What Documents Do You Need to Open a Company in Poland?

In short:

• For an individual founder the core set is small: valid ID or passport, an electronic signature, a Polish registered address, your PKD activity codes and the share structure.
• A foreign company as shareholder needs much more: a current extract from its home commercial register, its constitutional documents and proof of who may sign — each with an apostille and a sworn translation into Polish.
• Sworn translation (tłumaczenie przysięgłe) is a specific legal act by a translator on the Ministry of Justice list — a normal translation is not accepted. Billing is per 1,125 characters, typically PLN 35–60 per unit.
• ⚠️ Changed 1 January 2026: most non-EU founders must now apply for a PESEL number in person — applications through a representative are no longer accepted. EU, EFTA and Swiss citizens, and UK citizens covered by the Brexit agreement, are exempt.
• Registration is not the end of the paperwork: CRBR (beneficial owners) within 14 business days, NIP-8 within 21 days, plus PCC-3 and VAT-R where they apply.

Most foreign founders overestimate how many documents Poland wants from them and underestimate how long the few genuinely required ones take to produce. A passport is instant. An apostilled, sworn-translated extract from a Turkish trade registry is not. This guide separates the two, so you can start the slow items first.

What documents do you need to open a company in Poland?

For a straightforward company founded by individuals you need identification for every shareholder and board member, an electronic signature for everyone who signs, a Polish registered office address, your PKD activity codes and the share structure — plus sworn Polish translations of any foreign-language document. Nothing exotic. The complications appear only when a foreign company is among the shareholders, or when someone cannot sign in person.

Here is the whole picture in one table:

What	Individual founder	Foreign company as shareholder
Identification	Passport or ID card	Register extract + articles
Proof of signing authority	—	Document naming who may represent
Apostille / legalisation	Only for notarised POA	Yes, on the foreign documents
Sworn Polish translation	Only for foreign-language docs	Yes
Electronic signature	Yes, for each signatory	Yes, for the representative
Polish registered address	Yes	Yes
PKD codes + share structure	Yes	Yes

If you have not yet decided on the company form itself, read sp. z o.o. versus JDG first — the document list below assumes a sp. z o.o.

What identification does each founder need?

Every shareholder and board member needs a valid passport or national ID card; a Polish PESEL number is not legally required to found a company, but in practice a board member without one runs into walls. The PESEL is Poland’s personal identification number, and it is what Polish systems expect: it is disclosed in the KRS and in the beneficial-owners register, and it underpins signing financial statements and tax returns electronically.

This got harder on 1 January 2026. Under the Act of 12 September 2025, foreigners who are not EU, EFTA or Swiss citizens (or their family members), not UK citizens covered by the Brexit agreement, and not children born in Poland must now apply for a PESEL in person. The previous route — applying through a representative or by post — is closed. For a Turkish, American or Asian founder appointed to a Polish board, that means a trip.

The practical planning consequence: if a board member will need a PESEL, start that process early, and budget for the travel. It is now the single most common cause of delay in appointing non-EU directors.

What company details do you need to decide before filing?

You cannot file without the commercial substance of the company decided: the name, the registered address, the activity codes, the capital and who owns what. These are not documents you obtain — they are decisions you make, and vague answers stall the filing:

• Company name — plus the legal-form suffix spółka z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnością (sp. z o.o.). Check it is not already taken in the KRS.
• Registered office address in Poland, with the agreement evidencing your right to use it. See do you need a registered office address in Poland.
• PKD codes — the Polish activity classification. Pick the genuine main activity; a badly chosen main code can affect licensing and statistics later.
• Share capital and split — minimum PLN 5,000, minimum PLN 50 nominal per share, and exactly who holds how many.
• Management board — who sits on it and how the company is represented (jointly or individually).

When do documents need a sworn translation?

Any document in a language other than Polish that is to be used before a Polish court, notary or authority must be translated by a sworn translator (tłumacz przysięgły) — a translator entered on the Ministry of Justice list. An ordinary agency translation, however accurate, has no legal standing here.

What is worth knowing before you get quotes:

• The billing unit is not an A4 page. It is 1,125 characters including spaces, so a dense one-page corporate extract can bill as two or three units.
• Typical rates run PLN 35–60 per unit, usually excluding 23% VAT.
• The translator’s certification clause and seal are what give the document its status — which is why the sworn translator must see the original or a certified copy.

Meyis provides sworn and certified translation alongside company registration, precisely because these two workstreams block each other so often.

