40+ business simplifications — what is in force and what actually changes in 2026

A guide for foreign investors and entrepreneurs in Poland  |  ATL Law 2026

Why this matters to foreign investors

Foreign capital entering Poland consistently identifies the same friction point: not the level of any single tax, but the frequency and unpredictability of legal change and the burden of dealing with the administration. Poland’s First Deregulation Package speaks directly to that concern. It is not one headline reform but a set of more than forty targeted changes spread across dozens of statutes — from the Entrepreneurs’ Law and the Code of Administrative Procedure to the Public Procurement Law — whose combined effect is lower administrative cost and greater predictability.

For an international group operating a Polish subsidiary, two features stand out. First, the package introduces safeguards aimed at legal certainty: a longer lead time before new obligations take effect in draft laws governing business activity, and a “balancing of administrative burdens” principle. Second, it reshapes how businesses are inspected, moving planned inspections to a transparent, risk-based model. Both feed directly into operational and compliance risk — the metrics that matter most when a board weighs a Polish investment.

This guide is organised by theme, states the date each measure took effect, and — just as importantly — assesses candidly what the package genuinely changes and what it leaves untouched.

Snapshot: legal basis, scope and timeline

The package is contained in a single amending statute — the Act of 21 May 2025 (Dz.U. 2025 item 769), which amends dozens of statutes. It is cross-cutting, touching both the rules for making economic law and the day-to-day conduct of business. Its provisions entered into force on three principal dates:

• 13 July 2025 — the core of the act (inspections, dealings with the administration, law-making principles, leasing, crafts);
• 1 January 2026 — the risk-based planned-inspection system and risk categories;
• 13 March 2026 — remote hearings and sessions before the National Appeals Chamber (nine months after promulgation on 12 June 2025).

As of the date of this guide all of these dates have passed and the package applies in full, subject to transitional provisions.

A more predictable regulatory environment

This is the least eye-catching group of changes and, for a foreign investor, potentially the most valuable in the long run. The amendment wrote a set of “business-friendly law-making” principles into the Entrepreneurs’ Law. It is worth stressing at the outset that these are directives addressed to the legislative process, not rights an entrepreneur can invoke directly.

A six-month vacatio legis

Draft laws governing the taking up, conduct or cessation of business activity should, in the part that increases burdens on entrepreneurs, provide for a vacatio legis of at least six months. This is a direct answer to the so-called inflation of law and the habit of introducing significant changes with little or no adjustment period. The rule is not absolute: a departure is permitted where an overriding public interest or the need to implement EU law so requires, and any departure must be justified. A separate, analogous rule for unfavourable changes in tax law was introduced in the Tax Ordinance.

Balancing of administrative burdens (“one in, one out”)

The mechanism is often badged as “one in, one out”, but its statutory wording is softer than the name suggests. The drafter is to “strive” not to impose new administrative obligations and, where that is not possible, to strive for an equivalent reduction of other burdens in the same field. It is not a hard requirement to remove one existing burden for every new one, but a directional guideline for law-making. Its real value will be tested only in legislative practice.

Ex-post review and a Regulatory Programme

This is not a blanket duty to review every act after two years. Government drafts must indicate the manner and timing of an ex-post evaluation, or justify why one is not warranted; only where public consultations were skipped can the planning of an evaluation not be waived, and its date may not exceed two years from entry into force. This is complemented by a duty on the Council of Ministers to draw up a cyclical Regulatory Programme (as a rule, every three years).

Lighter, risk-based business inspections

Inspections are the part of the package firms feel most directly. The premise is that an inspection must not paralyse a business, and the burden is reduced on several levels.

A shorter inspection cap for micro-enterprises

The maximum aggregate duration of all inspections at a micro-enterprise in a calendar year has, as a rule, been cut from twelve to six working days. Statutory exceptions to the time limits remain, and in defined situations analytical and documentary activities may extend the period — but even so, for the lean local subsidiaries through which many international groups operate in Poland, this is a real saving.

Advance disclosure of the document list

Before an inspection begins, the authority must serve the entrepreneur — already in the notice of intent to inspect — with a preliminary list of the information and documents it will require (though it may still request other documents connected with the inspection while it is under way). This removes the element of surprise, allows the file to be prepared in advance, and shortens the inspection itself.

Risk-based inspection planning (from 1 January 2026)

The most significant structural change is risk-based scheduling of planned inspections. Entrepreneurs are assigned to one of three risk categories — low, medium or high — on the basis of a periodic analysis of the likelihood of non-compliance, and planned inspections follow a periodic plan. The rules for assigning a risk category are published by the inspecting authority in the Public Information Bulletin (BIP), and for a planned inspection the applicable category is also stated in the notice of intent to inspect. For the first time a business can see the rules by which it is selected. This applies from 1 January 2026.

A key carve-out — concessioned activity and KAS

The model does not apply uniformly to every inspection. For concessioned activity and for inspections within the remit of the National Revenue Administration (KAS), the duty to publish the risk-category criteria in the BIP is disapplied, and the statutory frequency limits on planned inspections do not apply to KAS inspections and analyses, among others. Separately, Chapter 5 of the Entrepreneurs’ Law (the inspection safeguards) essentially does not apply to customs-fiscal control. For an investor this means the KAS areas that weigh most heavily in practice remain largely outside the new, lighter rules — one of the most important caveats when assessing the package’s real value.

A less formalistic, more digital administration

A second group of changes simplifies a company’s everyday contact with public offices and strips procedure of unnecessary formality.

