
Definition
The institutional lease (najem instytucjonalny) is introduced by Articles 19f–19i of the Act on the Protection of Tenants' Rights. Unlike the occasional lease, it may only be concluded by a landlord who is a legal person or an entrepreneur conducting a business of renting out premises — not by a private individual acting outside such a business.
Like the occasional lease, it requires a notarized tenant statement agreeing to enforcement and to vacating the property upon termination, but crucially it does not require the tenant to indicate a fallback address — this is the key practical difference, and the reason large-scale institutional landlords (such as build-to-rent operators) favor it.
As with the occasional lease, the agreement must be for a fixed term. There is no equivalent of the occasional lease's 14-day tax-office notification requirement — the notarial statement itself is what preserves the simplified enforcement path.
Examples
A build-to-rent operator managing hundreds of units in Warsaw uses institutional lease agreements with all its tenants, since as a company it cannot use the occasional lease reserved for private landlords.
A tenant signing an institutional lease is relieved that, unlike an occasional lease, they don't need to arrange a backup address in advance.
A private landlord registers as an entrepreneur specifically so they can offer institutional leases across a portfolio of several rented flats.
How this affects buying and selling
For institutional or professional landlords, this lease type is the practical equivalent of the occasional lease, adapted to businesses rather than private individuals. Tenants should understand that despite the differences, both forms share the same core trade-off: simplified eviction for the landlord in exchange for a notarized enforcement statement signed upfront.
