Poland vs United States
Poland is ahead on legalization, money & crypto, safety, cost of living, housing, healthcare. United States is ahead on taxes, language. Full criterion-by-criterion data below.
Verified
Scoreboard
The key numbers head-to-head — the stronger side is marked. The overall score stays decoration; what matters is which facts fit you.
Headline result
Even — 3 of 6 each
Poland
3
United States
3
01Cost of living (single, excl. rent)
Polandstronger
$753/mo
GUS — Household Budget Survey 2024 (one-person households), CPI-uplifted
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- May 31, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- GUS one-person household consumer spending 2,888.89 PLN/mo (2024) minus actual-rentals line 235.10 → 2,653.79 PLN; uplifted by CPI (+3.6% 2025 avg, +3.1% y/y May 2026) → ≈2,835 PLN; converted at 3.7635 PLN/USD (ECB 2026-07-02). Cross-checked against Eurostat price-level indices (PL ≈ 72% of EU27).
United States
$1,741/mo
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Consumer Expenditure Survey 2024, all consumer units: average annual expenditures $78,535 across an average 2.4 persons. Removing shelter ($16,317, the rent-equivalent line), personal insurance and pensions ($9,797, which is saving rather than consumption) and cash contributions ($2,292, which are transfers) leaves $50,129 of consumption. Divided by 2.4 people and by 12 months = $1,740.59 per person per month.
- Notes
- Per-capita basis, to match how Italy, Spain, Czechia, Austria and France are computed in this dataset. The BLS also publishes the real one-person consumer unit, which is what a solo mover actually faces: $48,794 a year, or $29,359 after removing the same three lines — about $2,447 a month excluding rent, 41% above the per-capita figure because a person living alone has no household economies of scale. Read $1,741 as the comparable cross-country number and $2,447 as the realistic personal one. Both include US health spending, which is why every line involving healthcare runs far above the European entries.
02Freelancer tax burden
Poland
23.6%
SettleMetric tax engine over official 2026 rules (biznes.gov.pl)
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- Best eligible scheme pl-ryczalt-it-12 at €60,000 revenue = 257,400 PLN (ECB 4.29): ZUS social 21,459.48 + health 9,966.96 + Labor Fund 1,661.64 + 12% lump-sum tax 27,714.84 = 60,802.92 PLN → 23.6%. Expenses don't reduce ryczałt.
United Statesstronger
18.1%
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Best eligible scheme us-sole-proprietor-federal at €60,000 = $68,394 (ECB 1.1399 USD/EUR, 2026-07-02) with 10% expenses. Net profit $61,554.60; self-employment tax 15.3% on 92.35% of it = $8,697.38; half deducted, giving AGI $57,205.91; less the $16,100 standard deduction and a §199A deduction of $8,221.18 leaves taxable income $32,884.73, taxed $3,698.17. Total levies $12,395.55 / $68,394 = 18.1%. This is federal tax only, which is the whole story just in the nine states that levy no income tax on earned income.
- Notes
- The single number hides the widest internal spread of any country in this dataset. The same freelancer pays 18.1% in Texas or Florida, 20.5% in California (us-sole-proprietor-california) and 24.4% in New York City (us-sole-proprietor-new-york-city), where state and city income taxes stack on the federal one. Read this figure as the floor available to someone free to choose their state, not as a national average. It also excludes the self-employed health-insurance deduction and retirement contributions, both of which US freelancers use heavily and both of which would lower it.
03Homicide rate
Polandstronger
0.69/100k
Eurostat — police-recorded intentional homicide (ICCS 0101)
Open data
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Notes
- Completed homicides. UNODC latest (2023): 0.80 per 100k. Polish police's ~503 'zabójstwa' (2024) includes attempts.
United States
5.1/100k
Bureau of Justice Statistics and FBI — Crime Known to Law Enforcement, 2024 (NCJ 310856), Table 1
Official source
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Notes
- 17,420 homicides in 2024, a rate of 5.1 per 100,000 — down sharply from 6.1 in 2023, continuing the retreat from the 2020–21 spike. Still several times the Western European level: Italy records 0.6, and no European country in this dataset is above 1.2. The national figure also hides an enormous internal range: New York State records 2.7 and California 4.2, while several southern states run above 8. Estimated by the BJS/FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System Estimation Program from agencies covering about 96% of the population.
04Internet speed
Poland
42 Mbps
M-Lab NDT country aggregates for Poland
Open data
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2023
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- Median of 343 daily country medians, 563,348 tests (2023 — latest full year in M-Lab's public stats API; 2025/2026 files not yet published).
- Notes
- M-Lab NDT is single-stream and reads well below Ookla-style figures — comparable only within this criterion.
United Statesstronger
85 Mbps
M-Lab NDT country aggregates for the United States
Open data
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2023
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Median of the 344 daily country-median download values for US in 2023, which ranged 43.9–89.1 Mbps. M-Lab NDT is a single-stream test and reads well below advertised or Ookla-style figures — comparable only within this criterion. 2023 is the latest full year in M-Lab's public statistics API; the 2024 file stops on 26 March.
- Notes
- The highest reading of any country in this dataset on this metric — roughly three times Italy's — and it reflects a cable and fibre market that competes on headline speed. What the median hides is the price and the choice: monthly costs for gigabit service run well above European levels, and a large share of addresses have exactly one wired provider. Rural coverage remains the weak spot, though federal broadband funding is being deployed against it.
05English proficiency
Poland
Very high
EF EPI 2025 (rank 15/123, score 600 — Very High band)
Research
- Data as of
- Nov 1, 2025
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Notes
- Own band informed by EF EPI (attribution: EF Education First); English is broadly workable in cities and the service sector, less so in offices/government.
United Statesstronger
Native
Official source
- Data as of
- Mar 1, 2025
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Notes
- English is the language of government, healthcare, housing and services throughout the country, and since March 2025 it is also the designated official language at federal level — the first such designation in US history. Spanish is a genuine second language of daily life in parts of the south-west, Florida and large cities, and federal agencies still provide multilingual services, but nothing about daily life requires another language.
