For EU citizens · In English

Running a business in Poland, without guessing what the rules are

EU, EEA and Swiss citizens can register a sole proprietorship here on the same terms as a Polish citizen. This page is what to arrange first, how you will be taxed, what social security really costs — and where the expensive mistakes are.

No residence permit needed to register
Bookkeeping from 149 PLN net a month
We correspond in English

Book a 30-minute call or send a questionLegal position as of 14 September 2026. Sole proprietorships only.

months of relief

1–6Relief for a start
7–30Preferential rate
31 →Full contributions

Months are counted from the day the business starts, not from January.

Full ZUS with minimum health contribution, 2026

2 359.30 PLN / month

Reduced contributions last

30 months

VAT exemption threshold

240,000 PLN / year

Our bookkeeping from

149 PLN net / month

Can you do this

Yes — and on the same terms as a Polish citizen

Polish law puts citizens of the European Union, the European Economic Area and Switzerland on the same footing as Polish citizens when it comes to starting and running a business. There is no separate permit, no minimum capital and no requirement to hold a residence card for the registration itself.

A sole proprietorship — jednoosobowa działalność gospodarcza, usually shortened to JDG — is the simplest form. It is not a separate legal entity: you and the business are the same person in law, which is what makes it cheap to run and also what makes you liable with your own assets.

Registration is free, done online, and the entry usually appears the next working day. What takes longer is everything described below.

Worth knowing before you read on

A sole proprietorship is not a company. You are liable for its debts personally. If that is a problem for your line of work, you want a limited company, and this page is not for you.
Registering here is not the same as living here. Where you pay income tax is decided separately, by tax residence rules.
The paperwork stays Polish. Invoices, filings and official letters are in Polish because they have to be. We explain them to you in English.

Before you register

Seven things to have ready

In this order. Each one gates the next: no PESEL means no Trusted Profile, and no Trusted Profile means the online application is closed to you.

EU, EEA or Swiss citizenship

Citizens of the EU, the European Economic Area and Switzerland may start and run a sole proprietorship in Poland on exactly the same terms as Polish citizens. No residence permit and no separate business permit are needed for the registration itself.

Citizens of other countries need a residence title that allows business activity — we do not handle those cases.

A PESEL number

PESEL is the Polish personal identification number. You apply for it at a municipal office (urząd gminy). In practice you need it to create a Trusted Profile, and you need a Trusted Profile to sign the registration form online. From 1 November 2026 a new business can only be registered through the electronic form, so this step matters more than before.

From 1 November 2026 there is no paper route: a foreign applicant needs either a PESEL or the cross-border identifier of an electronic ID notified by an EU member state, and paper applications for a new registration are left unprocessed.

An electronic signature: Trusted Profile, e-ID or a qualified signature

The CEIDG-1 application is signed electronically. A Trusted Profile (profil zaufany) is free and is what most people use; a qualified electronic signature issued anywhere in the EU works too.

An address in Poland

You declare a place where the business is carried out and an address for correspondence. A virtual office address is acceptable, but it has to be one where mail actually reaches you — this is the address the tax office and ZUS will use.

Letters delivered to an address you do not check are legally delivered. Deadlines run from that date whether or not you read them.

A Polish bank account

Contributions and tax are paid to Polish accounts, and if you register for VAT your account has to appear on the tax office's white list. A personal account is enough at the start; a separate business account makes bookkeeping cleaner.

An e-Delivery mailbox (e-Doręczenia)

Official correspondence moves to an electronic mailbox. Businesses registered from 2025 onward get the address together with the CEIDG entry; older entries must have an active address from 1 October 2026.

A decision on how you want to be taxed

The taxation form is chosen inside the CEIDG-1 application itself, so it is worth deciding before you file rather than after. It can be changed later, but only at set moments in the year.

The part people get wrong

Where you actually pay

Income tax: residence, not registration

You are a Polish tax resident if your centre of personal or economic interests is in Poland, or if you spend more than 183 days here in a tax year. Registering a business does not decide it on its own.

If you are resident in another country, the double taxation treaty between that country and Poland decides what Poland may tax. Income from a Polish sole proprietorship is normally taxable in Poland in any case — but your home country still needs to know about it, and the mechanism for avoiding double taxation differs from treaty to treaty.

Tell us where you genuinely spend the year before we help you choose a taxation form. It changes the answer.

Social security: one country at a time

Inside the EU you belong to exactly one social security system, even if you work in several countries. Which one is decided by coordination rules, and the A1 certificate is the document that proves it.

