VAT exemption in Poland in 2026: the PLN 240,000 threshold and how to calculate it

The VAT exemption, that is the small-business VAT exemption (zwolnienie podmiotowe, art. 113 of the VAT Act), lets a JDG (a sole trader’s business, jednoosobowa działalność gospodarcza) sell without adding VAT as long as its sales don’t exceed the threshold. From 1 January 2026 this threshold is PLN 240,000 a year (previously PLN 200,000). This article explains how to calculate the threshold, including in your first year in business, how the small-business exemption differs from the exemption by type of supply, who can’t use it at all, what an invoice without VAT looks like and what happens when your sales exceed the threshold.

What the VAT exemption threshold is in 2026

The exemption is available to a business owner whose business is based in Poland and whose sales, excluding tax, exceeded PLN 240,000 in neither the previous nor the current year. That’s the wording of art. 113 ust. 1 of the VAT Act after the change that came into force on 1 January 2026.

What counts is net sales, without VAT. “Sale” (sprzedaż) within the meaning of the Act is the supply of goods and services within the country, the export of goods and the intra-EU supply of goods (art. 2 pkt 22).

What you don’t count towards the threshold

Art. 113 ust. 2 excludes from the threshold:

• intra-EU distance sales of goods that aren’t taxed in Poland (and distance sales of imported goods on the same basis);
• sales exempt by type of supply under art. 43 ust. 1, except for transactions related to real estate, certain financial services and insurance services, unless they’re ancillary transactions;
• sales of fixed assets and of intangible assets that are subject to depreciation.

The threshold applies to sales within the meaning of the VAT Act, not to revenue for PIT. Selling a business laptop recorded as a fixed asset doesn’t bring you closer to the VAT threshold.

How to calculate the threshold in your first year in business

If you start your business during the year, you calculate the threshold in proportion to the period of activity (art. 113 ust. 9). biznes.gov.pl gives the formula: the number of days from the start of the business to the end of the year times PLN 240,000, divided by the number of days in the year.

The first row is biznes.gov.pl’s example; the next two were calculated with the same formula. At the start, what counts is expected sales: if you don’t expect to exceed the proportional threshold, you can sell with the exemption from day one. When actual sales exceed it, the exemption stops applying from the transaction that exceeded it (art. 113 ust. 10).

If you’re only now setting up your business, the VAT choice is one of the decisions at registration. The others are described in the article how to set up a JDG.

Small-business exemption vs exemption by type of supply

These are two different exemptions that are easy to confuse:

Both can occur in one business. A doctor who also runs training courses has medical services exempt by type of supply, with no threshold. The training uses the small-business exemption as long as its sales don’t exceed PLN 240,000. Sales exempt by type of supply, apart from the exceptions in the previous section, don’t count towards the threshold.

Who can’t use the art. 113 exemption

Some activities are excluded from the small-business exemption regardless of turnover (art. 113 ust. 13). If you carry out one of them, you’re an active VAT payer from your first sale.

Supplies of goods:

• goods listed in Annex 12 to the Act: precious metals, jewellery and their scrap;
• excise goods, with exceptions: electricity, tobacco products and passenger cars recorded as fixed assets (other than new means of transport);
• buildings, structures and their parts in the cases of art. 43 ust. 1 pkt 10 lit. a and b, building land and new means of transport;
• distance sales, for example in an online shop, of cosmetic and toilet preparations, computers, electronics, electrical appliances, and machinery and equipment;
• parts and accessories for cars and motorcycles, wholesale and retail.

Services:

• legal;
• advisory, except for agricultural advice;
• jewellery;
• debt collection, including factoring.

The exclusion covers „usług w zakresie doradztwa” (advisory services), not just tax advice. If your service is in practice advising a client, for example in marketing, IT or management, check its nature before you issue an invoice without VAT. If in doubt, you can apply for an individual tax ruling (interpretacja indywidualna).

Invoice without VAT: what to put on it

A JDG under the small-business exemption doesn’t have to issue invoices. It has to issue one at the buyer’s request, if the buyer asks within 3 months of the end of the month of the supply, the service or the payment. If the request comes by the end of the month of the transaction, you issue the invoice by the 15th of the following month. If it comes later, you have 15 days from the request.

The invoice of a taxpayer exempt under art. 113 may contain a narrower set of details. § 3 pkt 3 of the regulation on issuing invoices allows it:

• the date of issue and a sequential number;
• the first names and surnames or names of the seller and the buyer, and their addresses;
• the seller’s NIP (the tax identification number) and the number the buyer uses for VAT (from 1 February 2026, for structured invoices and their equivalents);
• the name of the goods or service, the quantity and the unit price;
• the total amount due.

