6,600 complaints after the CJEU ruling - first data on Poland's "free credit sanction" is in
On 21 July 2026, Bankier.pl published the first hard numbers on how Polish banks are handling the wave of complaints that followed the April ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) in case C-744/24. Since the ruling was announced, banks have received around 6,600 complaints related to the so-called "free credit sanction" (sankcja kredytu darmowego, SKD), and courts have already issued roughly 1,500 verdicts in SKD cases - with nearly 80 percent of them, according to Polish Bank Association (ZBP) deputy chair Agnieszka Wachnicka, ruling in the banks' favour. That is an important data point for anyone currently repaying a cash loan in Poland, or planning to take one out in the coming months, because it shows that the free credit sanction is not a guaranteed "free loan" - it is a legal instrument that has to be applied correctly to work.
What the April CJEU ruling actually changed
Case C-744/24, decided on 23 April 2026, dealt with a very specific mechanism: whether a bank can charge interest on non-interest costs of a loan, such as fees or insurance premiums included in the total amount to be repaid. The Court ruled unambiguously that it cannot - interest may only be charged on the amount actually paid out to the consumer, not on a sum inflated by extra charges. For banks, this means adapting parts of their contracts and procedures. For customers, it creates a new potential argument in free-credit-sanction disputes - the right to repay a loan without interest and other costs if the bank failed to meet its information obligations when the contract was signed.
Why banks still win most of the cases
It is worth looking at the numbers from the other side of the ledger too. Before the CJEU ruling, banks won around 85 percent of free-credit-sanction court cases; after the ruling, the share of cases won by banks fell only slightly, to around 80 percent. That reveals something the law firms advertising "free credit in a few weeks" rarely mention: simply invoking the CJEU ruling is not enough. A court still has to find a specific violation - an error in the information form, an incorrectly calculated APR, missing mandatory information in the contract. The total number of SKD cases in Polish courts had already passed 27,000 by the end of the first quarter of 2026, and the number of complaints filed directly with banks exceeded 100,000. The scale of the phenomenon is huge, but the success of any individual claim depends on the specific errors in that specific contract, not merely on having taken out a loan.
What this means for your wallet
If you already have a cash loan
If you are currently repaying a cash loan taken out in recent years, it is worth checking two things - calmly, and without signing anything under pressure from a call from an unfamiliar law firm. First, whether the information form you received before signing the contract contained all the required elements: the actual annual percentage rate, the repayment schedule, information about your right to withdraw from the contract. Second, whether the interest in your contract was calculated on the total loan amount or - in line with what the CJEU has now confirmed - only on the amount actually paid out to you. If something in your documents looks irregular, the first step should be contacting the Financial Ombudsman or consulting a lawyer who specialises in banking law, not a firm that promises a result "guaranteed" in exchange for a commission on the recovered amount.
If you are still planning to take out a loan
For people who are still shopping for financing, this whole situation has another practical dimension. Aware of the rising number of disputes, banks are drafting their loan documentation more carefully - good news, since it reduces the risk of formal errors in new contracts. Rather than counting on a future free-credit-sanction claim as a "plan B," a better strategy is to compare terms carefully before signing anything: the APR, fees, insurance costs, and how interest is calculated. Before settling on a specific offer, it is worth comparing current cash loan offers available on the market - the difference in total loan cost between banks can be large enough that choosing well saves more than most court disputes ever would.
Watch out for dubious claims firms and "guaranteed win" promises
The boom around the free credit sanction has, much like the earlier wave of Swiss-franc mortgage cases, attracted a fair number of firms marketing themselves as "free credit" specialists. Some are legitimate law firms, but others charge high upfront fees, promise a guaranteed outcome - something the ZBP figures show nobody can honestly promise, given that banks still win four cases out of five - or push clients to reject bank settlement offers without a fair assessment of whether a settlement might actually be better than a years-long court battle. Before signing anything, check whether the firm has proper legal representation, how its fee structure works, and what happens if the case is lost.
The free credit sanction only applies to consumer credit
It is worth clearing up a common misunderstanding: the free credit sanction, like the CJEU ruling in case C-744/24, applies to consumer credit regulated under Poland's Consumer Credit Act - mainly cash loans and account overdraft limits. It does not apply to mortgage loans, which fall under separate rules. If you are planning to finance a home purchase, it makes more sense to focus on comparing mortgage loan offers by margin, fees, and total cost over the full repayment period - that is where the real cost of a roof over your head gets decided.
What you should do
The wave of complaints following the CJEU ruling is only just gaining momentum, and banks - as the ZBP itself admits - are already adjusting their contracts and procedures to the new interpretation. For the average bank customer, there is one practical lesson here: the free credit sanction is a genuine consumer-protection tool, but it does not work automatically, and it is not won simply by citing a high-profile court ruling. If you have doubts about your own loan agreement, check the documents and consult an independent lawyer or the Financial Ombudsman; if you are still shopping for a loan, invest time in comparing offers before you sign anything. And before taking on any new obligation, it is worth building a financial cushion for unexpected expenses - a well-priced savings account is a simpler and more reliable route to financial peace of mind than banking on a years-long legal dispute.