The end of the stamp as a formal requirement

The absence of a company stamp on a document or application is no longer a formal defect or a ground to treat the document as incomplete, and an authority may not require a stamp unless a specific provision does. A minor change on paper, but one that removes a recurring source of formal disputes and is especially useful for foreign entities, which typically do not use a company seal.

A “soft call” without opening proceedings

Modelled on an instrument in the competition-law regime, an authority may — without opening formal proceedings — ask an entrepreneur to state its position on a matter connected with its business. The entrepreneur has at least 14 days to respond. The tool is entirely voluntary on both sides: the authority may but need not use it, and the addressee may but need not reply. Used well, it lets doubts be clarified without triggering a costly procedure.

Hybrid decisions

Attachments to a decision issued on paper may be delivered on another durable medium, with the party’s consent given in writing or orally for the record — streamlining matters with bulky technical annexes.

Administrative mediation

The catalogue of matters suitable for administrative mediation has been clarified. It now expressly includes, among others, matters decided within administrative discretion, those concerning concessions or business permits, entries in registers of regulated activity, and industrial-property matters — improving the odds of settling a dispute with an authority amicably.

Ex officio relief on administrative penalties

Authorities may now grant relief in the enforcement of an administrative penalty — including remission — of their own motion, not only on the party’s application. This is not a fully discretionary tool, however: ex officio relief is possible only in statutorily defined situations (for example, where enforcement of the penalty would prove ineffective). “Good faith” on the part of the business is not, in itself, a statutory ground for remission.

Operational and transactional easing

Leasing in documentary form

A leasing agreement may now be concluded in documentary form (for example, by an exchange of e-mails allowing the parties to be identified) rather than only in written form on pain of nullity, and the financing party may issue reminders to the lessee in the same form. This speeds up fleet and equipment financing, particularly in cross-border transactions concluded remotely.

A new definition of crafts

The definitions of “crafts” and “craftsman” have been revised. A capital company may now obtain craftsman status where it carries on business using the confirmed professional qualifications of at least one shareholder and is a micro, small or medium-sized enterprise. For some entities the extended status is additionally conditional on joining a craft self-government organisation, and the status arises on the date that organisation resolves to admit the entrepreneur. Hearing-aid and optical services have also been brought within the crafts.

Remote hearings before the KIO (from 13 March 2026)

The act enables remote hearings and open sessions before the National Appeals Chamber and expands electronic procedural steps — but it does not make all KIO proceedings fully electronic. The President of the Chamber decides whether a hearing is held remotely, and transitional provisions mean the new rules do not apply to all proceedings at once. The change reduces the cost and increases the accessibility of legal remedies in public procurement — relevant to firms delivering public-sector contracts. It applies from 13 March 2026.

Before and after — at a glance

The table below contrasts the position before the package with the rules in force in 2026.

What actually changes — a candid assessment

An honest reading separates changes that carry real weight from housekeeping.

Real gains: the lasting value lies chiefly in the transparent, risk-based model for planned inspections and, at the systemic level, in the direction of travel towards greater legal certainty. These are changes that genuinely lower the regulatory and operational risk of doing business in Poland.

Moderate value: the de-formalising of dealings with the administration (stamps, soft calls, hybrid decisions, mediation) simplifies daily operations but does not translate directly into the bottom line. Documentary-form leasing and the new crafts definition are targeted easings affecting particular groups.

Important limits: the lighter inspection regime largely does not reach the KAS domain — in particular customs-fiscal control — the area investors feel most. The law-making principles (vacatio legis, “one in, one out”, ex-post review) are directional and admit exceptions. And the package contains no landmark tax relief; that is reserved for separate acts, some still only in draft.

Beyond the First Package — parallel tax measures and Deregulation 2.0

The First Deregulation Package should be read as the opening of a broader process, not its conclusion. In parallel — under separate statutes — tax changes have taken effect that investors often wrongly attribute to this package.

• The VAT subject-based exemption threshold was raised from PLN 200,000 to PLN 240,000 from 1 January 2026, under a separate Act of 24 June 2025 (Dz.U. 2025 item 896) — not the First Deregulation Package.
• Amendments to the Tax Ordinance limit the accrual of default interest where a tax or customs-fiscal inspection runs beyond six months — subject to statutory exceptions (including periods of suspension and delays attributable to the party or beyond the authority’s control).

The government is also working on a “second deregulation package” (Deregulation 2.0), which has already taken the form of concrete drafts on the legislative agenda (including a reform of tax rulings — longer protection and validity periods and rules for their extension), with adoption by the Council of Ministers planned for the fourth quarter of 2026. Among the announced measures is also a free app for taxpayers to issue receipts in place of a physical cash register (distinct from the existing consumer “e-Paragony” app). These remain at the drafting stage — as of this guide they are not in force and should not be planned around.

Practical recommendations for investors

The First Deregulation Package is not a tax revolution, but a solid step towards a more predictable and less burdensome regulatory environment. For a foreign investor its value is chiefly systemic — in the rules that order the law-making process and inspection practice. In practical terms we recommend that entities operating in, or entering, Poland:

• monitor the risk-category criteria the relevant authority publishes in the BIP, and check the category stated in the notice of intent for a planned inspection;
• put in place procedures for responding to “soft calls” and to the preliminary document lists served before an inspection;
• factor into compliance planning that KAS inspections — in particular customs-fiscal control — remain largely outside the new, lighter regime;
• distinguish, when taking business decisions, between what is in force (the package and the separate tax acts) and what is merely in draft in the second package.

Given the cross-cutting nature of the amendment and its many exceptions, the impact of individual measures on a specific business model should be assessed case by case.