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On 31 July 2025 the government issued a regulation on the criteria for determining whether a protective structure has to be erected within a proposed public utility building

1. What are protective structures?

On 1 January 2025 the “Act of 5 December 2024 on Civil Protection and Civil Defence” (henceforth “the Act”) entered into force, imposing new obligations on the relevant public administration bodies (civil protection authorities, “CP”) but also on investors, developers and property owners regarding the creation and maintenance of so-called collective protection facilities (“CPF”), meant to protect the population against threats resulting from natural disasters, acts of terror, or military operations. The Act distinguishes three categories of CPF:

1. shelters – protective structures that are enclosed and hermetic and protect against most threats;
2. hideouts – protective structures that are not hermetic and protect only against some potential threats;
3. places of emergency shelter (“PES”) – facilities that do not meet the requirements for a shelter or hideout, i.e. are not protective structures, but are adapted to temporarily shelter people or protect them from certain threats.

In other words, “protective structure” is a joint term for shelters and hideouts.

2. Protective structures in public utility buildings

For developers and investors, of the greatest practical importance are provisions of Articles 93 and 94 of the Act, concerning public utility buildings (henceforth also “PUBs”), apartment buildings and underground parking garages, which in principle will enter into force from 1 January 2026. Article 93 introduces the obligation to construct protective structures (i.e. shelters or hideouts) within certain PUBs, while Article 94 introduces the obligation to ensure that PES can be created in the underground storeys of those PUBs in which the construction of protective structures is not required; in the underground storeys of apartment buildings; and in underground parking garages.

Pursuant to Article 206 of the Act, the new requirements for PUBs resulting from the above provisions will apply only to structures built in the future, namely those for which the application for a building permit or for a separate approval of an architectural and construction design or plot/site development plan, or the notification of construction or of performance of other construction works (where a building permit is not required) was submitted after 31 December 2025. This means that if the relevant applications or notifications are submitted by the end of 2025, the building will generally not be subject to the obligation to adapt it to the requirements of the Act and its executive regulations, despite the fact that it will be completed and put into operation after 31 December 2025.

3. Obligation to build protective structures in public utility buildings

Pursuant to Article 93 of the Act, protective structures (i.e. shelters or hideouts) have to be constructed within those public utility buildings in which it is both justified by the need to provide a place of shelter for people, and possible given the technical and structural solutions present in the building (e.g. the presence an underground storey), although the obligation may be waived if another protective structure located nearby already offers such a place of shelter for people from the building. The above provision applies both to publicly-owned and privately-owned public utility buildings. What are public utility buildings? Under the Regulation of the Minister of Infrastructure of 12 April 2002 on the technical conditions to be met by buildings and their location, public utility buildings are not only administrative, court, science, education, healthcare, and social care buildings, but also basically all retail buildings, office buildings, sports buildings, tourism and travel buildings, etc. As indicated above, the potential obligation to erect a protective structure will apply to new PUBs for which the building permit application (or another relevant application or notification) was submitted after 31 December 2025.

4. Executive regulation of the Council of Ministers concerning protective structures in public utility buildings

On 31 July 2025 the Council of Ministers issued a “Regulation on detailed conditions for designating public utility buildings as ones in which a protective structure has to be provided” (Journal of Laws of 2025, item 1070; henceforth “the Regulation”). It sets out criteria for determining whether a planned PUB should include a protective structure or not.

Under the Regulation, the competent CP authority designates a planned PUB as one in which a protective structure has to be constructed if the PUB has at least one underground storey and at the same time belongs to one of the following categories:

• buildings (regardless of their capacity and surface area) intended in whole or in (any) part for the needs of: (a) public administration or the judiciary, in which an administrative body or a court is located, excluding buildings located in enclosed areas, in which public utility tasks are not performed, and (b) a hospital as defined by the Act on Medical Activity;
• buildings (regardless of their capacity and surface area) permanently used in whole or in (any) part by civil protection entities referred to e.g. in Article 17(1)(1)-(36) of the Act, i.e., among others, the Government Centre for Security (RCB), the Fire Guard (SP), other guards and inspections, rescue services, certain state agencies and farms, medical entities, and other public institutions and organisations (or institutions and organisations that perform public functions);
• buildings with a capacity of more than 50 people (i.e., buildings in which more than 50 people can stay at the same time) that are intended (implicitly – in whole) for the purposes of: (a) medical activity or social assistance (e.g. health clinics); (b) science, higher education, education or upbringing (e.g. schools and universities); (c) offices (any office buildings); (d) culture, tourism or sport (e.g. cultural centres, hotels, stadiums)
• other public utility buildings or parts thereof which: (a) have a capacity of more than 100 people or (b) have a surface area exceeding 2,500 m².