06Private healthcare cost
Polandstronger
$1,600/yr
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jul 3, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- Comprehensive private plans that include inpatient/hospital cover — top-tier LuxMed/Medicover subscriptions (own or partner hospitals) and standalone health insurance (Signal Iduna, Allianz Zdrowie, PZU) — run ≈400–700 PLN/month. Healthy-35-year-old midpoint ≈ 500 PLN/mo ≈ 6,000 PLN/yr ≈ $1,595 at 3.7635 PLN/USD (range ≈ $1,275–$2,230). Premiums are quoted on request, so this is a curated market midpoint, not a public engine quote.
- Notes
- Residents are covered by mandatory public insurance (NFZ); private cover is optional. Most people buy only a cheaper OUTPATIENT subscription (LuxMed/Medicover ≈150–250 PLN/mo ≈ $600/yr) and use the public system for hospital care. This figure is the with-inpatient comprehensive tier, chosen to be comparable with other countries' comprehensive plans (the earlier $603 was an outpatient-only subscription mislabelled as comprehensive).
United States
$8,892/yr
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jan 15, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- CMS reports an average monthly premium of $741 before advance premium tax credits across the 23,130,860 people who selected a plan for 2026 through HealthCare.gov and the state exchanges; ×12 = $8,892 a year. Average premium after tax credits is $178 a month.
- Notes
- Basis differs from the other countries here and the difference matters. This is an enrollee-weighted average across all ages and all metal levels, not a quote for a healthy 35-year-old: the marketplace risk pool skews old (41% of enrollees are 45 or over), and the Affordable Care Act lets insurers charge the oldest adults up to three times the youngest, so a 35-year-old pays meaningfully less than $741 a month. No age adjustment was applied because CMS's default uniform age-rating curve was not retrievable at the verification date. Two further caveats: most enrollees do not pay the sticker price — premium tax credits cut the average to $178 a month — and this is individual-market insurance with deductibles and coinsurance on top, not the comprehensive low-deductible cover the other entries quote. Even discounted for all of that, US health cover is the most expensive in this dataset by a wide margin, and it is the single largest fixed cost a freelancer moving to the United States takes on.
Verdict
Each lens weighs only the facts that matter to that plan, and names the side it favours.
Remote IT / freelancer
Contract or freelance in tech, billing clients abroad.
United States fits better — 3 of 5
01Freelancer tax burden
Poland
23.6%
SettleMetric tax engine over official 2026 rules (biznes.gov.pl)
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- Best eligible scheme pl-ryczalt-it-12 at €60,000 revenue = 257,400 PLN (ECB 4.29): ZUS social 21,459.48 + health 9,966.96 + Labor Fund 1,661.64 + 12% lump-sum tax 27,714.84 = 60,802.92 PLN → 23.6%. Expenses don't reduce ryczałt.
United Statesstronger
18.1%
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Best eligible scheme us-sole-proprietor-federal at €60,000 = $68,394 (ECB 1.1399 USD/EUR, 2026-07-02) with 10% expenses. Net profit $61,554.60; self-employment tax 15.3% on 92.35% of it = $8,697.38; half deducted, giving AGI $57,205.91; less the $16,100 standard deduction and a §199A deduction of $8,221.18 leaves taxable income $32,884.73, taxed $3,698.17. Total levies $12,395.55 / $68,394 = 18.1%. This is federal tax only, which is the whole story just in the nine states that levy no income tax on earned income.
- Notes
- The single number hides the widest internal spread of any country in this dataset. The same freelancer pays 18.1% in Texas or Florida, 20.5% in California (us-sole-proprietor-california) and 24.4% in New York City (us-sole-proprietor-new-york-city), where state and city income taxes stack on the federal one. Read this figure as the floor available to someone free to choose their state, not as a national average. It also excludes the self-employed health-insurance deduction and retirement contributions, both of which US freelancers use heavily and both of which would lower it.
02Internet speed
Poland
42 Mbps
M-Lab NDT country aggregates for Poland
Open data
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2023
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- Median of 343 daily country medians, 563,348 tests (2023 — latest full year in M-Lab's public stats API; 2025/2026 files not yet published).
- Notes
- M-Lab NDT is single-stream and reads well below Ookla-style figures — comparable only within this criterion.
United Statesstronger
85 Mbps
M-Lab NDT country aggregates for the United States
Open data
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2023
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Median of the 344 daily country-median download values for US in 2023, which ranged 43.9–89.1 Mbps. M-Lab NDT is a single-stream test and reads well below advertised or Ookla-style figures — comparable only within this criterion. 2023 is the latest full year in M-Lab's public statistics API; the 2024 file stops on 26 March.
- Notes
- The highest reading of any country in this dataset on this metric — roughly three times Italy's — and it reflects a cable and fibre market that competes on headline speed. What the median hides is the price and the choice: monthly costs for gigabit service run well above European levels, and a large share of addresses have exactly one wired provider. Rural coverage remains the weak spot, though federal broadband funding is being deployed against it.
03English proficiency
Poland
Very high
EF EPI 2025 (rank 15/123, score 600 — Very High band)
Research
- Data as of
- Nov 1, 2025
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Notes
- Own band informed by EF EPI (attribution: EF Education First); English is broadly workable in cities and the service sector, less so in offices/government.
United Statesstronger
Native
Official source
- Data as of
- Mar 1, 2025
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Notes
- English is the language of government, healthcare, housing and services throughout the country, and since March 2025 it is also the designated official language at federal level — the first such designation in US history. Spanish is a genuine second language of daily life in parts of the south-west, Florida and large cities, and federal agencies still provide multilingual services, but nothing about daily life requires another language.