What is an apostille and do you need one?

An apostille is an international certificate that authenticates a public document for use abroad, issued under the 1961 Hague Convention — and yes, foreign public documents used in a Polish company registration generally need one. It replaces the older, slower chain of consular legalisation.

Poland and Turkey are both parties to the Hague Apostille Convention, so a Turkish public document — a trade-registry extract, a notarised power of attorney — needs an apostille from the competent Turkish authority, not full consular legalisation. The same applies between Poland and the great majority of countries a founder is likely to be coming from. For the small number of states outside the convention, consular legalisation is still required and takes noticeably longer.

The sequence matters and people get it wrong: obtain the document → apostille it → then have the whole thing sworn-translated. Translating first and apostilling after means paying for the translation twice.

What extra documents does a foreign company shareholder need?

When a company rather than a person is the shareholder, Poland wants to see what that company is and who is entitled to act for it. Expect to produce:

• A current extract from the home commercial register — recent, because registries and courts treat stale extracts as unreliable.
• The constitutional documents (articles of association or equivalent).
• Evidence of who is authorised to represent the company and sign the Polish filing.
• A resolution approving participation in the new Polish company, where the home-country rules or articles require one.

Each of those goes through the apostille-then-sworn-translation pipeline above. This is why founding through a corporate parent typically adds weeks, not days, and why the paperwork should start before anything else. One structural point to know in advance: a single-member sp. z o.o. cannot be the sole founder of another sp. z o.o. — an anti-pyramid rule in the Commercial Companies Code that occasionally forces a restructure at the worst moment.

Can someone else sign the documents for you?

Yes — through a power of attorney, but the POA itself becomes one of the documents that needs notarisation, an apostille and a sworn translation. For share-capital and company-formation purposes, Polish practice expects the signature on a POA granted abroad to be notarised, then apostilled in the country of issue, then sworn-translated into Polish.

In practice there are two routes for a founder who will not be in Poland:

• Sign remotely yourself using a qualified electronic signature (~PLN 250–350/year), recognised across the EU. Usually the cheaper and faster option, and it avoids the POA chain entirely.
• Grant a POA to a representative in Poland — sensible when you want a local adviser to handle the whole filing, or when a founder cannot obtain an e-signature.

What do you need after the company is registered?

Registration produces a second, shorter document list with real deadlines attached — and the penalties here are heavier than anything in the setup phase. Once your KRS number is issued:

Filing	What it is	Deadline
CRBR	Beneficial-owners register entry	14 business days from KRS entry
PCC-3	0.5% tax on share capital (~PLN 23 on PLN 5,000)	14 days
NIP-8	Supplementary data: bank account, headcount	21 days (7 if employing)
VAT-R	VAT registration, where required	Before first taxable sale

The CRBR filing is the one foreign founders most often miss, and it is the most expensive to miss: the fine for failing to file or update on time reaches PLN 1,000,000, and the submission carries criminal liability for false statements. It is a short online form — but it must be signed by the board, and it must be on time. Whether VAT-R applies to you at all is covered in our VAT registration guide, and the recurring obligations that follow are mapped in the first-year tax calendar.

How long does it take to gather everything?

An individual founder with a passport and an e-signature can be ready to file in days; a structure involving a foreign corporate shareholder should budget three to six weeks for documents alone. The slow items are always the same three: obtaining an apostille in the home country, sworn translation of corporate documents, and — since January 2026 — an in-person PESEL application for a non-EU board member.

Everything else runs in parallel and quickly. So the practical advice is to start the apostille and PESEL steps first, and treat the Polish-side filing as the last step rather than the first. Our cost breakdown covers what each of these adds financially.

Let us handle the document trail

Meyis is a Turkish-speaking accounting office in Warsaw, Poland — a biuro rachunkowe that registers foreign-owned companies, produces the sworn translations in-house, and files the CRBR and NIP-8 that follow, so nothing lapses in the gap between “registered” and “operating”.

Ask us what your structure needs or message us on WhatsApp at +48 692 413 475. Tell us who the shareholders are and which country they are in, and we will send you the exact document list for your case — not a generic one.

Official sources: the entrepreneurs’ portal biznes.gov.pl, the court-registers portal prs.ms.gov.pl, the S24 system at ekrs.ms.gov.pl and the tax portal podatki.gov.pl. Document requirements vary with the founder structure and country of origin — confirm your own case before filing.