In place of the rate you write „zw”. biznes.gov.pl explains that with the small-business exemption you don’t have to give the legal basis. You give it with an exemption by type of supply, for example „art. 43 ust. 1 pkt 19 ustawy o VAT” (art. 43 ust. 1 pkt 19 of the VAT Act). Many businesses add „zwolnienie na podstawie art. 113 ust. 1 ustawy o VAT” (exemption under art. 113 ust. 1 of the VAT Act) anyway, so the client doesn’t ask why there’s no VAT on the invoice.

The VAT exemption and KSeF

KSeF (the National e-Invoicing System, Krajowy System e-Faktur) also covers exempt taxpayers. ksef.podatki.gov.pl puts it plainly: “every taxpayer (active and exempt) who is obliged to issue an invoice will issue it in KSeF”. Until 31 December 2026 a small business can, as the same site states, issue invoices outside KSeF if their total value in a month doesn’t exceed PLN 10,000. From 1 January 2027 this loophole closes. Invoices to consumers in KSeF are voluntary. The details are described in the article KSeF for a JDG, and the types of invoice in the article on invoice types.

In BravoLisa you can create and record an invoice without VAT and send it as a PDF where KSeF isn’t required, for example to a consumer, or before 1 January 2027 below the PLN 10,000 threshold.

Do you have to file VAT-R to use the exemption

No. The Act allows, but doesn’t require, a taxpayer under the small-business exemption to register (art. 96 ust. 3). You can file form VAT-R (VAT registration) and appear in the register as „podatnik VAT zwolniony” (VAT-exempt taxpayer). Your counterparty will then see your status on the white list of VAT payers (biała lista podatników VAT). You file form VAT-R at the tax office (urząd skarbowy), by post or electronically through biznes.gov.pl or e-Urząd Skarbowy (the tax office’s online portal).

Registration becomes necessary in two situations:

• when you lose the exemption or give it up, because you become an active VAT payer;
• when you enter into transactions with EU businesses: you sell services to a business in another EU country or buy services from one. You then need EU VAT registration, even with the exemption. This is described in the article VAT-UE and OSS.

What happens after you exceed the threshold

The exemption ceases to apply from the transaction that exceeded the threshold (art. 113 ust. 5). Not from the next month and not from the new year, but from that one sale, and in full. biznes.gov.pl recommends filing VAT-R before the day on which you lose the right to the exemption. In practice: when you see that your next order will take you over PLN 240,000, register before you invoice it.

From that moment:

• you add VAT to your sales and issue invoices with VAT;
• you deduct input VAT on your purchases;
• every month you send the JPK_V7M (the monthly VAT file with the return) by the 25th of the following month. Quarterly settlement (JPK_V7K, the quarterly VAT file) isn’t available for the first 12 months after registering as an active VAT payer. How to prepare and send the file is described in the article JPK_VAT.

Returning to the exemption is possible at the earliest after one year, counted from the end of the year in which the exemption was lost (art. 113 ust. 11). If you exceed the threshold in 2026, the first year you can return is 2028, provided your sales in 2027 don’t exceed the threshold.

Giving up the exemption voluntarily

You can give up the exemption at any time, for example when your clients are businesses that deduct VAT and you buy a lot for the business. You notify the tax office in writing (in practice through VAT-R) before the start of the month from which you give it up. If you’re just starting and want to be an active VAT payer from your first sale, you report this before the day of that sale (art. 113 ust. 4). Here too, the one-year waiting period for returning applies.

VAT for a JDG: terms you’ll meet alongside the exemption

Reverse charge

Under the reverse charge, VAT is accounted for by the buyer, not the seller. For a JDG today this mainly concerns transactions abroad. When you sell a service to a business in another EU country, the invoice carries no Polish VAT and bears the words „odwrotne obciążenie” (reverse charge) (art. 106e ust. 1 pkt 18). When you buy a service from a foreign business, for example search engine advertising or software on a subscription, you account for the VAT as an import of services.

VAT-9M: import of services under the VAT exemption

An exempt taxpayer who buys services from a foreign taxpayer accounts for the VAT on them in the VAT-9M return. It’s filed by the 25th of the month following the month in which the tax obligation arose (art. 99 ust. 9). Before that, the taxpayer must register as an EU VAT payer (art. 97 ust. 3 pkt 1). Such a purchase isn’t your sale, so it doesn’t bring you closer to the PLN 240,000 threshold. You do, however, pay the VAT from VAT-9M out of your own money: as an exempt taxpayer you can’t deduct it.