04Cost of living (single, excl. rent)
Polandstronger
$753/mo
GUS — Household Budget Survey 2024 (one-person households), CPI-uplifted
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- May 31, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- GUS one-person household consumer spending 2,888.89 PLN/mo (2024) minus actual-rentals line 235.10 → 2,653.79 PLN; uplifted by CPI (+3.6% 2025 avg, +3.1% y/y May 2026) → ≈2,835 PLN; converted at 3.7635 PLN/USD (ECB 2026-07-02). Cross-checked against Eurostat price-level indices (PL ≈ 72% of EU27).
United States
$1,741/mo
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Consumer Expenditure Survey 2024, all consumer units: average annual expenditures $78,535 across an average 2.4 persons. Removing shelter ($16,317, the rent-equivalent line), personal insurance and pensions ($9,797, which is saving rather than consumption) and cash contributions ($2,292, which are transfers) leaves $50,129 of consumption. Divided by 2.4 people and by 12 months = $1,740.59 per person per month.
- Notes
- Per-capita basis, to match how Italy, Spain, Czechia, Austria and France are computed in this dataset. The BLS also publishes the real one-person consumer unit, which is what a solo mover actually faces: $48,794 a year, or $29,359 after removing the same three lines — about $2,447 a month excluding rent, 41% above the per-capita figure because a person living alone has no household economies of scale. Read $1,741 as the comparable cross-country number and $2,447 as the realistic personal one. Both include US health spending, which is why every line involving healthcare runs far above the European entries.
05Domestic delivery quality
Poland
Excellent
InPost official news / carrier service pages (composite)
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2025
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- InPost >28,000 parcel lockers (end-2025) with 98% next-day delivery and 763M parcels/yr; ORLEN Paczka ~14k pickup points; Poczta Polska 7.6k offices + 14.3k parcel points; DPD/DHL/GLS/UPS/FedEx nationwide. Next-day is the domestic norm.
United States
Excellent
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Aug 1, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Classified from carrier service standards: USPS delivers to every address in the country including PO boxes and rural routes, with Priority Mail at 1–3 days and Ground Advantage at 2–5; UPS and FedEx both offer guaranteed next-day air nationwide with real-time tracking as standard; Amazon Logistics reaches a large majority of the population with same-day or next-day delivery. Rated 'excellent' on the strength of nationwide next-day availability and universal address coverage, despite a parcel-locker network that is thinner than Poland's or France's — Amazon Lockers and Hub apartment lockers exist in metros but there is no dense third-party locker estate.
- Notes
- Cash on delivery is effectively extinct in US consumer e-commerce, unlike Italy or Mexico; card or account payment is assumed. Delivery to the door is the default even in apartment buildings, and package theft from doorsteps is a real and widely reported problem in cities.
Family
Relocating with a partner and school-age children.
Poland fits better — 2 of 3
01Homicide rate
Polandstronger
0.69/100k
Eurostat — police-recorded intentional homicide (ICCS 0101)
Open data
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Notes
- Completed homicides. UNODC latest (2023): 0.80 per 100k. Polish police's ~503 'zabójstwa' (2024) includes attempts.
United States
5.1/100k
Bureau of Justice Statistics and FBI — Crime Known to Law Enforcement, 2024 (NCJ 310856), Table 1
Official source
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Notes
- 17,420 homicides in 2024, a rate of 5.1 per 100,000 — down sharply from 6.1 in 2023, continuing the retreat from the 2020–21 spike. Still several times the Western European level: Italy records 0.6, and no European country in this dataset is above 1.2. The national figure also hides an enormous internal range: New York State records 2.7 and California 4.2, while several southern states run above 8. Estimated by the BJS/FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System Estimation Program from agencies covering about 96% of the population.
02Private healthcare cost
Polandstronger
$1,600/yr
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jul 3, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- Comprehensive private plans that include inpatient/hospital cover — top-tier LuxMed/Medicover subscriptions (own or partner hospitals) and standalone health insurance (Signal Iduna, Allianz Zdrowie, PZU) — run ≈400–700 PLN/month. Healthy-35-year-old midpoint ≈ 500 PLN/mo ≈ 6,000 PLN/yr ≈ $1,595 at 3.7635 PLN/USD (range ≈ $1,275–$2,230). Premiums are quoted on request, so this is a curated market midpoint, not a public engine quote.
- Notes
- Residents are covered by mandatory public insurance (NFZ); private cover is optional. Most people buy only a cheaper OUTPATIENT subscription (LuxMed/Medicover ≈150–250 PLN/mo ≈ $600/yr) and use the public system for hospital care. This figure is the with-inpatient comprehensive tier, chosen to be comparable with other countries' comprehensive plans (the earlier $603 was an outpatient-only subscription mislabelled as comprehensive).
United States
$8,892/yr
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jan 15, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- CMS reports an average monthly premium of $741 before advance premium tax credits across the 23,130,860 people who selected a plan for 2026 through HealthCare.gov and the state exchanges; ×12 = $8,892 a year. Average premium after tax credits is $178 a month.
- Notes
- Basis differs from the other countries here and the difference matters. This is an enrollee-weighted average across all ages and all metal levels, not a quote for a healthy 35-year-old: the marketplace risk pool skews old (41% of enrollees are 45 or over), and the Affordable Care Act lets insurers charge the oldest adults up to three times the youngest, so a 35-year-old pays meaningfully less than $741 a month. No age adjustment was applied because CMS's default uniform age-rating curve was not retrievable at the verification date. Two further caveats: most enrollees do not pay the sticker price — premium tax credits cut the average to $178 a month — and this is individual-market insurance with deductibles and coinsurance on top, not the comprehensive low-deductible cover the other entries quote. Even discounted for all of that, US health cover is the most expensive in this dataset by a wide margin, and it is the single largest fixed cost a freelancer moving to the United States takes on.
03English proficiency
Poland
Very high
EF EPI 2025 (rank 15/123, score 600 — Very High band)
Research
- Data as of
- Nov 1, 2025
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Notes
- Own band informed by EF EPI (attribution: EF Education First); English is broadly workable in cities and the service sector, less so in offices/government.
