Leaving Poland: how to suspend or close your sole proprietorship (JDG), and what still applies afterwards

Short answer

If you leave Poland and stop working through your sole proprietorship (jednoosobowa działalność gospodarcza, JDG), you can either suspend it or close it.

• Suspension is available if you have no employees. For a business registered in CEIDG it can be indefinite, or for a fixed period of at least 30 days (Article 23(1) of the Entrepreneurs' Law). The "up to 24 months" limit quoted on some English-language sites applies to companies registered in the National Court Register (KRS), not to a JDG (Article 23(2)).
• For the period of suspension you owe no social insurance contributions, no health contribution from the business and no income tax advances. You cannot run the business or earn current revenue from it, and every other obligation the law imposes stays.
• Closing is an application to be deleted from CEIDG. The register passes it on to the tax office, the statistics office and ZUS. What takes longer is what follows: VAT, possibly a stocktake, the final tax return and keeping the books for years.

Suspend or close?

One thing to weigh before either: both ZUS start-up reliefs are for people starting a business for the first time, or at least 60 months after the last one was closed or suspended. Our ZUS guide sets out the conditions.

Suspension: the rules

Who can suspend. A business owner with no employees (Article 22(1) of the Entrepreneurs' Law). There is a narrow exception for a business whose only employees are on maternity, parental, childcare or carer's leave (Article 22(2)).

For how long. Indefinitely, or for a fixed period of at least 30 days (Article 23(1)).

From when. For a CEIDG business, the suspension starts on the date you give in the application and lasts until the date given there, or in an application to resume (Article 24(2)).

What stops:

• Social insurance contributions. Compulsory pension, disability, sickness and accident insurance for a business owner runs from the start of the activity until it stops, excluding the period for which it is suspended (Article 13(4) of the Social Insurance System Act).
• The health contribution from the business. Business owners who have suspended their business are excluded from compulsory health insurance on that basis (Article 66(1)(1)(c) of the Act on Healthcare Services Financed from Public Funds). If you have no other health insurance and still live in Poland, voluntary insurance with the National Health Fund (NFZ) is available (Articles 69(1a) and 68(1)). If you have moved abroad, check your health cover under the rules of your new country.
• Income tax advances. You are exempt from paying them for the period covered by the suspension (Article 44(10) of the PIT Act).
• VAT returns for settlement periods fully covered by the suspension (Article 99(7a) of the VAT Act). The exemption does not apply to a period in which the suspension did not cover the whole period, a period in which you carry out taxable transactions or must correct input VAT, or to intra-EU acquisitions of goods and imports of services (Article 99(7b)). A foreign software subscription billed to the business while it is suspended can still mean a VAT return.

What changes in the VAT register. A business suspended for at least 6 consecutive months is removed from the VAT register ex officio (Article 96(9a)(1) of the VAT Act). When you resume, you are registered again automatically, with the status you had before the suspension (Article 96(9g)). If you will carry out taxable transactions during the suspension, you must notify the tax office in advance to stay registered (Article 96(9b)).

What continues. During suspension you may not carry on the business or earn current revenue from it (Article 25(1) of the Entrepreneurs' Law), but you:

• may do what is needed to preserve the source of income, including ending earlier contracts;
• may collect receivables, and must pay liabilities, that arose before the suspension;
• may sell your own fixed assets and equipment;
• must carry out all obligations imposed by law;
• can be inspected, like any active business

(Article 25(2)). Official letters do not stop either; if you have an e-Delivery address, keep an eye on it: see e-Delivery for sole proprietors.

The annual return. The exemption in Article 44(10) covers advances, not the annual return. A year in which the business ran for only part of the time still has a return, due between 15 February and 30 April of the following year (Article 45(1) of the PIT Act).

Closing: the application and what follows

The application. When you stop the business, you are obliged to apply to be deleted from CEIDG (Article 15(1)(2) of the CEIDG Act). The Act sets no deadline for it: file it when you stop.

One application, several offices. CEIDG passes information about the deletion electronically to the central taxpayer register, the statistics office (GUS) and ZUS, no later than the next working day (Article 31). You do not report the deletion itself to each of them separately.

Doing nothing is not a plan. The minister can delete a business ex officio when it has permanently stopped operating (Article 29(1)(1)), but by an administrative decision, at a date you do not control. Until then the business stays in the register.

VAT. The VAT register is separate from CEIDG. A registered VAT payer who stops taxable activity must notify the head of the tax office, and that notification is the basis for removal from the VAT register (Article 96(6) of the VAT Act). If you do not, the office removes you ex officio (Article 96(8)).

