Does your company need a DGSA? The duty, exemptions and liability in Poland

In brief

• A DGSA must be appointed by every company taking part in the carriage of dangerous goods: consignor, packer, loader, filler, carrier and unloader.
• Polish law exempts only companies that carry quantities below the ADR limits every single time. One larger load in a year is enough to trigger the duty.
• The adviser can be an employee or an outside specialist, but must hold a valid safety adviser certificate for road transport.
• Failing to appoint an adviser carries a fine of PLN 5,000 under Annex 1 to the Polish Act on the transport of dangerous goods.

Who must appoint a DGSA?

DGSA stands for Dangerous Goods Safety Adviser. Polish law calls this function doradca do spraw bezpieczeństwa przewozu towarów niebezpiecznych. ADR 1.8.3.1 is clear: an adviser must be appointed by each undertaking whose activities include the consigning or the carriage of dangerous goods by road, or the related packing, loading, filling or unloading.

The Polish Act of 19 August 2011 on the transport of dangerous goods (the Act) repeats this duty in Article 15(1). A participant in the carriage appoints, "at its own expense, at least one adviser" competent for the type of transport and the operations it performs. A participant is any party named in ADR, not only a company with lorries.

This is where companies most often get it wrong. A paint warehouse near Katowice that does not own a single vehicle, but packs and loads pallets of UN 1263 paint onto a carrier's trucks, also needs an adviser. So does a fuel station where an employee handles the emptying of the tank.

The exemption: what ADR says and what Polish law says

ADR 1.8.3.2 allows states to exempt two groups of companies from the duty. The first is undertakings whose activities concern quantities no greater than the limits in 1.1.3.6, 1.7.1.4 and Chapters 3.3, 3.4 and 3.5. The second is companies for which dangerous goods are neither their main nor a secondary activity and which only occasionally take part in national carriage posing little risk to the environment.

Poland took up only the first option. Article 15(2) of the Act says that the duty to appoint an adviser "does not apply to participants carrying dangerous goods each time in quantities smaller than those specified in ADR". The Act has no exemption for companies that act only occasionally.

The words "each time" make all the difference

The exemption does not work "on average over the year". If you send small consignments in limited quantities for eleven months and in December one customer orders a full pallet of solvent jerrycans above the 1.1.3.6 limit, that load creates the duty to appoint an adviser. This is why the exemption needs checking for every new product, customer and method of dispatch.

In practice, the exemption usually rests on one of these limits:

• 1000 points per transport unit under 1.1.3.6 (the calculation is explained in my article on the ADR 1.1.3.6 exemption),
• limited quantities (LQ) under Chapter 3.4,
• excepted quantities (EQ) under Chapter 3.5,
• special provisions in Chapter 3.3 which take a given UN number out of ADR.

In my view, a company relying on the exemption should have it in writing: which product, which limit, how it is calculated, who checks it when the product range changes. At an inspection, that is one sheet of paper instead of long explanations.

What does a DGSA do day to day?

ADR 1.8.3.3 lists three basic duties: monitoring compliance, advising the undertaking and preparing the annual report. The head of the undertaking remains responsible. The adviser helps the company operate within the rules but does not take over the management's responsibility.

ADR also lists the practices and procedures the adviser has to monitor. The most important are:

• identifying the dangerous goods being carried, that is, correct classification,
• taking ADR requirements into account when buying vehicles and checking the equipment used for packing, filling, loading and unloading,
• training employees and keeping training records (who to train and how is covered in my article on Chapter 1.3 training),
• emergency procedures for accidents and incidents,
• investigations and reports after serious accidents, incidents or breaches,
• selecting subcontractors and partners with ADR requirements in mind,
• verification procedures: whether the vehicle has the required documents and safety equipment, whether the rules on packing, filling, loading and unloading are followed,
• introducing a security plan if the company carries high consequence dangerous goods.

Accident report and annual report

If people, property or the environment are harmed during carriage, packing, filling, loading or unloading, the adviser prepares an accident report (ADR 1.8.3.6, Article 40(2) of the Act). After a serious accident or incident within the meaning of ADR, the company sends this report within 14 days of the event to the Voivodeship Road Transport Inspector (WITD) competent for the place of the event (Article 17(1) of the Act).