United Statesstronger
Native
Official source
- Data as of
- Mar 1, 2025
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Notes
- English is the language of government, healthcare, housing and services throughout the country, and since March 2025 it is also the designated official language at federal level — the first such designation in US history. Spanish is a genuine second language of daily life in parts of the south-west, Florida and large cities, and federal agencies still provide multilingual services, but nothing about daily life requires another language.
Money & crypto
Optimising tax, banking and crypto rules.
A close call for this plan
01Crypto regulation
Poland
Legal regulated
Polish tax authority — disposal of virtual currencies (PIT-38, 19%)
Official source
- Data as of
- Jul 1, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Notes
- Holding/trading legal for individuals; 19% flat tax on disposal gains (crypto-to-crypto swaps untaxed). EU MiCA applies; Poland's domestic implementing act was vetoed (latest 2026-06-11), so local CASP licensing is stalled — EU-passported providers serve the market.
United States
Legal regulated
Official source
- Data as of
- Aug 1, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Notes
- Holding, trading and spending crypto is legal throughout the United States and banking access is normal. Tax treatment is the friction rather than the legality: digital assets are property, so every disposal — including paying for something in crypto or swapping one token for another — is a taxable event producing capital gain or loss, and every federal return asks a digital-asset question on its first page. Exchanges are regulated at both federal level (FinCEN money-services-business registration and anti-money-laundering rules) and state level (New York's BitLicense is the strictest), and brokers now report customer transactions to the IRS. Classified 'legal-regulated' rather than 'legal-friendly' because nothing about the tax treatment is favourable: there is no de minimis exemption for small payments and no long-term holding relief beyond the ordinary capital-gains rates.
02Financial control level
Polandstronger
Low
biznes.gov.pl — cash payment limits (art. 19 Prawo przedsiębiorców)
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- May 3, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- Composite: no currency/capital controls for EU/OECD flows (Prawo dewizowe, Dz.U. 2024 poz. 1131); PLN fully convertible; B2B cash cap 15,000 PLN per transaction, no consumer cash limit; no FBAR-style foreign-account disclosure (NBP statistical reporting only above 7M PLN of foreign assets); standard EU CRS via banks.
United States
Moderate
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Aug 1, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Composite. No capital or currency controls: the dollar is fully convertible and personal funds move in and out freely, which is the 'low' end of this scale. Against that: reporting is unusually broad. US persons must file an FBAR whenever foreign financial accounts exceed $10,000 in aggregate at any point in the year, FATCA obliges foreign banks worldwide to identify US account holders, currency of $10,000 or more must be declared when crossing the border, and citizens and permanent residents are taxed on worldwide income wherever they live — a rule almost no other country applies. Banking access for a newly arrived foreigner is workable but slow, generally requiring an SSN or ITIN. Rated 'moderate': money moves freely, but it is watched more closely than in most of the countries here, and the tax net follows you out of the country.
- Notes
- The worldwide-taxation rule is the one to understand before taking a green card. Permanent residents remain US taxpayers on global income for as long as they hold the status, whether or not they live in the United States, and formally abandoning it can trigger an expatriation tax.
03Freelancer tax burden
Poland
23.6%
SettleMetric tax engine over official 2026 rules (biznes.gov.pl)
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- Best eligible scheme pl-ryczalt-it-12 at €60,000 revenue = 257,400 PLN (ECB 4.29): ZUS social 21,459.48 + health 9,966.96 + Labor Fund 1,661.64 + 12% lump-sum tax 27,714.84 = 60,802.92 PLN → 23.6%. Expenses don't reduce ryczałt.
United Statesstronger
18.1%
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Best eligible scheme us-sole-proprietor-federal at €60,000 = $68,394 (ECB 1.1399 USD/EUR, 2026-07-02) with 10% expenses. Net profit $61,554.60; self-employment tax 15.3% on 92.35% of it = $8,697.38; half deducted, giving AGI $57,205.91; less the $16,100 standard deduction and a §199A deduction of $8,221.18 leaves taxable income $32,884.73, taxed $3,698.17. Total levies $12,395.55 / $68,394 = 18.1%. This is federal tax only, which is the whole story just in the nine states that levy no income tax on earned income.
- Notes
- The single number hides the widest internal spread of any country in this dataset. The same freelancer pays 18.1% in Texas or Florida, 20.5% in California (us-sole-proprietor-california) and 24.4% in New York City (us-sole-proprietor-new-york-city), where state and city income taxes stack on the federal one. Read this figure as the floor available to someone free to choose their state, not as a national average. It also excludes the self-employed health-insurance deduction and retirement contributions, both of which US freelancers use heavily and both of which would lower it.
Calm lifestyle
Prioritising safety, air, and an easy daily life.
Poland fits better — 2 of 2
01Homicide rate
Polandstronger
0.69/100k
Eurostat — police-recorded intentional homicide (ICCS 0101)
Open data
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Notes
- Completed homicides. UNODC latest (2023): 0.80 per 100k. Polish police's ~503 'zabójstwa' (2024) includes attempts.
United States
5.1/100k
Bureau of Justice Statistics and FBI — Crime Known to Law Enforcement, 2024 (NCJ 310856), Table 1
Official source
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Notes
- 17,420 homicides in 2024, a rate of 5.1 per 100,000 — down sharply from 6.1 in 2023, continuing the retreat from the 2020–21 spike. Still several times the Western European level: Italy records 0.6, and no European country in this dataset is above 1.2. The national figure also hides an enormous internal range: New York State records 2.7 and California 4.2, while several southern states run above 8. Estimated by the BJS/FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System Estimation Program from agencies covering about 96% of the population.
