31 March constitutes the deadline for submitting the IFT-2R information to the Tax office. This obligation applies to all Polish entrepreneurs who have deducted the so-called withholding tax on payments made to foreign corporate income taxpayers who have neither their head office nor their management board in Poland.
1. Withholding tax
The Corporate Income Tax Act of 15 February 1992 (i.e. Official Journal of 2025, item 278, as amended), hereinafter referred to as the CIT Act, imposes on Polish entrepreneurs paying remuneration to foreign counterparties an obligation to retain a flat-rate tax on these payments, the so-called withholding tax, on the payment date. The obligation in question applies to remuneration derived from strictly defined sources, i.e.:
- interest;
- copyright or related rights;
- rights to inventive projects, trademarks and ornamental designs, including the sale of these rights;
- receivables for disclosing the secret of a recipe or production process;
- the use of, or the right to use, an industrial equipment, including means of transport, commercial or scientific equipment;
- information related to experience gained in the industrial, commercial or scientific field (know-how);
- fees for services provided in the field of entertainment, leisure or sport;
- the provision of consultancy, accounting, market research, legal, advertising, management and control, data processing, employee recruitment and personnel acquisition services, guarantees and sureties, as well as services of a similar nature;
- fees for the export of cargo and passengers accepted for carriage in Polish ports by foreign commercial maritime shipping companies, excluding transit cargo and passengers;
- fees received in the territory of the Republic of Poland by foreign air transport companies, excluding revenues earned from scheduled passenger air transport, the use of which requires the passenger to hold an air ticket;
- dividends and other revenue (income) from participation in the profits of legal persons.
The term ″foreign counterparty″ refers to corporate income tax payers who don’t have their head office or place of management board within the territory of the Republic of Poland. For this reason, the certificate of residence presented by the foreign entity constitutes an extremely important document for the Polish entrepreneur. Indeed, only if a foreign counterparty documents its head office for tax purposes with a certificate of residence, a Polish entrepreneur can apply a preferential tax rate or a tax exemption.
2. Obligations of the Polish entrepreneur
The responsibility to calculate, collect and pay withholding tax rests with every Polish entrepreneur paying remuneration to foreign contractors, regardless of its legal form. Therefore, the obligation in question applies to legal persons, organisational units without legal personality and natural persons who are entrepreneurs.
The Polish entrepreneur is also obligated to submit to the appropriate tax office and to give to the foreign counterparty the information concerning the amount of revenue/income earned by corporate income taxpayers whose head office or management board isn’t located in Poland. This should be done using the official IFT-2/IFT-2R form.
3. Deadline for submitting the information
The IFT-2 information is prepared at the written request of a foreign counterparty. A Polish entrepreneur is obligated to prepare this information and send it to the taxpayer and the tax office within 14 days of submitting the request (Article 26(3b) of the CIT Act).
The IFT-2R information is mandatory. It shall be prepared and submitted to the Tax office and the foreign counterparty after the end of the tax year, by the end of the third month of the year following the tax year to which it relates (Article 26(3a) of the CIT Act). In practice, due to the fact that the tax year usually coincides with the calendar year, the IFT-2R information shall be presented by 31 March. If the payer stops its economic activity before the above deadline, the IFT-2R information should be submitted by the date of cessation of activity (Article 26(3d) of the CIT Act).
4. Information and absence of the obligation to collect tax
It should be emphasised that the IFT-2R information shall also be submitted in cases where a Polish entrepreneur wasn’t required to the withholding tax collection under a double taxation convention or the Act. In other words, the absence of an obligation to withhold tax at source, resulting from specific provisions, doesn’t exempt the payer from the duty to submit the settlement information. This rule also applies to the IFT-2 information.
5. Separate information for each foreign counterparty
The IFT-2 and IFT-2R information shall be submitted separately for each foreign entrepreneur. It’s impossible to submit the single aggregated information concerning remuneration paid to all foreign counterparties.
6. Tax office
Both the IFT-2 and IFT-2R information shall be submitted electronically (e-Declaration – e-Deklaracja) to the Tax office responsible for the taxation of foreign persons. In Polnad, these tasks are carried out by the Tax office in Lublin (Lubelski Urząd Skarbowy in Lublin).
7. Legal notice
The study is a work within the meaning of the Act of 4 February 1994 on Copyright and Related Rights (OJ 2006, No. 90, item 631, consolidated text, as amended). Publishing or reproducing this study or its part, quoting opinions, as well as disseminating in any other way the information contained therein without the written consent of Crede sp. z o.o. is prohibited.
