Capital gains tax in Poland: PIT-38 FAQ for foreign brokers

The process differs by income type, because each category is reported in a separate section of PIT-38.

Shares, ETFs and other securities. Determine each closed trade separately. For every sale, establish the acquisition cost under FIFO, then convert both proceeds and costs into PLN using the NBP exchange rate from the last business day before the transaction date. Profit is proceeds minus deductible costs, including acquisition cost and transaction fees.

Crypto assets. Report the total value of disposals for the year in PLN, then deduct acquisition costs from the year plus any costs carried forward from prior years.

Foreign dividends. Sum the gross amounts, convert to PLN, and account for foreign withholding tax under the proportional credit rules. Foreign dividends are reported separately and require PIT/ZG as an attachment.

You must file if both of the following are true:

• You are a Polish tax resident for the year.
• You sold shares, ETFs or other securities, closed derivative positions, disposed of crypto assets for fiat or goods, or received foreign dividends.

The obligation does not depend on withdrawing money from the account, and it can apply even if your account shows a loss for the year.

You can file PIT-38 from 15 February for the previous year, which is also when Polish brokers typically release PIT-8C. For Polish brokerage accounts it is practical to prepare your return after you receive PIT-8C.

The deadline to file and to pay any tax due is 30 April. A return pre-filled in the Twoj e-PIT system is automatically accepted on 30 April if you take no action. For foreign broker accounts that pre-filled return will be empty or incomplete, and automatic acceptance of an incomplete return does not remove your obligation to report foreign income correctly.

No. Tax is triggered by a sale or other realisation of income, such as selling a security or disposing of crypto for fiat, not by a cash withdrawal. Leaving the proceeds inside the brokerage account does not defer the tax.

Tax residency decides the question, not citizenship. A Polish passport, a PESEL number, or a registered address in Poland does not by itself make you a Polish tax resident.

If you live and work abroad and your centre of vital interests is abroad, you are usually not a Polish tax resident, and PIT-38 for foreign investment income is generally not required in Poland. Because residency can be disputed, it is worth documenting your situation. If you are unsure, the Polish tax residency test is a good starting point.

Holding an investment account alone does not create a filing obligation. If during the year you only bought shares that paid no dividend, or accumulating ETFs, and you had no sales and no dividends, then no taxable event occurred and PIT-38 is not required for that year.

Yes. A loss does not remove the filing obligation if taxable events occurred, and reporting the loss is what lets you carry it forward against future gains in the same category.

A loss shown in USD or EUR in your broker app does not decide the Polish result. PIT-38 is calculated in PLN, and exchange rate movements can turn a foreign currency loss into a PLN profit, or the reverse.

No. PIT-38 is always filed individually by each spouse. Investment income cannot be combined on a joint return, even for married couples who file their other income jointly.

Belka tax is the common name for the 19 percent flat rate tax on investment income in Poland, named after the finance minister who introduced it.

It is calculated on profit, meaning proceeds minus deductible costs such as acquisition cost and transaction fees, with all amounts converted to PLN.

Yes. PIT-38 income is generally included in the base for the solidarity levy. The levy is 4 percent on total qualifying income above 1,000,000 PLN in a year, and is reported separately on form DSF-1 by 30 April.

If tax is due and you pay after the deadline, statutory interest for late payment accrues from 1 May until the day of payment.

If you did not file at all, file the return and pay the tax with interest as soon as possible. A voluntary disclosure letter, czynny zal, can limit penal fiscal consequences, but only if the tax office has not already started actions for that year.

Brokers show an account result in the account currency, while PIT-38 follows Polish tax rules.

The main differences are conversion of every transaction into PLN at NBP rates, Polish cost rules, and FIFO matching of buys and sells. Broker reports often present total proceeds or an unrealised profit and loss figure rather than the taxable profit defined by Polish law, so the two numbers rarely match.

Yes, if you had taxable events such as sales, crypto disposals, or foreign dividends. Foreign brokers do not issue the Polish PIT-8C form, so the calculation is based entirely on your transaction history exported from the broker and applied to Polish tax rules.

No. Foreign brokers do not issue the Polish PIT-8C form for Polish tax residents. Only Polish brokers and Polish branches of brokers produce PIT-8C.

Yes. PIT-8C should be included in your PIT-38. You still need to combine it with results from other brokers, including foreign brokers that issue no PIT-8C, so that the return reflects all of your accounts.

Yes. Transaction related fees and commissions are generally deductible costs that reduce taxable profit. They must be converted to PLN and matched to the relevant trades.

Yes. If you find an error you can file a corrected PIT-38 for the relevant year. If the correction increases the tax due, you pay the difference together with interest from the original deadline.