This matters most if you keep a job or another business abroad while running the Polish one. Without an A1 you can be billed by both systems, and getting the money back afterwards takes months.

Settle this before the first invoice, not after the first demand for payment.

How you will be taxed

Three options, chosen at registration

You pick one in the registration form itself. It can be changed later, but only at fixed points in the year, so it is worth getting close to right the first time.

Tax scale

12% up to 120,000 PLN, 32% above

Suits: Lower income, real business costs, or a spouse to file jointly with.

Watch out: The 30,000 PLN tax-free amount applies once across all your Polish income, not once per source.

Flat tax

19% on income, whatever you earn

Suits: Higher income with meaningful deductible costs.

Watch out: No tax-free amount and no joint filing with a spouse. It stops paying off below a certain income — the crossover depends on your costs.

Lump sum on revenue

2% to 17%, set by what you do

Suits: Services with few costs — most IT, consulting and creative work.

Watch out: Tax is charged on revenue: business costs do not reduce it at all. The rate follows the activity, so one invoice can fall under a different rate than another.

The health insurance contribution is charged separately from income tax and is calculated differently under each of the three forms — under the lump sum it steps up at fixed revenue thresholds, under the other two it follows your income. It is the reason the cheapest-looking option is not always the cheapest one, and we work it through with your real numbers rather than in the abstract.

VAT

Two separate questions, and only one has a threshold

Selling in Poland

You can stay outside VAT until your net sales reach 240,000 PLN in a tax year. Start mid-year and the threshold is reduced in proportion to the days remaining.

Some activities are excluded from the exemption regardless of turnover — legal and advisory services and jewellery among them. Registration is also sometimes worth choosing voluntarily, when your buyers deduct VAT anyway and your own purchases carry a lot of it.

Our threshold calculator works out the pro-rated figure. It is in Polish, but it takes two numbers.

Selling to businesses elsewhere in the EU

This is where most people coming to us from abroad have already gone wrong. Services supplied to a business in another EU country are taxed where that business is, not where you are. The domestic exemption threshold does not apply to this at all.

Before the first such invoice you must register for EU VAT purposes and obtain an EU VAT number — even if you are otherwise exempt at home. From then on you file summary statements of those sales.

If your clients are companies in Germany, the Netherlands or Ireland, assume this applies to you and ask us before invoice number one.

Digital obligations

Two systems that became compulsory in 2026

Both are set up once and then simply work. Both are unpleasant to sort out retroactively.

KSeF

The national e-invoicing system

Every business has had to be able to receive structured e-invoices since 1 February 2026. Sole proprietors have had to issue them through the system since 1 April 2026.

A transitional rule runs to the end of 2026 for months in which invoices issued stay below 10,000 PLN gross.

Invoices stop being files you send by email and become records in a government system with an assigned number. We set this up and run it for you.

e-Doręczenia

Official electronic delivery

Public authorities write to businesses through an electronic mailbox instead of the post. Register from 2025 onwards and the address is created together with your business entry; entries made earlier must have an active address from 1 October 2026.

Delivery counts as made once the letter lands in that mailbox, whether or not anyone opened it. Deadlines run from that moment — which is exactly why it matters that someone actually watches the box.

The rhythm

What a month looks like

20th of each month

Social contributions and the income tax advance for the previous month.

25th of each month

JPK_V7 file and VAT payment, if you are registered for VAT.

30 April

Annual tax return for the previous year.

You send us documents; we do the rest and tell you what to pay and by when, before the date rather than after it. Missing a deadline is not fatal — late interest is charged and the filing can be corrected — but it is avoidable, and avoiding it is what you pay us for.

Working with us

What we do, and what we don't

What we do

Registration, start to finish

We prepare the CEIDG-1 application with you, compare the taxation forms against your actual numbers, register you with ZUS and, where it applies, for VAT and VAT-EU.

Monthly bookkeeping

Revenue and expense ledger or lump-sum records, VAT registers, JPK_V7 files, contribution and advance calculations — with the amounts to pay sent to you before the deadline, not after it.

E-invoicing and official mail

KSeF setup and day-to-day handling, plus e-Delivery. Both became obligations in 2026 and both are easier to set up once than to fix later.

The annual return

Your PIT for the year, filed on time, with a check of what can still be deducted before the year closes rather than in April.

Price

Lump-sum bookkeeping starts at 149 PLN net a month and the revenue and expense ledger at 199 PLN net a month. The package follows how many documents you have each month, and the price we quote before you sign is the price in the contract. VAT at 23% is added for VAT-registered clients.

