Poland’s parliament has approved a temporary windfall tax targeting extraordinary revenues in parts of the fuel sector, moving the controversial measure to the final stages of the legislative process.
The Sejm passed the legislation on 18 September by 237 votes to 202, with one abstention. The Senate then accepted the law without amendments on 24 September. It now requires presidential action before it can enter into force.
The legislation establishes a headline tax rate of 60% on a specifically calculated excess above a company’s reference fuel-sales margin.
It is important, however, not to describe this as a 60% tax on a company’s entire profit.
The tax base is instead constructed by comparing actual fuel-sale revenues with the revenues that would have been generated using a historical reference margin.
The law has also changed materially since the government approved its latest proposal on 15 September.
The government proposal originally covered extraordinary revenues generated between March and December 2026. Parliament extended the period until 31 March 2027.
Which fuel companies would pay?
The legislation targets businesses operating in Poland that either manufacture liquid fuels or sell qualifying fuel brought into Poland through imports or intra-EU acquisitions under the relevant foreign-fuel trading concession.
For manufacturers, the definition of fuel production is narrower than simply carrying out any operation involving fuel.
The legislation covers production in fuel-manufacturing installations involving the processing of crude oil. Specialist analysis of the parliamentary text notes that this does not, for example, simply treat fuel blending as equivalent to refining for the purposes of the measure.
The other principal group comprises businesses selling qualifying fuels originating from imports or intra-Community acquisitions under a concession for trading liquid fuels with foreign countries.
For international energy groups supplying the Polish market, that makes the detailed ownership, import and trading structure important when establishing whether a Polish entity falls within the tax.
How the reference margin works
The central mechanism is a comparison with each taxpayer’s historical fuel-sales profitability.
The starting point is the company’s average fuel-sales margin during 2025.
That historical margin is then increased by 20% to produce the reference margin.
There is also a floor: the reference margin cannot be lower than 2%. The 2% level also applies in specified cases where the taxpayer did not carry out the relevant business activity during 2025.
The law then calculates hypothetical revenues using the taxpayer’s actual fuel acquisition or production costs together with that reference margin.
Only actual revenues exceeding that calculated level form the starting tax base.
In simplified terms, a company whose margin remains within its historical 2025 level plus the permitted 20% uplift should not have that ordinary portion of its profitability subjected to the windfall levy.
The government has presented this mechanism as a way of separating extraordinary returns generated by exceptional market conditions from ordinary commercial profitability.
What does the 60% rate actually mean?
The statutory rate is 60% of the calculated tax base.
That means it is not 60% of turnover and it is not automatically 60% of the company’s accounting profit.
Instead, the 60% applies to the excess calculated under the legislation after comparing actual fuel-sale revenues with hypothetical revenues derived from the reference margin.
There is an additional protection for taxpayers that trade qualifying imported or intra-EU fuel but do not themselves manufacture fuel.
For those businesses, specialist analysis of the final parliamentary legislation says the resulting windfall-tax liability cannot exceed 50% of the income — or, where applicable, net profit — proportionally attributable to the taxable period.
This distinction is significant because some summaries of the legislation describe traders as facing a 50% rate. More precisely, the general calculation uses the 60% windfall-tax mechanism, while a separate 50% limitation applies to qualifying non-producing traders.
Tax period extended to March 2027
The Cabinet-approved proposal covered the period from 1 March to 31 December 2026.
During the parliamentary process, that period was extended to 31 March 2027. The legislation approved by both houses therefore covers 13 months rather than the ten months originally proposed by the government.
That change is important for companies planning cash flow and estimating their potential exposure.
It also means the government’s widely quoted estimate of approximately PLN 4 billion — about $1.04 billion or €914 million at the latest NBP average rates — should be treated carefully.
The PLN 4 billion estimate was calculated for the government’s earlier March–December 2026 version of the measure. The explanatory material estimated approximately PLN 6.7 billion of taxable excess under that original period, producing roughly PLN 4 billion of tax at 60%.