02Cost of living (single, excl. rent)
Polandstronger
$753/mo
GUS — Household Budget Survey 2024 (one-person households), CPI-uplifted
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- May 31, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- GUS one-person household consumer spending 2,888.89 PLN/mo (2024) minus actual-rentals line 235.10 → 2,653.79 PLN; uplifted by CPI (+3.6% 2025 avg, +3.1% y/y May 2026) → ≈2,835 PLN; converted at 3.7635 PLN/USD (ECB 2026-07-02). Cross-checked against Eurostat price-level indices (PL ≈ 72% of EU27).
United States
$1,741/mo
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Consumer Expenditure Survey 2024, all consumer units: average annual expenditures $78,535 across an average 2.4 persons. Removing shelter ($16,317, the rent-equivalent line), personal insurance and pensions ($9,797, which is saving rather than consumption) and cash contributions ($2,292, which are transfers) leaves $50,129 of consumption. Divided by 2.4 people and by 12 months = $1,740.59 per person per month.
- Notes
- Per-capita basis, to match how Italy, Spain, Czechia, Austria and France are computed in this dataset. The BLS also publishes the real one-person consumer unit, which is what a solo mover actually faces: $48,794 a year, or $29,359 after removing the same three lines — about $2,447 a month excluding rent, 41% above the per-capita figure because a person living alone has no household economies of scale. Read $1,741 as the comparable cross-country number and $2,447 as the realistic personal one. Both include US health spending, which is why every line involving healthcare runs far above the European entries.
Details
Taxes
CriterionPolandUnited States
01+−Freelancer tax burden% effective burden at €60k/year self-employed profilePoland23.6United Statesstronger18.1
What this measures
Effective total burden (income tax + mandatory social and health contributions) for a solo IT freelancer with €60,000/year revenue and 10% deductible expenses, using the most favourable eligible scheme in the country's tax-schemes data. Computed by the SettleMetric tax engine; recorded as a curated value with the winning scheme id in method.
Lower is better· % effective burden at €60k/year self-employed profile· re-verified every 365 days
Poland
SettleMetric tax engine over official 2026 rules (biznes.gov.pl)
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- Best eligible scheme pl-ryczalt-it-12 at €60,000 revenue = 257,400 PLN (ECB 4.29): ZUS social 21,459.48 + health 9,966.96 + Labor Fund 1,661.64 + 12% lump-sum tax 27,714.84 = 60,802.92 PLN → 23.6%. Expenses don't reduce ryczałt.
United States
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jan 1, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Best eligible scheme us-sole-proprietor-federal at €60,000 = $68,394 (ECB 1.1399 USD/EUR, 2026-07-02) with 10% expenses. Net profit $61,554.60; self-employment tax 15.3% on 92.35% of it = $8,697.38; half deducted, giving AGI $57,205.91; less the $16,100 standard deduction and a §199A deduction of $8,221.18 leaves taxable income $32,884.73, taxed $3,698.17. Total levies $12,395.55 / $68,394 = 18.1%. This is federal tax only, which is the whole story just in the nine states that levy no income tax on earned income.
- Notes
- The single number hides the widest internal spread of any country in this dataset. The same freelancer pays 18.1% in Texas or Florida, 20.5% in California (us-sole-proprietor-california) and 24.4% in New York City (us-sole-proprietor-new-york-city), where state and city income taxes stack on the federal one. Read this figure as the floor available to someone free to choose their state, not as a national average. It also excludes the self-employed health-insurance deduction and retirement contributions, both of which US freelancers use heavily and both of which would lower it.
Legalization
CriterionPolandUnited States
01+−Remote-work legalization easePolandstrongerLong stay pathUnited StatesShort stay only
What this measures
Best available legalization route for a location-independent earner with a median (non-EU, non-US) passport, classified from this country's legalization-paths data: dedicated digital-nomad visa; general freelance/self-employment permit; realistic long-stay path (e.g. renewable temporary residence); only short visa-free/tourist stays; effectively none.
Rated by category· re-verified every 180 days
Poland
Wielkopolska Voivodeship Office — business-activity residence permit
Official source
- Data as of
- Jul 3, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Notes
- No digital nomad visa (verified absent on gov.pl); Poland Business Harbour suspended since Jan 2024. Realistic long-stay route: temporary residence via business activity (renewable, up to 3 years) — but sole-proprietorship registration is limited to specific statuses, so most non-EU/non-US freelancers route through a company.
United States
U.S. Customs and Border Protection — Visa Waiver Program; 8 CFR 214.2(b) visitor admissions
Official source
- Data as of
- Aug 1, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Notes
- The United States has no digital-nomad visa and no freelance or self-employment permit — the concept does not exist in US immigration law, which authorises work through a sponsoring employer, a treaty investment, or an immigrant petition. For a location-independent earner with an ordinary passport, the realistic ceiling is a visitor stay: 90 days under the Visa Waiver Program, or up to six months on a B-1/B-2 visa, neither of which authorises work in the United States. The genuine long-stay routes all have a demanding filter — E-2 requires a treaty nationality plus substantial invested capital, O-1A and EB-1A require documented national or international acclaim, and the diversity lottery is a lottery. See data/countries/us/legalization.json for all six.
Cost of living
CriterionPolandUnited States
01+−Cost of living (single, excl. rent)USD/month, single person, excluding rentPolandstronger753United States1,741
What this measures
Monthly cost of a defined single-person basket (food, transport, utilities, mobile+internet, modest leisure) excluding rent, curated from national statistics office price data and large local retailers' published prices, converted to USD at the ECB rate recorded in fx-rates. The method field of each value itemizes the basket inputs.
Lower is better· USD/month, single person, excluding rent· re-verified every 365 days
Poland
GUS — Household Budget Survey 2024 (one-person households), CPI-uplifted
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- May 31, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- GUS one-person household consumer spending 2,888.89 PLN/mo (2024) minus actual-rentals line 235.10 → 2,653.79 PLN; uplifted by CPI (+3.6% 2025 avg, +3.1% y/y May 2026) → ≈2,835 PLN; converted at 3.7635 PLN/USD (ECB 2026-07-02). Cross-checked against Eurostat price-level indices (PL ≈ 72% of EU27).
