How Is a Polish Company Taxed? CIT and Estonian CIT in 2026

In short:

• A Polish company (sp. z o.o.) pays Corporate Income Tax (CIT) on its profit: 19% as standard, or a reduced 9% for small taxpayers and new companies.
• Profit paid out to owners as a dividend is taxed again at 19% — the classic “double taxation” — giving an effective rate of about 26% (at 9% CIT) or 34% (at 19% CIT).
• Estonian CIT (ryczałt od dochodów spółek) changes the timing: you pay no CIT until you distribute profit, and the effective rate drops to about 20% (small taxpayers) or 25%.
• Estonian CIT has conditions — mainly only individual shareholders and at least three employees — and you opt in with a ZAW-RD notice.
• Foreign owners pay the same rates; a double-tax treaty usually lowers the tax withheld on dividends sent abroad.

Once your Polish company is up and running, the number that decides how much you actually keep is its tax rate. For a sp. z o.o. the headline is Corporate Income Tax — but how much you pay, and when you pay it, depends on choices you make early. Here is how company tax works in Poland in 2026, including the Estonian CIT regime that many foreign-owned companies are better off under.

What taxes does a Polish company pay?

A company’s main tax is CIT on its profit; separately, it may charge and file VAT, and it withholds PIT and pays ZUS for any employees. This guide is about CIT — the profit tax. VAT is a different system with its own rules (see our guide on VAT for foreign founders), and payroll taxes only arise once you hire staff.

What is the CIT rate in Poland — 9% or 19%?

The standard CIT rate is 19%. A reduced 9% rate applies to small taxpayers and to companies in their first tax year — on operating income, not on capital gains.

	9% CIT	19% CIT
Who	Small taxpayers + new companies	Everyone else
Revenue test	Prior-year sales under EUR 2M (~PLN 8.5M for 2026)	Above the limit
Capital gains	Always 19%	19%

A small taxpayer is one whose previous-year sales revenue, including VAT, stayed under the PLN equivalent of EUR 2 million — about PLN 8.5 million for 2026. A brand-new company is treated as a small taxpayer in its first year, so most foreign founders start on the 9% rate.

Why do people talk about “double taxation”?

Because the same profit is taxed twice — once as CIT when the company earns it, and again at 19% when it is paid to you as a dividend. The combined bite is bigger than the headline CIT rate suggests:

• At 9% CIT: the company earns 100, pays 9 in CIT, and 91 is left. Distribute that 91 and 19% dividend tax takes another ~17, so you receive about 73.7 — an effective tax of roughly 26%.
• At 19% CIT: 100 becomes 81 after CIT; after 19% dividend tax you keep about 65.6 — an effective tax of roughly 34%.

That is the real cost of taking profit out of a standard-CIT company — and exactly the problem Estonian CIT is designed to soften.

What is Estonian CIT (ryczałt od dochodów spółek)?

Estonian CIT is a regime where your company pays no CIT while it keeps and reinvests its profit — tax falls due only when you distribute that profit to the owners. As long as the money stays and works in the company, there is no CIT to pay.

When you do distribute, the effective combined tax is about 20% for small taxpayers and 25% for everyone else — against 26% and 34% under the classic system. So Estonian CIT gives you two things: cash flow (reinvest 100% of profit tax-free) and a lower effective rate when you eventually take money out.

Who can use Estonian CIT?

Mainly Polish companies with only individual shareholders that employ at least three people. The full conditions:

• The company is an sp. z o.o., S.A., P.S.A., or a partnership form (sp.k. / S.K.A.).
• Shareholders are only natural persons — no corporate owners — and the company itself holds no shares in other entities.
• It employs at least 3 people beyond the shareholders (employment or civil contracts), with lighter requirements for new and small companies in the first years.
• Its income is mostly operating, not passive (interest, royalties and similar).
• You notify the tax office on form ZAW-RD by the end of the first month of the tax year you start; the choice then runs in four-year cycles and renews automatically.

The employment and shareholder rules are where eligibility usually turns — we check them before you switch.

Estonian CIT or standard CIT — which is better?

Estonian CIT usually wins if you reinvest profits and can meet the employment rule; standard CIT can be simpler if you are very small or pay everything out immediately.

	Standard CIT	Estonian CIT
When you pay	Yearly, on profit earned	Only when you distribute
Effective rate on distributed profit	~26% / ~34%	~20% / ~25%
Reinvested profit	Taxed first	Tax-free until paid out
Employees required	None	At least 3 (relief for new/small)
Shareholders	Any	Individuals only

For a growing, reinvesting foreign-owned sp. z o.o. with a few employees, Estonian CIT is often both cheaper and simpler — there are no monthly CIT advances to calculate. If you are choosing your structure from scratch, read this alongside our guide on sp. z o.o. vs. JDG.

How are foreign owners taxed on dividends?

A foreign shareholder pays the same 19% Polish dividend tax, but a double-tax treaty usually reduces it — and you can normally credit the Polish tax at home. Poland withholds 19% on dividends paid abroad; a treaty between Poland and your country typically lowers that — the Poland–Turkey treaty, for example, caps dividend withholding at 10–15%. You then usually credit the Polish tax against tax in your home country, so the same profit is not fully taxed twice. Claiming the treaty rate needs the right paperwork (a tax-residence certificate) — we handle that.

Staying compliant

Whichever regime you choose, a company files the annual CIT-8 return and, from 2026, keeps structured JPK_CIT books — all mapped out in our first-year tax calendar. Standard CIT also means monthly or quarterly advances; Estonian CIT does away with those. Either way, clean books are what make the numbers — and the savings — hold up.

Which regime leaves you paying less?

Meyis is a Turkish-speaking accounting office in Warsaw, Poland — a biuro rachunkowe that sets up and runs the tax side of foreign-owned companies and works out whether standard or Estonian CIT leaves you keeping more.

Talk to us about your company’s tax or message us on WhatsApp at +48 692 413 475. We will run the numbers for your situation.

Official sources: the entrepreneurs’ portal biznes.gov.pl and the tax portal podatki.gov.pl. Always confirm current rates and thresholds, which can change year to year.