One of the first reactions to the lockdown caused by the proliferation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was a debt service moratorium. As the analysis carried out in this paper shows, credit holiday conditions varied considerably from one European country to another, and some of them did not opt for this form of support at all. The differences concerned primarily the period of suspension of debt service, the spectrum of eligible borrowers and the manner of implementation of the instrument (by law or as a result of an agreement between banks). In this paper, which presents in more detail the programme implemented in Poland, the authors have attempted to answer the following research questions: In addition to the immediate benefits of debt deferral to borrowers and the economy are there potential negative consequences of credit moratoriums for both the banking sector and borrowers? Do credit holidays, which are a form of debt restructuring, fall within the definition of forbearance and therefore generate negative effects for banks, if only in the form of having to report a deterioration in the quality of the portfolio? As far as the authors’ know, this is the first synthetic study constituting a kind of comparative analysis of the credit holiday support instruments used in selected European countries (not counting presentations made by consulting companies).