The Polish Book Institute’s second 2026 ©POLAND Translation Programme call is open now. For foreign publishers and rights teams, that makes this a workflow story, not a background funding note.
On the Institute’s main programme page, the second-call window runs from June 15, 2026, through July 15, 2026. The same page says support can cover translation from Polish into another language, copyright-license purchases, and print costs for children’s books, comics, graphic novels, or other richly illustrated works. Eligible editions may be distributed outside Poland in print, ebook, and audiobook formats.
That combination matters because it lets a small or midsize house plan the rights deal, the translation budget, and at least some production cost support inside one live application window instead of treating them as disconnected decisions.
What the programme actually covers
The Book Institute frames the programme as a tool for publishers interested in bringing Polish books into other languages. For Rex readers, the practical takeaway is that this is not only a translation subsidy in the narrow sense.
- Translation costs: the programme can cover part of the cost of translating a work from Polish into another language.
- Rights costs: it can also cover part of the cost of purchasing the copyright license.
- Print support for illustrated categories: the Institute says print costs may also qualify for children’s books, comics, graphic novels, or richly illustrated works.
The same programme page says 2026 priority languages are Scandinavian languages and Italian. That should be treated as a priority signal, not as proof that other language markets are excluded.
What publishers need ready before they open the form
The easiest way to waste a live funding window is to treat the application form as the start of the work. The Book Institute’s checklist suggests the real preparation starts earlier.
Applicants should have the following materials ready before submission:
- Basic title data. The Institute asks for the author, title, original publisher, original year of publication, and list contents for selections or anthologies.
- Translator information. Applicants need contact details and a record of past translations.
- Rights-cost detail. The application asks for information on the cost of acquiring rights, including any non-refundable down payment contained in the rights contract.
- Translation-cost detail. Publishers need page or poem counts plus the agreed rate structure.
- Print-cost detail when relevant. For illustrated categories, the form asks for the print run and the cost of printing one copy.
- A promotion and distribution plan. This is not clerical filler. The Institute explicitly asks how the book will be promoted and distributed.
- Signed contract scans. The programme page says applicants should attach a scan of the signed copyright contract and a scan of the signed translator contract.
That is a strong signal about how the Institute reads seriousness. The application is not built for speculative rights shopping. It is built for publishers that have already lined up the core legal and commercial parts of the project.
Use July 15 as the working deadline and note the mismatch
There is one detail applicants should not smooth over. As checked on June 24, 2026, the Book Institute’s main programme page and its June 2, 2026 news item both say the second call runs from June 15 to July 15. A Books From Poland mirror page currently shows July 31, 2026 instead.
For operational purposes, the safer move is to treat the Book Institute programme page as authoritative and work to the earlier date. Missing a July 15 cutoff because a mirror page carried a later one would be an avoidable error.
The application portal is live now, with account creation and login available at ptcp.bookinstitute.pl. That does not resolve the date conflict by itself, but it does confirm that the active submission system is in place.
Why this matters beyond one grant round
The Book Institute said in its June 2 notice that the programme supported 178 foreign editions in 2025 and nearly 4,000 translations overall across all editions of the programme. That scale matters because it shows the fund is not marginal industry decoration. It is established rights-and-translation infrastructure.
For publishers handling cross-border lists, that means the programme can be part of ordinary list planning: identify titles with export potential, get rights cleared early, contract the translator on terms that match the budget you can document, and build a distribution case that makes commercial sense in the target market.
The practical takeaway
If you are a foreign publisher considering a Polish title, the main question is not whether this programme exists. It is whether your rights paperwork, translator agreement, budget logic, and distribution plan are ready before July 15, 2026.
That is the disciplined way to use a live funding window like this one. Treat it as the last packaging step for a project that is already commercially and contractually coherent, not as a substitute for doing the rights work first.
For related guidance, see our translation rights checklist for authors, our Creative Europe literary translation funding guide, or contact Rex Publishing.