On 31 July 2026, a draft Act on the Recompensing Tax on Certain Services (reference number UD385) was published on the website of the Government Legislation Centre. The legislator's objective is to tax revenues generated in the Polish market by the largest global digital corporations by introducing a tax on selected digital revenues (so called: digital service tax).
Who is to be covered by the digital service tax?
According to the draft, taxpayers will be entities or consolidated capital groups that meet two revenue thresholds jointly in the preceding settlement period (calendar year):
- total global revenues exceeding EUR 1 000 000 000, and
- revenues subject to taxation in Poland exceeding PLN 25 000 000.
This threshold is intended to ensure that the tax will only burden the largest global corporations.
What revenues are to be taxed?
According to the draft act, the tax will cover three key categories of digital services:
- Services of placing targeted (profiled) advertising on a digital interface, meaning an advertising message tailored to a specific user based on data collected about them, identifying them as an individual or a member of a target group.
- Services of making a multi-sided digital interface available, covering platforms and applications that enable user interaction or the conclusion of transactions between them.
- Services of selling or licensing user data, collected through user activity on digital interfaces.
Intra-group revenues are not to be subject to taxation, which is intended to prevent double taxation within a consolidated group.
The draft also provides for certain exemptions. Entities whose predominant activity is the publication of editorial materials prepared by or for that entity will be exempt from the tax.
Furthermore, the tax will not apply to, among others:
- services of making a digital interface available, if the sole or main purpose of making the interface available is the provision of digital content by the interface provider (which it owns or for which it has acquired distribution rights) to users, or the provision of electronic communication or payment services to users by that entity;
- the sale of goods and services online via the supplier's own website, where the supplier is not acting as an intermediary.
How to calculate the tax?
The tax is principally to be due on revenues derived in connection with users located in the territory of Poland. Consequently, the rules for determining the place of taxation are crucial. Revenue is deemed to be derived in Poland if the users associated with the service are located in the territory of Poland during the settlement period.
The criteria for determining a user's location differ for each category of services:
- Targeted advertising: The decisive factor is whether the user's device displaying the advertisement is located in Poland.
- Multi-sided interfaces: For interfaces facilitating the supply of goods or services between users, the decisive factor is whether a user uses the interface and concludes a transaction from the territory of Poland during the settlement period. For other interfaces, the decisive factor is whether the account on the interface was opened from a device located in the territory of Poland.
- Sale/licensing of data: The decisive factor is whether the data originates from a user browsing the interface while in Poland.
Location is to be determined based on IP address, MAC address, data from telecommunications networks (within the meaning of the Electronic Communications Law Act), or other methods. The draft provides that the minister competent for public finance will be able to specify additional methods.
The draft differentiates the method of calculating the tax base depending on the type of digital service provided. As mentioned, the legislator has adopted a proportional approach—the tax is to be levied only on the portion of revenue that can be linked to users located in the territory of Poland. Thus, for:
- Targeted advertising: The tax base will be the product of the global revenues from displaying the advertisement and the ratio of the number of its displays to users in Poland to the total number of displays. If revenues cannot be directly attributed to a specific user, a proportional calculation is applied based on displays to users with a known location.
- Multi-sided digital interface: In this case, the tax base will depend on the platform's model and may be:
- the full subscription/fee amount if the account was opened by a user in Poland,
- the full commission amount from the transaction if both parties to the transaction are located in Poland,
- half of the commission amount if only one of the parties to the transaction is located in Poland.
- Sale and licensing of data: The tax base will be the sum of revenues linked to user data collected while they were in the territory of Poland. For the sale of aggregated data packages that cannot be attributed to specific users, a proportional allocation key will be applied, based on the share of users from Poland in the entire dataset of users with a known location.
In all cases, the provisions of the CIT Act on transfer pricing (Chapter 1a of the CIT Act) are to apply accordingly for determining the value of revenue. The draft provides that the minister competent for public finance will be able to specify detailed rules for revenue calculation.
The tax rate has been set at 3% of the tax base. A significant element of the draft is a deduction mechanism aimed at preventing the double burdening of entities that are settling their taxes in Poland. The recompensing tax will be reduced by the due Corporate Income Tax (CIT), as well as R&D costs (as defined in Art. 18d(2) of the CIT Act) and expenditure on fixed assets incurred in Poland. If the due CIT is higher than the calculated amount of the recompensing tax, the latter will be PLN 0.
Taxpayer obligations and entry into force
Entities without a registered office or a fixed place of business in Poland will have a choice: designate an entity from their consolidated group registered in Poland for tax settlement purposes or appoint a tax representative (including an entity licensed for tax advisory or accounting services, registered for VAT, with a minimum of PLN 10 million in professional liability insurance). The draft also provides for the joint and several liability of entities within a consolidated group, as well as the tax representative.
If act comes into force, taxpayers will be obliged to register with the Head of the Second Tax Office Warszawa-Śródmieście (the competent authority) within 30 days of the end of the first settlement period, under penalty of an administrative fine of PLN 500,000 for failure to register. The tax return, containing, among other things, global revenues and revenues subject to taxation in Poland, will be filed electronically within 90 business days of the end of the settlement period. The tax will be payable in PLN no later than 30 days after the deadline for filing the return (Art. 16(1) of the draft).
In case of tax arrears, sanctions are provided in the form of an additional tax liability of up to 200% of the unpaid tax amount. When determining its amount, the tax authority will take into account the taxpayer's good faith and due diligence; compliance with the obligations arising from a cooperative compliance agreement may indicate such conduct (Art. 22(2)–(3) of the draft).
Furthermore, the draft amends art. 20zb of the Tax Ordinance: confirmation of the methodology for calculating the tax base and determining the place of supply of services for digital service tax purposes—including the manner of collecting and interpreting data—will be possible through a tax agreement concluded within the framework of a cooperative compliance agreement. In practice, the cooperative compliance program may prove to be a key path for taxpayers of the new tax to obtain formal certainty regarding their methodology and, at the same time, an "insurance policy" limiting the risk of sanctions. The question of the program's real accessibility for non-residents settling tax via a tax representative remains open.
According to the draft, the Act is set to enter into force on 1 January 2027.
What's next?
The draft has been submitted for public consultation, with a 60-day deadline for submitting comments. We encourage you to contact us if you would like to discuss the impact of the proposed regulations on your organization's activities.
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