According to the latest data from Cushman & Wakefield, the average retail vacancy rate in Poland’s largest cities currently stands at 3.5%, down by 1.2 pp year-on-year.

More importantly, falls were recorded in six out of the eight largest cities, with the availability of retail space at the lowest in Krakow, Łódź and Szczecin. This suggests a gradual retail recovery in Poland, says Cushman & Wakefield. Meanwhile, as the market continues to stabilize, retail landlords should increasingly focus on diversifying the firm said.

“The lowest retail vacancy rate of 1.5% is in Krakow, down from 1.9% in 2022. Interestingly enough, the retail availability rate for Łódź stands at 1.8%, down from last year’s 4.1%. Szczecin is in third place with only 2% its retail stock being vacant, representing a decrease of 2.6pp year-on-year,” commented Ewa Derlatka-Chilewicz, head of research, Cushman & Wakefield.

The highest vacancy rate of 4.4% was reported in Poznań, even though it fell by 4.7pp over the year. This, however, is attributable to the closure of two retail schemes that had large volumes of vacant space in 2022. The only large cities to see vacancy rates edge up over the year were Katowice – 3.9% (+0.5pp y-o-y) and Wrocław – 4.3% (+0.3pp y-o-y).