Full price list (in Polish)

What we don't do

Said plainly, because finding out on the first call wastes your time more than ours.

Limited companies (sp. z o.o.) for clients who do not speak Polish. We run those only in Polish, so for a company you would be better served elsewhere.

Tax advisory within the meaning of the Polish Act of 5 July 1996. We keep books and file returns; binding opinions come from a licensed tax adviser or from an individual ruling.

Immigration, residence and work permit matters.

Bookkeeping for businesses registered outside Poland.

In more detail

Articles on specific questions

Longer pieces translated from our Polish guide, with the legal basis for each answer.

All articles in English

Questions

What people ask first

Do I need to live in Poland to run a Polish sole proprietorship?+

No. EU citizenship is enough to register and run one. Where you live matters for something else — where you pay income tax — and that is decided by tax residence rules, not by the business registration.

Does registering a business here make me a Polish tax resident?+

Not by itself. You are a Polish tax resident if your centre of personal or economic interests is in Poland, or if you spend more than 183 days here in a tax year. If you are resident somewhere else, the double taxation treaty between that country and Poland decides what Poland may tax — and income from a Polish sole proprietorship is normally taxed in Poland regardless. Tell us where you actually live before we choose the taxation form.

I also work in another EU country. Where do I pay social security?+

In one country only, decided by EU coordination rules, and the A1 certificate is the proof of which one. Sort this out before you start invoicing: without it you can end up paying contributions twice and reclaiming them is slow.

My clients are companies in other EU countries. Do I still need VAT?+

You may stay under the domestic exemption for turnover, but services to businesses in other EU states are a separate matter: they are taxed where your client is, and you must register for VAT-EU before you perform the first such service — even while exempt at home. You then file summary statements. This is the single most common mistake we see.

Can I do everything remotely?+

The bookkeeping, yes — documents go through the client panel and we correspond by email in English. The one step on paper is PESEL: it is assigned automatically when you register an address in Poland for more than 30 days, or on a written application with your handwritten signature filed at any municipal office.

What language will my documents be in?+

Mostly Polish. Returns, ZUS forms and letters from the tax office are in Polish, and so is the client panel. Invoices go through KSeF, and the copy you send a client may be in English or bilingual as long as it matches the KSeF file. We explain everything to you in English.

How much does it cost?+

Lump-sum bookkeeping starts at 149 PLN net a month and the revenue and expense ledger at 199 PLN net a month. The package follows how many documents you have each month; the full price list is on our Polish pricing page and we will quote you exactly before you sign anything.

What if I want to close the business later?+

Deregistration is a CEIDG form and takes a few days. What takes longer is what comes with it: a closing stocktake if you keep the ledger, a final VAT return, and settling contributions. We handle it, and we do not make handing back your documents conditional on anything.

Talk to us

Start with a conversation, not a contract

Thirty minutes, in English, with no obligation. We will go through your situation and tell you what registering here would actually mean for you — including the cases where the answer is that you should not do it.

Bring to the call: Your citizenship, the country you live in for most of the year, and where your clients are. Those three answers shape everything else.
Prefer to pick a time?: Book a 30-minute call — choose a free slot in our calendar and get a Google Meet invitation straight away.
Or reach us directly: biuro@naszkiewicz.com.pl · +48 453 225 505Monday to Friday, 8:00–17:00 Central European Time. Office in Kraków; we work with clients across Poland remotely.

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The controller of your data is Michał Naszkiewicz Biuro Rachunkowe, ul. Opolska 110, 31-323 Kraków, Poland (tax ID 7481590271). We use the details you give here only to answer your enquiry and prepare a quote, on the basis of steps taken at your request before entering into a contract. We keep them for as long as the enquiry is live and then for the period in which claims could arise. You may access, correct or erase your data, object to its processing, or complain to the Polish data protection authority. Contact: biuro@naszkiewicz.com.pl. The full privacy policy and terms are published here in Polish.

This page is information, not advice. It describes the legal position as of 14 September 2026 and covers sole proprietorships only. NASZKIEWICZ Biuro Rachunkowe keeps books and files returns; it does not provide tax advisory services within the meaning of the Polish Act of 5 July 1996. Where a binding answer is needed, the right route is a licensed tax adviser, a lawyer, or an individual ruling from the Director of the National Revenue Information Service. Your own circumstances — above all where you are tax resident — can change any of the answers above.