It is typically held as a three-day event in the Polish summer, ranging from late June to early August.

The first two championships were held in Lviv (now in Ukraine) as this city was the headquarters of the national sports body and home to the only modern athletics stadium in the country.

The championships has been contested every year since its inception, bar a brief period from 1940 to 1944 when World War II led to abandonment of the competition.

The current track and field programme features a total of 40 individual Polish Championship athletics events, divided evenly between the sexes.

Later additions to the women's programme were triple jump (1991), pole vault and hammer throw (1995) and the steeplechase (1999).