United States
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Consumer Expenditure Survey 2024, all consumer units: average annual expenditures $78,535 across an average 2.4 persons. Removing shelter ($16,317, the rent-equivalent line), personal insurance and pensions ($9,797, which is saving rather than consumption) and cash contributions ($2,292, which are transfers) leaves $50,129 of consumption. Divided by 2.4 people and by 12 months = $1,740.59 per person per month.
- Notes
- Per-capita basis, to match how Italy, Spain, Czechia, Austria and France are computed in this dataset. The BLS also publishes the real one-person consumer unit, which is what a solo mover actually faces: $48,794 a year, or $29,359 after removing the same three lines — about $2,447 a month excluding rent, 41% above the per-capita figure because a person living alone has no household economies of scale. Read $1,741 as the comparable cross-country number and $2,447 as the realistic personal one. Both include US health spending, which is why every line involving healthcare runs far above the European entries.
Monthly spending by category (excl. rent)
Poland
United States
GUS Household Budget Survey 2024 (one-person households), CPI-uplifted
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- May 31, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- GUS 2024 one-person household spending by COICOP category, minus the actual-rentals line, CPI-uplifted to mid-2026 (×1.068) and converted at 3.7635 PLN/USD. Categories sum to the ~$753/mo cost-of-living aggregate. National average — city living runs somewhat higher.
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Each 2024 all-consumer-unit annual category mean divided by 2.4 persons and 12 months, on the same basis as the headline figure. Transport $13,318; food at home $6,224; healthcare $6,197; entertainment $3,609 + education $1,569 + reading $125; housing less shelter and utilities $5,213; utilities $4,736; food away from home $3,945; personal care $978 + apparel $2,001; miscellaneous $1,218; alcohol $643 + tobacco $352. Shelter, pensions and cash contributions are excluded. Items sum to $1,739, two dollars below the headline through rounding.
- Notes
- Transport is the largest line and the one that most surprises people arriving from Europe: it is dominated by vehicle purchase, insurance and fuel, because outside a handful of cities a car is not optional. Health at $215 a month per person is roughly three times the European entries in this dataset, and that is out-of-pocket spending on top of insurance premiums, not instead of them.
01Transport
Polandcheaper
$59
United States
$462
02Food & non-alcoholic drinks
Polandcheaper
$205
United States
$216
03Health (out-of-pocket + insurance)
Poland
—
United States
$215
04Restaurants & eating out
Polandcheaper
$59
United States
$137
05Recreation, culture & education
Poland
—
United States
$184
06Household goods, services & furnishings
Poland
—
United States
$181
07Utilities (electricity, gas, water, fuels)
Poland
—
United States
$164
08Utilities (electricity, gas, water)
Poland
$147
United States
—
09Personal care & clothing
Poland
—
United States
$103
10Other (alcohol, tobacco, misc.)
Poland
$77
United States
—
11Recreation & culture
Poland
$55
United States
—
12Health (out-of-pocket)
Poland
$55
United States
—
13Miscellaneous
Poland
—
United States
$42
14Household goods
Poland
$38
United States
—
15Alcohol & tobacco
Poland
—
United States
$35
16Communications
Poland
$32
United States
—
17Clothing & footwear
Poland
$26
United States
—
Total (excl. rent)
Poland$753/mo
United States$1,739/mo
Housing
Rent by apartment type
Asking rent, central price with outside-centre in parentheses ($/mo).
Poland
United States
SettleMetric — population-weighted average of covered cities (Kraków, Warsaw)
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jul 3, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- Population-weighted mean of the rent-breakdown matrices of Kraków, Warsaw; each cell averages the cities that report it. See each city page for its exact local matrix.
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- May 21, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Population-weighted mean of the rent-breakdown matrices of Los Angeles, New York City, Washington, D.C.; each cell averages the cities that report it. See each city page for its exact local matrix.
01Studio
Polandcheaper
$853$534 outside
United States
$3,199$2,053 outside
021-bedroom
Polandcheaper
$1,174$735 outside
United States
$3,412$2,183 outside
032-bedroom
Polandcheaper
$1,632$1,019 outside
United States
$3,886$2,482 outside
043-bedroom
Polandcheaper
$2,193$1,370 outside
United States
$4,887$3,116 outside
Safety
CriterionPolandUnited States
01+−Homicide rateintentional homicides per 100,000/yearPolandstronger0.7United States5.1
What this measures
Intentional homicide victims per 100,000 population, latest available year. Country level: UNODC national series. City level: official municipal/police statistics where published; otherwise null (country value shown as country-level).
Lower is better· intentional homicides per 100,000/year· re-verified every 730 days
Poland
Eurostat — police-recorded intentional homicide (ICCS 0101)
Open data
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Notes
- Completed homicides. UNODC latest (2023): 0.80 per 100k. Polish police's ~503 'zabójstwa' (2024) includes attempts.
United States
Bureau of Justice Statistics and FBI — Crime Known to Law Enforcement, 2024 (NCJ 310856), Table 1
Official source
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2024
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Notes
- 17,420 homicides in 2024, a rate of 5.1 per 100,000 — down sharply from 6.1 in 2023, continuing the retreat from the 2020–21 spike. Still several times the Western European level: Italy records 0.6, and no European country in this dataset is above 1.2. The national figure also hides an enormous internal range: New York State records 2.7 and California 4.2, while several southern states run above 8. Estimated by the BJS/FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System Estimation Program from agencies covering about 96% of the population.
Healthcare
CriterionPolandUnited States
01+−Private healthcare costUSD/year, comprehensive private insurance premium, healthy 35-year-oldPolandstronger1,600United States8,892
What this measures
Median of at least three publicly quoted annual premiums for comprehensive private medical insurance (outpatient + inpatient, ~$100k coverage, small deductible) for a healthy 35-year-old resident foreigner, from local and international insurers. Method field lists the insurers quoted.
