The article aims at identifying the problems connected with community interpreting in Poland on the eve of Poland’s accession to the European Union. It presents the results of an investigation carried out in a sample group of different types of community interpreters in Poland and discusses a questionnaire conducted among sworn translators rendering this kind of service. The questionnaire dealt mainly with such parameters as job satisfaction, job preparation, education and self-education, norms in community interpreting (faithfulness, comprehensibility, dialogue coordination), the role of an interpreter and ethics of community interpreting. The article ends with proposals for community oriented education of interpreters and the perspectives for the emergence and professionalization of this kind of interpreting in Poland.