Border controls between Poland and Germany are no longer a temporary disruption that companies expect to disappear within weeks or months. Germany has been checking its border with Poland since October 2023, while Poland introduced its own controls in July 2025. Both countries have repeatedly extended the measures. For businesses operating across the border, the key question is therefore no longer whether controls will return, but how long they will remain part of everyday transport and logistics.
Germany first reintroduced controls at its land border with Poland on 16 October 2023. The measures were subsequently extended several times and later became part of a broader system of controls covering all German land borders.
Poland introduced temporary controls on its borders with Germany and Lithuania on 7 July 2025. They have also been repeatedly extended and are currently scheduled to remain in place until 1 October 2026.
Germany’s current notification covers controls until 15 September 2026, while another extension has already been notified for the period from 16 September 2026 to 15 March 2027.
The legal status of the measures remains temporary. In practical terms, however, controls on the Polish-German border have become a lasting feature of cross-border traffic.
For logistics companies, predictability matters most
The Poland-Germany corridor is one of the most important transport routes for Polish exporters. Germany remains a key destination for Polish goods as well as a transit country for shipments travelling further into Western Europe.
For transport companies, the main problem is not necessarily the existence of individual checks, but their impact on travel times.
Modern logistics relies on precise delivery schedules, limited warehouse inventories and tightly organised loading slots. A delay of several dozen minutes may appear relatively minor, but when repeated across hundreds of journeys it translates into additional driver costs, disrupted schedules and lower fleet efficiency.
The consequences are particularly visible when heavier traffic coincides with more intensive controls. Polish transport organisations have previously reported queues at some crossings, although the scale of disruption varies considerably depending on the location and time.
Border regions have built their business model around Germany
The issue is particularly important for north-western Poland.
For years, companies have chosen locations around Szczecin and other parts of Western Pomerania partly because of their proximity to Germany. Warehouses, logistics centres and service companies can operate from Poland while serving customers on both sides of the border.
The Northern Chamber of Commerce in Szczecin has repeatedly pointed out that businesses in the region depend on efficient cross-border movement.
At the same time, representatives of the transport sector have stressed that the situation should not be described as a permanent transport crisis. On many routes traffic continues to move relatively smoothly, while serious queues tend to appear during periods of increased traffic or more intensive checks.
That distinction is important. The economic problem is not that the Polish-German border has become impassable. It is that companies can no longer assume that crossing it will always be frictionless.
Temporary controls are lasting longer and longer
Under the Schengen Borders Code, countries may temporarily restore controls at internal borders when they identify serious threats to public policy or internal security.
Germany points to irregular migration, migrant smuggling, pressure on its asylum system and the wider security situation. Poland has justified its controls by persistent migration pressure along the routes from Lithuania and Germany, linked to the situation on the EU’s eastern border.
Neither country has left the Schengen area.
Nevertheless, the duration of the controls increasingly matters from an economic perspective. What was originally presented as a temporary security instrument has now been repeatedly extended.
For businesses, the formal definition of the measures is less important than their practical duration.
The risk is a gradual increase in friction inside Europe
The bigger economic question is therefore not whether Schengen is about to disappear.
The more realistic risk is that temporary internal border controls become normal across a growing number of European countries.
A company transporting goods across several EU markets may increasingly have to account for possible checks at several borders. That means longer safety margins in delivery schedules, less predictable transport times and potentially higher operating costs.
The effect is very different from the return of customs barriers. Goods continue to move within the EU single market without customs procedures being restored at the Polish-German border.
But road traffic can still be slowed by checks on vehicles and people.
For a logistics sector built around speed and predictability, that distinction does not eliminate the economic cost.
Polish companies are now asking how long the controls will remain
After almost three years of German controls on the Polish border and more than a year of controls conducted by Poland, businesses have little reason to treat the situation as a short-term disruption.
Germany has already notified another extension running from 16 September 2026 until 15 March 2027. Polish controls are currently scheduled to remain in force until 1 October 2026.
Further decisions will determine whether the current system gradually begins to be scaled back or becomes an established part of travelling and transporting goods between the two countries.
For Polish exporters and transport companies, this is now the central issue.
The debate is no longer about the return of border controls. It is about the economic consequences of controls that have never really gone away.
