Poland upset by new Starlink restrictions; threatens cutting off funding for Ukrainian Starlink
UPDATE: My guess at the end of this post below was correct. SpaceX responded quickly to Poland’s complaint and restored full service to Poland.
Poland’s foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski on August 12, 2026 threatened to cut off a $50 million per year fee his nation pays to Starlink — that apparently pays for half of the Starlink terminals in the Ukraine — because Starlink has imposed restrictions on Polish Starlink users it does not require of other European customers.
The foreign minister’s anger follows Starlink’s decision to exclude Poland from a shared European roaming zone that covers more than 30 countries, including Germany, Czechia, Slovakia and Lithuania. Customers within the zone can take their terminals across borders without triggering international-use restrictions. But Polish users will now face extra requirements when traveling.
“Note: Poland is not included in the Europe region above. Accounts registered in Poland are treated as Poland-only for home-country use,” reads Starlink’s current guidance.
Polish Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski also went after Musk, accusing Starlink’s parent company SpaceX of treating Poles as second-class customers and demanding it spell out the regulatory basis for the change.
The articles above all refer to the “Traveling with Starlink” webpage to describe these restrictions, but as of this morning I can find no reference to them on that page. As far as I can tell, Poland is part of the European roaming zone. Either these Polish officials are making hay over nothing, or their protest produced fast results, and SpaceX has already removed these restrictions.
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