Stocktake of remaining goods. When a VAT-registered individual stops taxable activity, goods they produced, or bought and did not sell, are subject to VAT (Article 14(1)(2)), but only goods for which input VAT could be deducted (Article 14(4)). You make a stocktake as at the day you stop and report it, with the value of the goods and the VAT due, no later than the VAT return for the period that includes that day (Article 14(5)). This does not apply if you used the small-business VAT exemption (Article 14(2)). Selling those goods within 12 months afterwards is VAT-exempt, provided the VAT on the stocktake was settled (Article 14(7)). For most freelancers the list is short, but equipment bought with VAT deducted belongs on it.

Contributions for the last month. Social contributions run until the day the business stops (Article 13(4) of the Social Insurance System Act) and, for the last month, are due by the 20th of the following month, as usual (Article 47(1)(4)).

The final tax return. For the year of closing, between 15 February and 30 April of the following year (Article 45(1) of the PIT Act, and for the lump-sum tax Article 21(2)(2) of the Lump-Sum Tax Act). What goes into it is covered in our guide to the self-employed tax return.

How long to keep the books

Keep your tax books and the documents behind them until the limitation period for the tax expires (Article 86 § 1 of the Tax Ordinance). The tax liability is time-barred 5 years after the end of the calendar year in which the payment deadline fell (Article 70 § 1). The balance of income tax for 2026 is payable by the deadline for the return, 30 April 2027 (Article 45(4) of the PIT Act), so the books for 2026 are kept at least until the end of 2032, and longer if the limitation period is suspended or interrupted.

If we kept your books, we hand them back when the business closes, and we do not make that conditional on anything.

After you move: where you pay tax

Closing a JDG does not decide your tax residence, just as opening one did not. Polish residence depends on two tests: your centre of personal or economic interests, or more than 183 days in Poland in a tax year. The year you move is usually the hardest to assess. Our guide to Polish tax residency for self-employed EU citizens explains both tests and when a tax adviser is the right person to ask.

Checklist

Before you leave:

1. Decide: suspend or close. If you may come back, suspension keeps your registration; if not, closing ends the obligations sooner.
2. Check whether you have any employees, including on leave.
3. List what you will still buy or sell while suspended. Imports of services and intra-EU purchases keep VAT returns going.

To suspend:

4. File the CEIDG application with a start date, and an end date if you want one.
5. Note that after 6 months you will be removed from the VAT register, and restored automatically on resuming.
6. Diarise the annual return between 15 February and 30 April.

To close:

7. File the CEIDG deletion application.
8. Notify the tax office that you have stopped VAT activity.
9. If you are VAT-registered, make the stocktake and report it with the last VAT return.
10. Pay the last month's contributions by the 20th of the following month.
11. File the final annual return next spring.
12. Keep the books until the limitation period ends: for 2026, at least until the end of 2032.

If you want the closing done properly, from the CEIDG application to the final return, write to us.

Legal basis

• Act of 6 March 2018 – Entrepreneurs' Law (Journal of Laws 2025, item 1480), Articles 22–25
• Act of 6 March 2018 on the Central Register and Information on Economic Activity and the Information Point for Entrepreneurs (CEIDG Act) (Journal of Laws 2026, item 30, as amended), Articles 15(1)(2), 29(1)(1) and 31
• Act of 13 October 1998 on the Social Insurance System (Journal of Laws 2026, item 199, as amended), Articles 13(4) and 47(1)(4)
• Act of 27 August 2004 on Healthcare Services Financed from Public Funds (Journal of Laws 2025, item 1461, as amended), Articles 66(1)(1)(c), 68(1) and 69(1a)
• Act of 26 July 1991 on Personal Income Tax (Journal of Laws 2026, item 592, as amended), Articles 44(10), 45(1) and 45(4)
• Act of 20 November 1998 on Lump-Sum Income Tax (Journal of Laws 2025, item 843, as amended), Article 21(2)(2)
• Act of 11 March 2004 on Tax on Goods and Services (VAT) (Journal of Laws 2025, item 775, as amended), Articles 14, 96(6), (8), (9a)–(9b) and (9g), and 99(7a)–(7b)
• Act of 29 August 1997 – Tax Ordinance (Journal of Laws 2026, item 622, as amended), Articles 70 § 1 and 86 § 1

This article is for information only and does not constitute tax or legal advice. Legal status as of 29 September 2026.