Background: This study evaluated the basic aspects of the activity of the Polish Blood Transfusion Service in 2016. Materials and methods: Retrospective analysis of the 2016-data supplied by the Regional Blood Centers. Results: Blood and blood components were collected in 21 Polish Regional Blood Centers, 135 local collection sites and during 13 228 mobile collections. The overall number of blood donors was estimated at 596 100, the majority of which were non-remunerated donors (595 276 — including 40 140 responders to donation appeals), as well as 679 autologous donors. Most frequent were whole blood collections (1 162 370) and least frequent — apheresis granulocyte collections (53 procedures) and RBCs collections (6 procedures). Whole blood donations were performed in local collection sites (46.02%), in Regional Blood Centers (27.36%) and mobile collection sites (26.62%). Most frequently prepared blood components were red blood cell concentrates (RBCs — 1 144 512 units) and fresh frozen plasma (FFP — 1 280 926 units, 23.64% for clinical use). Platelet concentrates (PCs) amounted to 52 126 units from apheresis and 74 690 whole blood-derived. Additional processing methods (leukocyte depletion, irradiation) were more frequently applied to PCs (38.0% leukocyte-depleted, 2.37% irradiated, 57.71% both leukocyte-depleted and irradiated) than to RBCs (12.36% leukocyte-depleted, 0.13% irradiated, 7.92% both leukocyte-depleted and irradiated). The percentage of PCs (10.52%) and FFP (10.04% units) issued for transfusion were subjected to pathogen reduction technologies. For a variety of reasons — 14 117 units of whole blood, 32 060 units of RBCs, 66 413 units of FFP and 5 270 of pooled PCs and 1325 of apheresis PCs were wasted in 2016. Conclusions: The study data may contribute to the assessment of the tendencies observed in Polish blood centers and serve practical-benchmarking. This in turn may prove beneficial to the transfusion community as a whole.