The arithmetic, applying FIFO and converting transactions to PLN, can be handled systematically. The real difficulty lies in correct categorisation.

Polish tax law treats different types of investment income as separate categories that cannot be offset against each other. Each is reported in a different section of PIT-38 and follows its own rules:

• Sale of shares and ETFs: profit calculated per trade under FIFO.
• Cryptocurrencies: reported separately, with acquisition costs tracked and carried forward to future years regardless of whether you sold.
• Foreign dividends: reported separately, require PIT/ZG as an attachment, with foreign withholding tax credited under the applicable double taxation treaty.
• Interest from foreign accounts: reported separately.
• Losses from prior years: carried forward only within the same category, so a loss on shares cannot reduce tax on dividends.

Misclassifying an instrument, or combining categories that must stay separate, produces a formally incorrect return even if every number adds up. This is the most common source of errors in practice and the hardest to detect without knowing the rules, which is why professional preparation makes the difference, not the arithmetic.

In our practice the recurring issues are:

• Missing PLN conversions, or using the wrong exchange rate date.
• Omitting one of several accounts.
• Mixing the broker result with the Polish tax result.
• Ignoring deductible fees and commissions.
• Incorrect categorisation of income types across separate sections of PIT-38.
• Incorrect treatment of crypto acquisition costs.

No. In Poland a crypto to crypto swap does not create taxable revenue. Tax is triggered only when you exchange crypto for fiat currency, or pay with crypto for goods or services.

Yes. You report crypto acquisition costs in PIT-38 even in a year with no sales. Unused costs are carried forward and offset against crypto revenue in future years, so reporting them now preserves the deduction.

Crypto does not use the loss carry forward mechanism that applies to securities. Instead, the key is tracking acquisition costs, which carry forward indefinitely until you dispose of crypto in a future year and offset them against the revenue from that disposal.

A loss from the disposal of securities can be carried forward and offset against the same type of income in future years, within the statutory limits on how much of a single year loss can be used in one year. The loss must have been reported in the year it arose.

No. Loss carry back is not available in Poland. A loss can only be set against income in the same category in later years, never in years that have already passed.

No. Shares, dividends and crypto are reported in separate categories and cannot be offset against one another. You can have a loss on shares and still owe tax on dividends in the same year.

In practice you file all years that are not yet time barred. The exact period depends on the statutory limitation rules and on events that can suspend or interrupt the limitation period, so the cut off is not always a simple count of years.

You should file all non-time-barred years and pay the tax with interest. A voluntary disclosure letter, czynny zal, may limit penal fiscal consequences if the tax office has not already started actions for the year.

A correct calculation that clearly separates total proceeds from taxable profit is usually the key part of regularising prior years.

Poland receives foreign financial account data under the CRS automatic exchange of information. Data about your foreign accounts can lead to questions from the Polish tax office, and if that happens you usually need a full calculation for the relevant years and a clear explanation of proceeds versus taxable profit.

Data received through automatic exchange is often limited and may show only the total proceeds from sales. Proceeds are the sum of all sale values, not taxable profit.

Frequent trading with a small capital base can generate very high total proceeds while the actual taxable profit is modest, or even a loss. That is why a figure in such a letter can look alarming and still correspond to little or no tax once the real result is calculated.

If the tax office has already started actions for a specific year, a voluntary disclosure for that year no longer protects you.

It may still be relevant for other years if the office is focused on only one year and you decide to regularise a wider set of years at the same time.

Foreign dividends are reported separately in PIT-38 and usually require PIT/ZG as an attachment. The rate is 19 percent on the gross dividend converted to PLN at the NBP rate.

Foreign withholding tax already paid can be credited against the Polish tax under the applicable double taxation treaty. Where the foreign rate was lower than 19 percent, a top up is due in Poland for the difference.

Dividends from Polish companies are paid net, after 19 percent withholding by the payer. In practice they are not reported again in PIT-38. Foreign dividends are handled differently and require PIT/ZG.

Foreign withholding shown in broker statements usually relates to dividends. In PIT-38 the credit is claimed in the section for foreign tax already paid.

PIT/ZG is informational, identifying the country and the foreign income, and does not always mirror how a broker statement presents the same figures.

W-8BEN is filed with your broker to apply the Poland to US tax treaty rate on US dividends. Without it, US withholding is usually 30 percent. With a valid W-8BEN it is typically 15 percent.

Since Polish tax on foreign dividends is 19 percent, a valid W-8BEN usually means about a 4 percent top up in Poland, instead of losing the excess US withholding that the treaty rate would have avoided.