Economic crime is a concept that has evolved and has undergone profound changes in Polish criminal law over the past few decades. These changes were largely caused by socio-economic transformations resulting from political system changes. The time of introducing a new democratic system, built in Poland since the beginning of the 1990s, is primarily a period of intensive economic development of the country. This stage was largely associated with the introduction of a free market economy, which, without restrictions due to monocentrism and manual control of all economic processes, has evolved, taking advantage of the freedom to shape and establish economic relations. The legislator tries Summary to sanction all pathological situations, regardless of whether they expose the economic turnover among entrepreneurs to risk, or harm primarily the state’s interest. The introduction of the free market economy has created new challenges for the state as a guarantor of the regularity of economic turnover, and above all for the legislator and state bodies, which were responsible for systematizing and regulating economic rules and stabilizing the economy. It was connected with the necessity to legislate determining the rules imposed by the state on market participants.