The article studies the imperative models of Polish origin in documentary texts of the Petrine era, namely: models with the meaning of obligation imet', povinen, nadlezhat' (+ infinitive), of permission pozvolit', dozvolit', dopuskat'/dopushchat', volen, vol'no (+ infinitive), of prohibition ne povinen, ne imet', ne nadlezhat', ne vol'no, ne dopuskat', ne pozvolit' (+ infinitive). Their inclusion in Russian business speech became part of a more general process of renewal and modernization under Peter I's administrative reforms, as well as a way to make business writing, which in the Petrine era began to acquire a higher cultural status, more bookish. There were a number of linguistic factors that prompted the creators of documents to include Polish imperative models in the Russian business language. These include the emergence of new business genres, such as charters and instructions, for which there were no ready-made speech forms. These genres regulated not only the duties and prohibitions of subordinates, but also the permitted actions, which required corresponding imperative models. Unlike the prePetrine business writing, where the leading type of imperativeness was the infinitive sentence, new imperative models relied mainly on a two-part sentence and thus in the documents they signaled the beginning of a change in syntactic structures used to express prescription, permission, and prohibition. The Polish imperative models could be borrowed directly from Polish, but more often they came through Western Russian speech. The article traces the further history of borrowed imperative models, some of which can be met in the modern Russian business speech.