Lower is better· USD/year, comprehensive private insurance premium, healthy 35-year-old· re-verified every 365 days
Poland
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jul 3, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- Comprehensive private plans that include inpatient/hospital cover — top-tier LuxMed/Medicover subscriptions (own or partner hospitals) and standalone health insurance (Signal Iduna, Allianz Zdrowie, PZU) — run ≈400–700 PLN/month. Healthy-35-year-old midpoint ≈ 500 PLN/mo ≈ 6,000 PLN/yr ≈ $1,595 at 3.7635 PLN/USD (range ≈ $1,275–$2,230). Premiums are quoted on request, so this is a curated market midpoint, not a public engine quote.
- Notes
- Residents are covered by mandatory public insurance (NFZ); private cover is optional. Most people buy only a cheaper OUTPATIENT subscription (LuxMed/Medicover ≈150–250 PLN/mo ≈ $600/yr) and use the public system for hospital care. This figure is the with-inpatient comprehensive tier, chosen to be comparable with other countries' comprehensive plans (the earlier $603 was an outpatient-only subscription mislabelled as comprehensive).
United States
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Jan 15, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- CMS reports an average monthly premium of $741 before advance premium tax credits across the 23,130,860 people who selected a plan for 2026 through HealthCare.gov and the state exchanges; ×12 = $8,892 a year. Average premium after tax credits is $178 a month.
- Notes
- Basis differs from the other countries here and the difference matters. This is an enrollee-weighted average across all ages and all metal levels, not a quote for a healthy 35-year-old: the marketplace risk pool skews old (41% of enrollees are 45 or over), and the Affordable Care Act lets insurers charge the oldest adults up to three times the youngest, so a 35-year-old pays meaningfully less than $741 a month. No age adjustment was applied because CMS's default uniform age-rating curve was not retrievable at the verification date. Two further caveats: most enrollees do not pay the sticker price — premium tax credits cut the average to $178 a month — and this is individual-market insurance with deductibles and coinsurance on top, not the comprehensive low-deductible cover the other entries quote. Even discounted for all of that, US health cover is the most expensive in this dataset by a wide margin, and it is the single largest fixed cost a freelancer moving to the United States takes on.
Money & crypto
CriterionPolandUnited States
01+−Crypto regulationPolandLegal regulatedUnited StatesLegal regulated
What this measures
Own classification of the legal status of holding, trading and cashing out cryptocurrency for individuals: legal-friendly (legal with clear, favourable rules or explicit tax exemptions), legal-regulated (legal under standard licensing/AML and taxation), restricted (partial bans: payments or banking access prohibited), banned (holding/trading prohibited). Classified from national regulators' and central banks' official positions.
Rated by category· re-verified every 180 days
Poland
Polish tax authority — disposal of virtual currencies (PIT-38, 19%)
Official source
- Data as of
- Jul 1, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Notes
- Holding/trading legal for individuals; 19% flat tax on disposal gains (crypto-to-crypto swaps untaxed). EU MiCA applies; Poland's domestic implementing act was vetoed (latest 2026-06-11), so local CASP licensing is stalled — EU-passported providers serve the market.
United States
Official source
- Data as of
- Aug 1, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Notes
- Holding, trading and spending crypto is legal throughout the United States and banking access is normal. Tax treatment is the friction rather than the legality: digital assets are property, so every disposal — including paying for something in crypto or swapping one token for another — is a taxable event producing capital gain or loss, and every federal return asks a digital-asset question on its first page. Exchanges are regulated at both federal level (FinCEN money-services-business registration and anti-money-laundering rules) and state level (New York's BitLicense is the strictest), and brokers now report customer transactions to the IRS. Classified 'legal-regulated' rather than 'legal-friendly' because nothing about the tax treatment is favourable: there is no de minimis exemption for small payments and no long-term holding relief beyond the ordinary capital-gains rates.
02+−Financial control levelPolandstrongerLowUnited StatesModerate
What this measures
Own composite of state control over personal money flows: currency/capital controls (IMF AREAER), restrictions on foreign accounts and transfers, mandatory income declaration scope for residents, cash payment limits, banking access for foreigners. Low = free movement of personal funds and easy non-resident banking; very-high = strict capital controls and pervasive reporting. Method field on each value lists the inputs used.
Rated by category· re-verified every 365 days
Poland
biznes.gov.pl — cash payment limits (art. 19 Prawo przedsiębiorców)
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- May 3, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- Composite: no currency/capital controls for EU/OECD flows (Prawo dewizowe, Dz.U. 2024 poz. 1131); PLN fully convertible; B2B cash cap 15,000 PLN per transaction, no consumer cash limit; no FBAR-style foreign-account disclosure (NBP statistical reporting only above 7M PLN of foreign assets); standard EU CRS via banks.
United States
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Aug 1, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Composite. No capital or currency controls: the dollar is fully convertible and personal funds move in and out freely, which is the 'low' end of this scale. Against that: reporting is unusually broad. US persons must file an FBAR whenever foreign financial accounts exceed $10,000 in aggregate at any point in the year, FATCA obliges foreign banks worldwide to identify US account holders, currency of $10,000 or more must be declared when crossing the border, and citizens and permanent residents are taxed on worldwide income wherever they live — a rule almost no other country applies. Banking access for a newly arrived foreigner is workable but slow, generally requiring an SSN or ITIN. Rated 'moderate': money moves freely, but it is watched more closely than in most of the countries here, and the tax net follows you out of the country.
- Notes
- The worldwide-taxation rule is the one to understand before taking a green card. Permanent residents remain US taxpayers on global income for as long as they hold the status, whether or not they live in the United States, and formally abandoning it can trigger an expatriation tax.
Infrastructure
CriterionPolandUnited States
01+−Domestic delivery qualityPolandExcellentUnited StatesExcellent
What this measures
Quality of in-country parcel delivery. excellent = nationwide next-day widely available, dense parcel-locker network, real-time tracking standard; good = 1–3 day delivery, lockers in major cities; basic = reliable but slow (3–7 days), mostly to-door or post-office pickup; poor = unreliable delivery, street addresses often unusable, informal workarounds common. Classified from official service/coverage data of the national postal operator and the two largest private carriers; inputs itemized in each value's method field.
