Domestic tax scheme reporting ends — what foreign investors and multinational groups need to review before 1 October

Guide for foreign investors and multinational businesses in Poland | ATL Law 2026

Why this reform matters for cross-border groups

Since 1 January 2019, Poland has operated one of the most extensive Mandatory Disclosure Rules (MDR) regimes in the European Union — going well beyond the EU’s DAC6 Directive by also covering purely domestic tax arrangements and indirect taxes. For subsidiaries of foreign groups operating in Poland, this created a recurring compliance burden that was often disproportionate to the actual tax risk involved.

Under the Act of 29 May 2026, signed by the President on 19 June 2026, the obligation to report domestic tax schemes is abolished. From 1 October 2026, Poland’s Head of the National Revenue Administration (Szef KAS) will only accept notifications for cross-border arrangements — precisely the scope required by the EU’s DAC6 Directive. For foreign investors, this is a genuine reduction in operational burden, but it does not mean MDR obligations disappear from Poland altogether, particularly for transactions and restructurings involving entities in other jurisdictions.

What stays the same — the part investors should read first

The reform does not end MDR reporting in Poland. The obligation to report cross-border arrangements derives directly from EU law and cannot be removed unilaterally by Poland. Arrangements with a foreign element — typically intra-group financing, cross-border restructurings, transfers of intellectual property within a group, or agreements involving related entities in other jurisdictions — will continue to require notification to the Head of KAS, provided they meet the hallmarks set out in the DAC6 Directive.

For a foreign investor operating in Poland through a local subsidiary, this is the single most important takeaway: the narrowing of Poland’s MDR regime does not automatically exempt any transaction with the parent group or with affiliates abroad. If anything, once the domestic layer is removed, cross-border intra-group arrangements become the category that deserves the closest ongoing attention from tax and legal advisors.

What disappears from 1 October 2026

The core change is the complete abolition of domestic scheme reporting. Arrangements that fall out of scope include domestic restructurings, tax-benefit arrangements without any cross-border element, and arrangements previously reportable solely on the basis of Poland’s so-called “other special hallmarks” — criteria that had no equivalent in DAC6, such as the deferred tax impact threshold, the PLN 5 million tax value threshold, or the PLN 25 million non-resident revenue threshold. VAT and excise duty are also formally excluded from the scope of the rules, aligning Poland with the EU standard.

The concept of a “qualified beneficiary” — a criterion unique to Poland’s domestic-scheme regime — is removed from the statute altogether, since only cross-border arrangements remain reportable. Poland’s terminology in Chapter 11a of the Tax Ordinance is also being aligned with DAC6: the regime now recognises two participants, the promoter and the beneficiary, with the promoter absorbing what were previously the separate “supporting activities” of an assisting entity.

Promoter and beneficiary roles inside multinational structures

The alignment of Polish terminology with DAC6 has direct practical consequences for multi-entity corporate structures. Under the simplified two-participant model, groups should reassess which entity — the Polish subsidiary, a foreign in-house tax or legal function, or an external advisor — actually acts as the promoter of a given arrangement, and which acts as the beneficiary. This determines who bears the reporting obligation and within what deadline.

A related change concerns the interaction between MDR and legally protected professional secrecy. Entities bound by professional confidentiality — tax advisors, attorneys, legal counsel, patent attorneys, notaries and statutory auditors — will not be required to report if doing so would breach that confidentiality. Instead, the promoter bound by secrecy must inform the client of its own reporting obligation. Foreign groups working with Polish law firms should make sure their engagement terms clearly allocate responsibility for the actual filing.

Procedural simplifications

• MDR-2 notifications are abolished — previously required when a promoter bound by professional secrecy did not report a scheme.
• MDR-3 filings move to an annual cycle, with a single harmonised deadline: the end of the third month following the close of the tax year (or calendar year for other taxpayers), replacing the previously fragmented deadlines tied to taxes such as PCC or VAT.
• MDR-3 may now be signed by a proxy, not only by persons authorised to represent the entity — a practical benefit for groups managing compliance from a central function abroad.
• MDR-1 and MDR-4 forms have been technically streamlined to reflect the narrower, cross-border-only reporting model.

The internal MDR procedure becomes optional

The obligation to maintain a formal internal MDR procedure — previously mandatory for promoters exceeding certain revenue thresholds, backed by multi-million-zloty penalties — becomes voluntary. This is not, however, a reason for Polish subsidiaries of foreign groups to automatically dismantle an existing procedure. Where cross-border reporting obligations will continue to arise, the procedure remains a useful tool for identifying and qualifying arrangements. The recommended approach is to adapt existing documentation to the narrower scope of the new rules rather than discontinue it altogether.

Individual tax rulings on MDR are eliminated

One of the more consequential changes for foreign investors is the statutory exclusion of individual tax rulings on tax scheme provisions. Administrative courts had repeatedly compelled the tax authorities to issue such rulings; the legislature has now closed that avenue at the statutory level. In its place, the tax scheme number (NSP) mechanism gains substantive weight: confirmation of an NSP will constitute a determination that the arrangement is a reportable scheme, while a refusal to assign a number will mean the authority considers it is not.

For foreign groups planning material cross-border transactions, this narrows the tools available to manage tax risk in advance. Where doubt exists, taxpayers will rely more heavily on their own risk assessment, supported by advisor opinion, without the option of obtaining a binding position from the authority through a classic individual ruling.

Penalties: unchanged, despite earlier expectations

The Act does introduce clearer rules on initiating fiscal penal proceedings: these can no longer be triggered by the mere fact of filing an MDR-1, MDR-3 or MDR-4 notification, but only in specifically defined situations — such as failing to submit, or submitting late, or using an invalidated NSP.

Action checklist for foreign investor groups

• Map your existing arrangements to separate those reported solely as domestic schemes (no longer relevant) from those with a genuine cross-border element (still reportable).
• Re-map promoter and beneficiary roles across the group, including any foreign entities or advisors involved in a given arrangement.
• Make a deliberate decision on the internal MDR procedure — adapt rather than default to abandoning it.
• Update engagement terms with Polish advisors to clearly allocate MDR filing responsibility under the new professional-secrecy rules.
• Review transitional provisions for arrangements identified before 1 October 2026 — the reform does not automatically extinguish pre-existing obligations.
• Use the period before 1 October 2026 to align group-wide compliance processes with the narrower regime.

Conclusion

The abolition of Poland’s domestic MDR regime is a genuine simplification that brings the country’s reporting framework into line with the EU standard. For foreign investors, however, the counter-intuitive conclusion is this: the more international a group’s structure, the less this reform reduces its actual MDR exposure, since cross-border arrangements remain fully reportable — and the loss of individual rulings, combined with unchanged penalties, raises the stakes of a well-documented, defensible analysis of every arrangement. The months before 1 October 2026 are the time to review group structure and prepare compliance processes for the new regime.

ABOUT ATL LAW

ATL Law is a Polish law firm specialising in comprehensive legal and tax advisory services for foreign investors on the Polish market. We provide multilingual advisory across tax law, corporate law, transfer pricing and labour law. We have extensive experience advising on MDR and DAC6 compliance in cross-border structures, including mapping promoter and beneficiary roles within corporate groups and preparing or updating internal tax-scheme reporting procedures.

Legal status as of July 2026. This material is for information purposes only and does not constitute legal or tax advice.