Poland’s Finance Ministry has proposed giving businesses another year without the dedicated financial penalties attached to incorrect use of the country’s mandatory KSeF electronic-invoicing system.
Government legislative project UD477, published on 22 September, would postpone application of the KSeF monetary penalties currently scheduled to begin on 1 January 2027 until 1 January 2028.
The proposal does not postpone KSeF itself.
Mandatory electronic invoicing has already been introduced in stages during 2026, and the remaining temporary exemption for the smallest businesses is still scheduled to expire at the end of this year.
For companies and tax teams, the distinction is important: the invoicing obligation would remain, while the dedicated KSeF financial-sanction regime would stay switched off for another year.
KSeF deadlines themselves are unchanged
Poland introduced mandatory KSeF in stages.
Since 1 February 2026, the obligation has applied to businesses whose gross sales exceeded PLN 200 million in 2024 — approximately $52 million or €46 million using the latest National Bank of Poland average exchange rates.
From 1 April 2026, the obligation expanded to most other businesses.
The smallest taxpayers, whose monthly gross sales documented by invoices do not exceed PLN 10,000 — around $2,600 or €2,300 — can continue issuing invoices outside KSeF until the end of 2026, provided they remain within that limit. From 1 January 2027, that exemption is due to disappear.
The Finance Ministry’s new project leaves those dates intact.
It also leaves in place the rule that receiving invoices through KSeF has generally been mandatory since 1 February 2026.
What penalties are being postponed?
Under the law currently scheduled to apply from 1 January 2027, the head of a tax office can impose a financial penalty where a taxpayer required to use KSeF:
- does not issue a structured invoice through KSeF;
- issues an invoice during a KSeF outage or unavailability in a form that does not meet the prescribed requirements; or
- fails to send an offline or outage-period invoice to KSeF within the required deadline.
The maximum penalty can reach 100% of the VAT shown on the invoice.
Where an invoice does not show VAT, the penalty can reach 18.7% of the total amount due on the invoice.
UD477 would delay the application of those Article 106ni penalties until 1 January 2028.
That would effectively turn 2027 into another adjustment year for the dedicated KSeF monetary-sanction regime.
No penalties does not mean no obligation
Businesses should not interpret the proposal as permission to ignore KSeF during 2027.
The Finance Ministry explicitly says tax authorities would still react where businesses fail to use the system despite being legally required to do so.
Under the proposed approach, the National Revenue Administration, or KAS, would first contact the taxpayer individually and remind it of the KSeF obligation.
If the business did not respond appropriately, tax authorities could then carry out checks to establish whether failure to use KSeF was linked to incorrect VAT settlements.
The ministry says the intention is to give businesses more time to adapt to technical and organisational difficulties while still allowing the tax administration to investigate cases where non-compliance may indicate wider tax problems.
The practical result is therefore a softer enforcement model, not suspension of the underlying rules.
Why the government wants another transition year
The Finance Ministry says the proposal responds to requests from businesses, industry organisations and tax specialists after the phased introduction of mandatory KSeF.
Officials argue that an additional year without the dedicated fines would give businesses more time to resolve difficulties involving accounting systems, internal processes and practical use of the platform.
The ministry has continued business and technical consultations on KSeF since June 2026 and says further system functionality is still being considered in response to market feedback.
That is particularly relevant for smaller businesses entering mandatory KSeF from January 2027, as well as larger companies operating complex ERP, accounting and invoicing integrations.
What businesses still need to get right
Even if UD477 becomes law, companies would still need to comply with KSeF invoicing rules.
That includes determining when an invoice must be issued through the system, correctly using the structured invoice format, dealing properly with offline and outage procedures and transmitting invoices generated outside the live system within the statutory deadlines.
An invoice issued outside KSeF when the seller should have used the system does not make the underlying transaction disappear for VAT purposes. The seller remains responsible for correctly accounting for the VAT due.
The proposed penalty holiday therefore reduces one category of financial exposure but does not turn 2027 into a voluntary KSeF year.
For tax and finance teams, the additional year would be most useful as time to identify recurring system errors and strengthen processes before Article 106ni sanctions begin applying.
Foreign groups with Polish operations remain affected
The proposal is also relevant to international companies with Polish subsidiaries, branches or VAT-registered operations.
Where the Polish entity or transaction falls within mandatory KSeF, foreign ownership does not itself remove the invoicing obligation.
International groups therefore need to ensure their central invoicing or ERP architecture can satisfy Polish requirements, even if invoice generation or accounting functions are managed outside Poland.
The proposed sanctions deferral could reduce immediate financial risk during 2027, but the compliance project itself should continue.
Small businesses face an especially important January deadline
The timing matters most for the smallest businesses still benefiting from the temporary PLN 10,000 monthly threshold.
That exemption ends on 31 December 2026 under the current timetable.
From 1 January 2027, KSeF is scheduled to become mandatory for those businesses as well.
If UD477 passes, those businesses would enter mandatory KSeF without immediately entering the Article 106ni penalty regime.
That appears to be one of the main practical reasons for the additional transition period identified by the ministry.
Reverse charge for energy-market transactions would also be extended
UD477 contains a separate VAT measure unrelated to e-invoicing.
The government wants to extend Poland’s temporary reverse-charge mechanism for selected transactions involving:
- gas supplied through the gas system;
- electricity supplied through the electricity system; and
- services involving transfers of greenhouse-gas emission allowances.
The mechanism currently runs until 31 December 2026 and, in qualifying exchange or organised-market transactions, shifts responsibility for accounting for VAT from the seller to the buyer or service recipient.
The new proposal would extend the Polish rules until 30 June 2030.
However, there is an EU-law dependency.
The existing Polish mechanism relies on Article 199a of the EU VAT Directive, which currently authorises the measure only until the end of 2026. The Polish government says it expects that EU authority to be extended; if Brussels sets a different end date, the domestic proposal would need to be adjusted accordingly.
The proposal is not law yet
UD477 remains a government legislative project.
The official register shows it was published on 22 September 2026 and that adoption by the Council of Ministers is planned for the fourth quarter of 2026.
It therefore still needs to move through the government process before being submitted to parliament.
Until that happens, businesses should treat 1 January 2027 as the penalty start date under the law currently in force while recognising that the Finance Ministry is actively proposing to move it to 1 January 2028.
For companies already using KSeF, the proposal offers the prospect of a longer adjustment period.
It does not offer another postponement of mandatory e-invoicing.
