Polish legislation allows for the introduction of various states of emergency, a mechanism that is neither unusual nor incompatible with the principles of a democratic state governed by the rule of law. Within this framework, the statutory regulations affecting the broadly defined economic activity of entrepreneurs present an especially compelling subject of academic inquiry. The purpose of this essay is to examine whether the interventionist instruments employed during states of emergency constitute genuinely extraordinary measures, or whether they resemble – or perhaps are even less restrictive than – the regulatory tools applied under ordinary constitutional conditions.