A planned public utility building cannot be designated by the competent CP authority as one in which a protective structure has to be constructed if at least one of the following conditions is met in relation to the building:

• it is not possible, in the building, to meet the requirements for a shelter or hideout referred to in Article 89 of the Act – i.e., strictly technical conditions, as well as conditions of use and conditions for the location of protective structures, which in turn will be specified in a subsequent executive regulation to the Act; we should assume that, in accordance with Article 93(1) of the Act, this lack of possibility follows from the technical and structural solutions present in the building, however the wording used is much broader than that;
• there is no need to provide a shelter or hideout of a given capacity in the building – presumably based on a comparison between the total capacity needed in a given area, as planned by the CP authority, and the capacity already available in the area (cf. Article 90 of the Act);
• there is no economic justification for the investment necessary to provide a shelter or hideout – what is meant here, presumably, is that there should be a reasonable ratio between the cost of the protective structure and the cost of the entire building project;
• there is an unacceptable risk associated with potential emergencies or catastrophic situations, such as industrial accidents or natural disasters, that could affect the safety of people staying in such a shelter or hideout – what is meant here are risks arising from the building’s location (e.g. in an area prone to flooding) or from certain features of the building itself (e.g. the presence of potentially hazardous installations or tanks);
• it is possible to provide shelter for the users of the building in question in a protective structure located in another building that is situated within up to 500 metres of the building in question, measured along the expected paths of movement of people from the exits from the building in question to the entrance to the building where the available protective structure is located;
• the building in question is in the possession of a militarised unit or a unit intended for militarisation, with the exception of organisational units subordinate to and supervised by the Minister of Internal Affairs.

As noted, the Regulation explicitly grants the power to designate a planned PUB as one in which a protective structure should be constructed to the competent CP authority, something that was not clear based on the provisions of the Act itself. At the same time, the Regulation defines in a rather categorical manner the criteria to decide whether the obligation to construct a protective structure in a PUB arises or not, leaving the CP authority no room for discretion in this matter. On the other hand, however, the condition of “lack of economic justification,” while definitely a sensible and important one, may nevertheless generate controversy in its practical application.

In contrast to its draft text, the Regulation no longer authorises the CP authority to specify – after concluding that a protective structure has to be constructed in a building – the required capacity of this structure, i.e. the number of people to whom it is to provide shelter. Nor does it authorise the CP authority to specify the type of the protective structure (i.e. shelter or hideout), or the structure’s resistance category.

It should be stated that both the Act and the Regulation still lack important procedural provisions on the determination whether the obligation to construct a protective structure arises, including the procedural mode and legal form of the CP authority’s conclusion in this matter (“decision” vs. “agreement”), or the project stage at which the determination is to be made. Given that, under Article 92 of the Act, protective structures are to be designed and erected in a way that ensures compliance with applicable technical conditions, conditions of use, and conditions for the location of protective structures laid down in relevant executive regulations, the final determination as to whether the obligation to construct a protective structure arises or not should be made by the competent CP authority early enough in the construction project cycle so that, if the obligation arises, it is possible to apply the appropriate technical conditions into the design and construction of the building.

5. Concluding remarks

The Regulation lays down concrete, and, it seems, well-thought-out criteria to be applied by civil protection authorities in deciding whether a proposed public utility building should include a protective structure or not. At the same time, the Regulation does not authorise civil protection authorities to specify the type of the protective structure (shelter or hideout), its resistance category, capacity, and other relevant parameters.

The Regulation also lacks other important procedural provisions that would give a full picture of exactly how, and at what stage of the project, the determination will be made whether a building should include a protective structure.

The hope is that the above gaps will be swiftly rectified through an amendment to the Construction Law or to the Act itself. Otherwise, it is hard to see how the new rules can be properly applied in practice.