Cash accounting method

The cash accounting method (metoda kasowa, art. 21) is an option for an active VAT payer who is a small taxpayer (mały podatnik). A small taxpayer is one whose sales including VAT in the previous year didn’t exceed the equivalent of €2,000,000. The tax obligation then arises when payment is received. For a sale to someone who isn’t an active VAT payer, it arises on payment, but no later than the 180th day from performing the service or delivering the goods. You report the choice in writing by the end of the month before the period from which you apply the method. On your invoices you write „metoda kasowa” (cash accounting method), and you settle VAT quarterly, in the JPK_V7K. For the first 12 months after registering as an active VAT payer, quarterly settlement isn’t available. You can give up the cash accounting method at the earliest after 12 months of using it.

Split payment

The split payment mechanism (mechanizm podzielonej płatności, MPP, art. 108a) divides a transfer into two parts: the net amount goes to the seller’s account, and the VAT to their VAT account. It’s mandatory when an invoice exceeds PLN 15,000 gross and covers goods or services listed in Annex 15 to the Act. The seller then puts the words „mechanizm podzielonej płatności” (split payment mechanism) on the invoice. In other cases the buyer may use MPP voluntarily. An invoice without VAT, issued under the exemption, shows no tax, so MPP doesn’t apply to it.

Bad-debt relief

Bad-debt relief (ulga na złe długi, art. 89a) lets a seller recover the VAT on an invoice the client hasn’t paid within 90 days of the payment date. You show the correction in the JPK_V7 for the period in which the 90 days passed, no later than 3 years from the end of the year the invoice was issued. On the day before you file the JPK_V7 you must be an active VAT payer. When the debtor isn’t an active VAT payer, the correction additionally requires a final judgment referred for enforcement, an entry in the national debt register or the debtor’s consumer bankruptcy. If the client pays after the correction, you increase your output VAT in the period of payment. Under the VAT exemption the relief doesn’t apply, because there’s no VAT to recover.

The VAT-7 return that no longer exists

Many people still look for the VAT-7 return. Since the settlement for October 2020, the VAT-7 return (and VAT-7K) has been replaced by a single file: JPK_V7M for monthly settlement and JPK_V7K for quarterly, which the Ministry calls „JPK_VAT z deklaracją” (JPK_VAT with the return). A JDG under the small-business exemption doesn’t, as a rule, send it. The exceptions are the situations in art. 99 ust. 7, for example correcting VAT deducted earlier, when the business was an active payer.

Frequently asked questions

VAT exemption: up to what amount?

Up to PLN 240,000 of net sales a year, from 2026. In your first year in business you calculate the threshold in proportion to the number of days.

Does revenue from abroad count towards the threshold?

What counts is sales within the meaning of the Act: sales within the country, the export of goods and the intra-EU supply of goods. A service to an EU business whose place of supply is abroad isn't a sale within the country. It does, however, require EU VAT registration and the VAT-UE (the EC Sales List).

Do I have to keep an eye on the threshold as I go?

Yes. The exemption ceases to apply the moment you exceed it, not at the end of the year. Recording your revenue as you go lets you spot the order that will take you over the threshold before you invoice it.

The PLN 240,000 threshold is a sum worth checking every month, not once a year.
💜💙 Your BravoLisa Team

This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute professional tax, legal, or accounting advice. Every situation is different — consult a qualified professional (tax adviser, accountant, or lawyer) for advice specific to your circumstances. BravoLisa does not accept liability for decisions made based on this information.

Last updated: September 2026. Rates and thresholds can change: always check them on biznes.gov.pl, podatki.gov.pl, zus.pl or with the relevant office.

Sources (10)

Verified on 30 September 2026

1. ISAP — Ustawa o podatku od towarów i usług, tekst jednolity Dz.U. 2026 poz. 1263 (art. 2, 10, 21, 89a, 96, 97, 99, 106e, 108a, 113)
2. podatki.gov.pl — Zwolnienie podmiotowe od podatku VAT
3. biznes.gov.pl — Kto musi płacić VAT
4. biznes.gov.pl — Jak wystawiać faktury VAT – podatnicy, którzy nie mają obowiązku
5. ISAP — Rozporządzenie Ministra Finansów w sprawie wystawiania faktur (Dz.U. 2021 poz. 1979), § 3
6. ISAP — Rozporządzenie zmieniające rozporządzenie w sprawie wystawiania faktur (Dz.U. 2025 poz. 1742)
7. biznes.gov.pl — Zarejestruj się jako podatnik VAT
8. ksef.podatki.gov.pl — JDG i MŚP
9. biznes.gov.pl — Jak prawidłowo rozliczyć VAT
10. gov.pl/web/finanse — Nowy JPK_VAT z deklaracją za październik 2020 r.