In 2021, the Polish government introduced a bill to promote electronic invoicing, which required among other things that all invoices be issued and sent via the National Electronic Invoicing System (abbreviated in Polish as KSeF). VAT taxpayers in Poland would have had to adapt by receiving incentives including a reduction of one third on VAT refund times (from 60 to 40 days) and an exemption from filing the JPK_FA file, i.e. the Single Audit Files which are normally sent to tax authorities.

The KSeF platform has been online since January 1, 2022 and some Polish companies are already using it voluntarily. Structured invoices, managed via KSeF as XML files, will initially coexist with paper and other electronic formats. The platform provides notifications on the status of invoices, including assigned numbers, any rejections and downtime alerts. Invoices can be searched, downloaded in original or PDF format and archived for 10 years on the portal. In summary, the functions of KSeF therefore include the issuing, receiving and validation of electronic invoices, the assignment of unique IDs and the archive function for tax documents.

However, the path towards the implementation of the KSeF in Poland was marked by numerous twists, delays and significant changes. Let’s try to retrace the chronology of what has been announced to date and the future stages that will lead to the adoption of Polish e-invoicing.

After some announcements of extension regarding the adoption deadlines, the project was finally scheduled to start on 1 July 2024, but on 19 January it was unexpectedly postponed by Finance Minister Andrzej Domański. The reason? Errors were diagnosed on the KSeF platform and an external IT audit was therefore necessary to understand whether to continue with the system or possibly adopt a completely different one. The audit has indeed highlighted serious technical shortcomings, pushing the Government to reconsider its implementation strategy, postponing the mandatory nature of the KSeF for almost two years, i.e. from 1 February 2026.

The draft amendment to the VAT Law and related laws, including the postponement of the implementation of the KSeF, has been subjected to detailed legislative processes and public consultations in recent months. The postponement of the implementation of the KSeF to 2026 has meanwhile been officially approved by the Council of Ministers and the Ministry of Finance has outlined a two-phase implementation plan for the KSeF, with different deadlines for large and small companies. February 1, 2026 for companies with a turnover of more than PLN 200 million in the previous year and April 1, 2026 for others.

In the meantime, legislative changes have been finalized to accommodate the new rescheduled dates and other technical adjustments to the KSeF to simplify some procedures. For example the management of fines, the generation of emergency QR codes and the voluntary use of KSeF for B2C invoices. The Ministry has prepared some training and support activities for entrepreneurs, including employee training, with individual meetings and a public information campaign.

Experts have criticized the two-phase implementation plan, arguing that simultaneous implementation for all taxpayers would be preferable. At the moment the topic is a source of wide debate in the country: the discussions concern, among other things, the adaptation of KSeF to European standards, to try to align it as much as possible with the expected EU requirements. The decision to delay the implementation of the e-invoicing portal in Poland met with widespread approval due to the obvious technical defects identified, but for some companies that had already invested in the technical preparation it entailed unexpected and even huge expenses. The Ministry of Finance has also suffered significant economic losses from these postponements, currently estimated at around PLN 30 million, around 7 million euros.

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