An updated official revenue estimate corresponding specifically to the subsequently extended March 2027 end date has not been identified in the published government material reviewed for this article.
First payment would look back to March
The legislation is intended principally to take effect from 1 November 2026.
The first advance payment would nevertheless cover activity going back to 1 March 2026, running through the end of October, with payment due in November. Subsequent liabilities would be handled through advance payments followed by a final settlement.
That retrospective reach is one of the central legal issues surrounding the legislation.
Companies potentially affected would therefore need historical records covering the period before the legislation itself entered into force, assuming it ultimately becomes law in its current form.
Earlier version is already before the Constitutional Tribunal
This is the second attempt to enact the fuel windfall tax.
Parliament passed an earlier version in July, covering March to December 2026 and originally scheduled to take effect in August.
President Karol Nawrocki did not sign that legislation. On 24 July, he referred it to the Constitutional Tribunal for preventive constitutional review, citing among other issues the fact that the new tax would apply to economic activity carried out before the legislation entered into force.
The government subsequently prepared another version of the measure, which Cabinet approved on 15 September and parliament processed rapidly.
The fundamental timing issue remains.
The current legislation would principally enter into force on 1 November but calculate the levy using revenues dating back to 1 March.
On 22 September, before the Senate vote, the Presidential Chancellery said that a number of its earlier constitutional concerns remained applicable to the new legislation. It specifically pointed to the continued taxation of revenues earned before the law’s proposed entry into force.
That statement represents the position of the Presidential Chancellery; whether the legislation is ultimately signed or subjected to another constitutional procedure remains a matter for the president under the legislative process.
What companies would need to calculate
Affected businesses would need considerably more than a single annual profit figure.
The calculation potentially requires detailed records of fuel-sale revenue and associated costs, the company’s average sales margin during 2025, fuel import or intra-EU acquisition arrangements, and the precise nature of its Polish fuel activities.
The legislation also contains rules governing accounting data and transactions between related companies. The arm’s-length principle applies to transactions that affect the relevant revenues and costs.
Specialist analysis also notes that certain realised hedging results and regulatory costs can enter the calculation, while items such as unrealised foreign-exchange differences and some purely accounting revaluations are excluded.
For corporate groups, this makes tax preparation partly a data and systems exercise rather than merely applying 60% to a reported profit number.
Why international fuel businesses should pay attention
The legislation is relevant not only to Polish-owned refiners.
Companies selling imported or intra-EU-acquired fuel into Poland through entities holding the appropriate concession can also fall within the regime.
International groups should therefore examine which legal entity owns imported fuel, which entity performs the Polish sale, which licences it operates under and how revenues and costs are allocated between related entities.
The period covered by the legislation begins on 1 March 2026, meaning companies potentially within scope may need to reconstruct calculations from several months before the current bill was introduced.
Separate higher-CIT proposal should not be confused with this tax
The windfall levy should also be distinguished from the government’s separate plans concerning higher corporate income-tax rates for some large energy and fuel companies.
Poland 24 Business previously reported on that proposal, which concerns changes to ordinary CIT rather than the temporary windfall-tax mechanism described here.
The two measures therefore have different tax bases, legislative structures and potential consequences even though both concern parts of Poland’s energy and fuel sector.
What happens next?
Parliamentary consideration is now complete.
The Senate accepted the legislation without amendments on 24 September, meaning there is no further parliamentary disagreement to resolve before presidential consideration.
As of 27 September, the legislation has not appeared among the laws signed by the president in September.
Until presidential action and, if applicable, publication in the Journal of Laws, companies should therefore treat the measure as parliament-approved legislation, not an operative tax.
For businesses that are potentially within scope, however, the March start date makes early preparation relevant despite that unresolved legal status.
The most immediate work is identifying whether the company meets the statutory definition of a taxpayer, rebuilding its 2025 reference margin and calculating potential exposure from fuel sales dating back to 1 March 2026.
