Trade fairs and events

MSPO 2026 in Kielce: why a civilian company goes to a defence show

MSPO 2026 opens on 8 September in Kielce: over 1,200 exhibitors from 43 countries, with Canada as the lead nation. We are going there for two specific things, and neither of them is a product catalogue.

Author: Dima V. Nechyporenko · 7 September 2026 · 6 minute read

What is MSPO 2026 and when does it take place?

MSPO 2026 is the 34th International Defence Industry Exhibition, held at Targi Kielce in Poland from 8 to 11 September 2026. The organiser reports over 1,200 exhibitors from 43 countries across more than 46,000 square metres. It is the largest edition in the history of the show.

The scale changed in one step. The previous edition closed with over 800 exhibitors from 35 countries. Since then a new hall of 15,500 square metres has opened, plus two temporary halls of roughly 4,000 square metres each, and all exhibition space has been sold out.

The mix changed too. Polish companies account for 503 stands, fewer than half. This is the first edition where foreign exhibitors are the majority, and that is exactly why the trip is worth making even if your company has nothing to do with weapons.

Why is Canada the lead nation at MSPO 2026?

Canada arrived in Kielce as lead nation with 189 companies and a delegation of around 500 people. It includes the ministers of defence and international trade, plus representatives of 19 Canadian cities and provinces. The Canadian government runs a programme of pre-arranged B2B meetings on site.

This is not only politics. The Canadian programme targets companies considering setting up operations in Canada, not only those looking for a Canadian supplier. Registration for the meetings is handled by an external operator, ALTIOS. If North America is on your list, this combination of counterparts rarely gathers in one place in Central Europe.

We covered the market context and what practical Canada and Poland trade looks like separately. Here one point is enough: 189 stands mean 189 conversations that do not require a flight across the Atlantic.

What does a civilian company do at a defence show?

It looks for dual-use technology. The headline themes of MSPO 2026 cover unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, underwater robotics, energy storage, photovoltaics and 3D printing. Almost every item on that list has a direct counterpart in energy, critical infrastructure and manufacturing.

In practice it works like this. The same supplier that sells a counter-drone system to the military also offers perimeter protection for a substation. The same manufacturer of modular energy storage delivers it to a base and to a solar farm. What differs is certification, documentation and the buying cycle, not the hardware.

That is why we treat MSPO as part of a market expansion strategy rather than as an industry event for one industry.

How do you check whether an exhibitor really enters civilian markets?

A claim about civilian markets appears on every second slide, and most of the time nothing sits behind it. Five questions at the stand are enough to separate a company with a plan from a company with an ambition. Answering all five takes less than ten minutes.

• Who owns the civilian market inside your company? If nobody does, that is the answer.
• What share of revenue comes from outside defence contracts? An order of magnitude is enough.
• Which civilian certifications are already closed? A closed standard is not a planned one.
• Who is your civilian reference customer in Europe? A name, or at least a country and a sector.
• Do you sell direct or through a partner? This decides whether the conversation is useful for you.

These are the same filters we apply during a market entry discovery. The show only shortens the distance: instead of three weeks of emails you get the answer on the spot.

How do you prepare for MSPO 2026 in one day?

Four days of a trade fair without preparation end with a bag of catalogues and nothing in the calendar. Preparation fits into one evening and comes down to six steps. All you need is the exhibitor list, a calendar and one document you return to afterwards.

1. Pick one goal. Supplier, partner or market. One for the whole show, not three.
2. Filter the exhibitor list. A maximum of 15 companies you will actually reach.
3. Message them before you walk in. A short note with a stand number works better than stopping someone in an aisle.
4. Prepare one sentence about yourself. Who you are, what you are looking for, what you bring.
5. Keep the last hour of each day for notes. After three days you remember nobody.
6. Schedule the follow-up for 15 September. A contact without a next date is a lost contact.

Conversations from a trade fair turn into pipeline only when they land in an existing process. How to build that process is covered in our piece on B2B sales development.

What MSPO 2026 will not solve

A trade fair does not replace the decision about which market to enter, or demand analysis. Four days in Kielce give you access to people, not to data. If you do not know which market you are entering and why, the show will not settle it. It will add a dozen new options to consider.

It will not solve certification, distribution channels or export control either. Dual-use technologies are regulated, and those questions go to a lawyer, not to a salesperson at a stand. It also does not replace market selection, which usually takes one to three months and is covered separately in our text on entering a new market.

If you want a purely export-focused format with no defence content, its counterpart is the PAIH Business Forum.

Frequently asked questions about MSPO 2026