Rated by category· re-verified every 730 days
Poland
InPost official news / carrier service pages (composite)
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2025
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- InPost >28,000 parcel lockers (end-2025) with 98% next-day delivery and 763M parcels/yr; ORLEN Paczka ~14k pickup points; Poczta Polska 7.6k offices + 14.3k parcel points; DPD/DHL/GLS/UPS/FedEx nationwide. Next-day is the domestic norm.
United States
Curated by SettleMetric
- Data as of
- Aug 1, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Classified from carrier service standards: USPS delivers to every address in the country including PO boxes and rural routes, with Priority Mail at 1–3 days and Ground Advantage at 2–5; UPS and FedEx both offer guaranteed next-day air nationwide with real-time tracking as standard; Amazon Logistics reaches a large majority of the population with same-day or next-day delivery. Rated 'excellent' on the strength of nationwide next-day availability and universal address coverage, despite a parcel-locker network that is thinner than Poland's or France's — Amazon Lockers and Hub apartment lockers exist in metros but there is no dense third-party locker estate.
- Notes
- Cash on delivery is effectively extinct in US consumer e-commerce, unlike Italy or Mexico; card or account payment is assumed. Delivery to the door is the default even in apartment buildings, and package theft from doorsteps is a real and widely reported problem in cities.
02+−International delivery easePolandstrongerMinor frictionUnited StatesSignificant friction
What this measures
Ease of receiving goods from abroad. seamless = major international carriers deliver door-to-door, meaningful duty-free de-minimis threshold, customs clearance predictable in days; minor-friction = carriers present but low de-minimis, extra paperwork or routine delays; significant-friction = frequent customs holds, high brokerage fees, some marketplaces refuse to ship; unreliable = parcels regularly lost or blocked, informal import channels dominate. De-minimis thresholds and clearance rules from the national customs authority (official source, cite the regulation); carrier presence from carriers' official pages.
Rated by category· re-verified every 365 days
Poland
European Commission — removal of the €150 customs duty exemption (Reg. EU 2026/382)
Official source
- Data as of
- Jul 1, 2026
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Notes
- Intra-EU shipping is frictionless (single market, all major carriers). Non-EU imports: the €150 duty-free threshold was removed on 2026-07-01 — a temporary flat €3/item duty applies to ≤€150 IOSS consignments (until the 2028 Customs Data Hub); VAT collected at checkout via IOSS. Predictable but no longer duty-free.
United States
Official source
- Data as of
- Feb 20, 2026
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Notes
- This changed fundamentally in 2025 and is the fact most likely to be out of date in anyone's head. The United States used to have the most generous de minimis threshold in the world — $800 duty- and tax-free per person per day — which made ordering from abroad trivially easy. Executive Order 14324 suspended duty-free de minimis treatment for all countries from 29 August 2025, and Executive Order 14388 continued the suspension in February 2026. Every inbound shipment is now dutiable regardless of value, postal shipments carry duties set by the order, and carriers charge brokerage on top. The carriers themselves are excellent and clearance is quick, so this is friction of cost and paperwork rather than unreliability — but a €40 parcel from Europe now arrives with a bill attached.
03+−Internet speedMbps, median fixed downloadPoland41.7United Statesstronger84.9
What this measures
Median fixed-broadband download speed over the trailing 6 months from M-Lab NDT open data (CC0), aggregated at country or city level. Not comparable with Ookla figures (different test methodology) — do not mix sources within this criterion.
Higher is better· Mbps, median fixed download· re-verified every 365 days
Poland
M-Lab NDT country aggregates for Poland
Open data
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2023
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Method
- Median of 343 daily country medians, 563,348 tests (2023 — latest full year in M-Lab's public stats API; 2025/2026 files not yet published).
- Notes
- M-Lab NDT is single-stream and reads well below Ookla-style figures — comparable only within this criterion.
United States
M-Lab NDT country aggregates for the United States
Open data
- Data as of
- Dec 31, 2023
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Method
- Median of the 344 daily country-median download values for US in 2023, which ranged 43.9–89.1 Mbps. M-Lab NDT is a single-stream test and reads well below advertised or Ookla-style figures — comparable only within this criterion. 2023 is the latest full year in M-Lab's public statistics API; the 2024 file stops on 26 March.
- Notes
- The highest reading of any country in this dataset on this metric — roughly three times Italy's — and it reflects a cable and fibre market that competes on headline speed. What the median hides is the price and the choice: monthly costs for gigabit service run well above European levels, and a large share of addresses have exactly one wired provider. Rural coverage remains the weak spot, though federal broadband funding is being deployed against it.
Language
CriterionPolandUnited States
01+−English proficiencyPolandVery highUnited StatesstrongerNative
What this measures
Own banding of how far English gets a resident in daily life (government offices, healthcare, housing, services). Informed by EF EPI band (research source, cited with attribution, not republished) plus official language status and service-sector realities. Values are our bands, not EF scores.
Rated by category· re-verified every 730 days
Poland
EF EPI 2025 (rank 15/123, score 600 — Very High band)
Research
- Data as of
- Nov 1, 2025
- Verified
- Jul 3, 2026
- Notes
- Own band informed by EF EPI (attribution: EF Education First); English is broadly workable in cities and the service sector, less so in offices/government.
United States
Official source
- Data as of
- Mar 1, 2025
- Verified
- Aug 1, 2026
- Notes
- English is the language of government, healthcare, housing and services throughout the country, and since March 2025 it is also the designated official language at federal level — the first such designation in US history. Spanish is a genuine second language of daily life in parts of the south-west, Florida and large cities, and federal agencies still provide multilingual services, but nothing about daily life requires another language.
Deep dives: taxes in Poland ·taxes in United States ·net-income calculator