Once a year the adviser prepares the annual report, and the company sends it to the WITD by 28 February. I describe the details in my article on the DGSA annual report.

In-house or external adviser?

ADR allows both. Under 1.8.3.4 the adviser can be the head of the undertaking, an employee with other duties, or a person not directly employed by the company, as long as they are able to carry out the adviser's tasks. There is one condition: a valid adviser's certificate for road transport (Article 42(1) of the Act).

An in-house adviser makes sense in a large plant where dangerous goods leave the loading bay every day. They know the people and processes and are on site for every unusual load. Bear in mind the route to the certificate: higher education, a course, an examination before a board at the Director of TDT, and a repeat examination every 5 years (Articles 42 and 44 of the Act).

An external adviser usually costs less for companies that send a few types of goods several times a week. They see many sites, so they spot sooner the mistakes that have become normal in your company. There is one risk: an adviser who turns up once a year to sign the report. In that case the company is paying for a signature, and nobody is overseeing the loading bay.

You can also appoint more than one adviser. In that case one of them, named by the company, prepares the annual report (Article 41(2) of the Act).

How to check an adviser before signing a contract

Ask for a copy of the certificate and check three things:

1. Expiry date. The certificate is valid for 5 years (ADR 1.8.3.16.1, Article 44(1) of the Act). Renewal requires passing an examination in the year before it expires.
2. Mode of transport. Road carriage requires a certificate for road transport.
3. Scope of goods. A certificate may be limited to one type of goods, for example class 2 only, or only the fuels UN 1202, 1203 and 1223 (ADR 1.8.3.13). A fuels adviser cannot help a company sending UN 3480 lithium batteries.

Then set out in the contract what the adviser actually does: how many visits a year, who prepares the report and accident reports, whether they run Chapter 1.3 training (Article 14(2) of the Act allows it), how quickly they answer questions and where the records are kept.

Does the adviser have to be registered with an authority?

No. The Act does not provide for a separate notification of the adviser to the WITD or any other authority. ADR only requires the company to give the adviser's identity to the competent authority on request (1.8.3.5).

The adviser's details reach the inspectorate anyway. During an inspection, the inspector checks whether the company has appointed a competent adviser (Article 100(1)(4) of the Act), and the adviser's name and certificate number appear every year in the report sent to the WITD (Article 41(1)). The register of advisers is kept by the Director of TDT (Article 48), not by the Road Transport Inspection.

Fines for having no adviser and the adviser's liability

For breaches of the rules on the transport of dangerous goods, the WITD imposes a fine on the participant by administrative decision (Article 107(1) and (4)(1) of the Act). The amounts are set out in Annex 1 to the Act:

Legal status: consolidated text of the Act, Journal of Laws (Dz.U.) 2024 item 643. The total of fines from one inspection at the company's premises is capped by Article 110(2), and the cap depends on the type and size of the participant.

The adviser also bears consequences. The Director of TDT withdraws the certificate of an adviser who has seriously breached the rules, and the Act gives failing to prepare the annual report as an example of a serious breach (Article 45(1) and (2)). That person cannot obtain a new certificate for 3 years. For the company this means one thing: if the adviser loses the certificate, a successor must be appointed immediately.

Legal basis: ADR 2025 (Polish text: Dz.U. 2025 item 642): section 1.8.3, including 1.8.3.1-1.8.3.7, 1.8.3.13, 1.8.3.16; definitions of participants in 1.2.1. Polish Act of 19 August 2011 on the transport of dangerous goods (consolidated text, Dz.U. 2024 item 643): Articles 14, 15, 16, 17, 40-45, 100, 107, 110 and Annex 1, items 6.2-6.4.

If you are not sure whether your company falls within the exemption, start with a list of your products and dispatch methods from the last 12 months. We can go through it during a free consultation, and I will tell you whether you need a permanent DGSA or whether a documented exemption is enough.