The Polish Border Guard (Straż Graniczna) issued a late-night bulletin on 29 July 2026 announcing the temporary suspension of traffic at two secondary road crossings with Belarus: Połowce (Podlaskie) and Sławatycze (Lubelskie). The notice, posted on the official granica.gov.pl portal at 19:58 local time, confirms that neither passenger cars nor freight trucks will be processed until further notice. Although the closures affect only regional checkpoints, they funnel additional traffic toward the already-strained Terespol–Brest and Kuźnica crossings, where wait times for cars reached three hours overnight. Logistics operators told Global Mobility News that perishable cargo travelling under TIR carnets has been rerouted through Koroszczyn/Kukuryki, adding approximately 120 km to journeys bound for Warsaw and Poznań distribution hubs. The Border Guard did not cite a specific security incident, but officials privately link the move to a renewed uptick in irregular migration attempts orchestrated by Belarusian facilitators. The closures coincide with Polish parliamentary debates on extending a May decree that restricts entry to a 200-metre-wide strip along the frontier, underscoring Warsaw’s hard-line stance. For multinational companies the immediate impact is operational: posted workers commuting from Belarus, as well as HGV drivers on the EU-Asia corridor, must pivot to alternative crossings or reschedule deliveries. Employers should also verify that Belarus-based staff hold multiple-entry national visas, as once-off Schengen visas could lapse while drivers queue. Mobility advisers recommend activating “border-watch” alert systems and maintaining real-time contact with drivers via satellite trackers. The situation illustrates how quickly a local checkpoint suspension can cascade into supply-chain delays, immigration overstays and payroll complications for cross-border commuters.
