Reporting of Tax Schemes in Poland – MDR Mandatory Disclosure Rules

Mandatory disclosure rules (raportowanie schematów podatkowych, MDR) oblige advisers and taxpayers to report to the Head of the National Revenue Administration (Szef KAS) arrangements that may yield a tax advantage. The rules are in Chapter 11a of Section III of the Tax Ordinance Act of 29 August 1997 (Articles 86a to 86o, the Tax Ordinance). They have applied since 1 January 2019 and implement Council Directive (EU) 2018/822, known as DAC6.

The Directive requires the reporting of cross-border arrangements only. For seven years Poland asked for more and required domestic schemes to be reported as well. That obligation was abolished by the Act of 29 May 2026 amending the Tax Ordinance and certain other acts (Journal of Laws 2026, item 846), in force since 1 October 2026.

Since that date a tax scheme is only a cross-border arrangement that meets a hallmark of the Directive. It is reported by promoters and users. The duty to maintain an internal MDR procedure has ceased to exist.

Key points

• Scope: since 1 October 2026 only cross-border arrangements are reportable (Article 86a § 2(13) of the Tax Ordinance). An arrangement is cross-border where it concerns more than one Member State, or a Member State and a third country, and meets one of five conditions, for example that the participants are resident in different states. Generic hallmarks additionally require the main benefit test; specific hallmarks operate on their own.
• Parties: the promoter (promotor, the DAC6 intermediary) and the user (korzystający, the DAC6 relevant taxpayer). A person who performs the former assisting acts, that is who helps, supports or advises on a scheme, is now a promoter. The separate role of the assisting party was abolished. Where an employee performs promoter acts under an employment contract, the employer is the promoter (Article 86a § 6).
• Deadlines: the promoter files information on the scheme (MDR-1) within 30 days (Article 86b § 1). The user files itself in the cases listed in Article 86c, within the same period. Information on the application of the scheme (MDR-3) is filed once a year, by the end of the fourth month after the end of the year, separately for each scheme (Article 86j).
• Professional privilege: advocates, legal advisers, tax advisers and patent attorneys do not file where filing would breach their professional secrecy (Article 86b § 4). They notify their principal of its duty instead. The MDR-2 notification to the Head of KAS was abolished.
• Sanctions: failing to report, or reporting late, is a fiscal offence punishable by a fine of up to 720 daily rates (Article 80f of the Fiscal Penal Code). In 2026 the ceiling is PLN 46,137,600. The administrative fine for lacking an internal procedure no longer exists.
• Transitional rules: filings whose deadline fell by 30 October 2026 follow the old rules. No MDR-3 is filed any longer for domestic schemes reported before 1 October 2026 (Articles 24 to 27 of the amending act).

What is reportable from 1 October 2026

The arrangement and its cross-border character

An arrangement is a planned or completed act or set of related acts, including acts divided into stages, at least one party to which is a taxpayer or which affect whether a tax obligation arises or the amount of a tax liability (Article 86a § 2(19)). The rules apply to taxes other than VAT and excise duty (Article 86a § 1). Customs duties are outside the Directive.

An arrangement is cross-border where it concerns more than one state and meets one of the conditions in Article 86a § 2(13). These cover situations where not all participants are resident in the same state, a participant is resident in more than one state, or a participant operates abroad through a permanent establishment or without one. An arrangement is also cross-border where it may affect the automatic exchange of information or the identification of the beneficial owner.

Hallmarks

Generic hallmarks (Article 86a § 2(8)) work only together with the main benefit test. They include a confidentiality undertaking, a promoter’s fee linked to the tax advantage, standardised documentation, the acquisition of loss-making companies, the conversion of income into lower-taxed income, circular flows of funds, and deductible payments to related parties resident in jurisdictions with no corporate tax, a rate of up to 1 percent, a full exemption or a preferential regime.

Specific hallmarks (Article 86a § 2(15)) operate on their own. They include payments to a recipient resident nowhere or in a zero-tax or non-cooperative jurisdiction, depreciation of the same asset in two states, relief from double taxation claimed twice, and a transfer of assets valued at least 25 percent differently in the two states. They also cover the circumvention of financial account reporting, opaque ownership structures, unilateral transfer pricing safe harbours and transfers of hard-to-value intangibles. The last hallmark is a cross-border transfer of functions, risks or assets after which the transferor’s projected annual EBIT over three years falls below 50 percent of the EBIT without the transfer.

The main benefit test is met where, on the basis of the existing facts and circumstances, a tax advantage is the main or one of the main effects that a person may expect from implementing the arrangement (Article 86a § 2(5)). The statute does not require the advantage to be the sole purpose. It no longer refers to the former “reasonably acting person” test.

Who reports and in what order

The promoter has priority. A promoter is a person who designs, implements, makes available for implementation, organises or manages the implementation of a scheme (Article 86a § 2(11)(a)). A person who, exercising professional diligence, should realise that it has undertaken assisting acts for a scheme is a promoter as well (point (b)). In both cases an EU nexus is required: residence, a permanent establishment, registration or membership of a professional association in a Member State. An adviser outside the EU is not a promoter; the user then reports.

The promoter files MDR-1 and obtains a tax scheme number (NSP). Within 5 business days it informs the users and other promoters (Article 86b § 2). If the Head of KAS has not assigned an NSP within 14 days, the promoter passes on proof of filing instead (Article 86b § 3). A filing by one promoter releases the others, provided they hold proof that the information was filed (Article 86e § 1).

The user reports itself in three situations: where there is no promoter, where it received neither an NSP nor proof of filing from the promoter, or where the promoter notified it that professional privilege applies (Article 86c § 1). In the last case the user files even if it believes the arrangement is not a scheme (Article 86c § 2). Where the promoter’s notification arrives after the deadline, the user has 14 days from receiving it (Article 86c § 5).

Independently of MDR-1, a user who in a given year performed acts forming part of the scheme or obtained the advantage files MDR-3 (Article 86j). A promoter of a standardised scheme additionally files, within 30 days after each quarter, an update naming the new users (Article 86f § 4).

New protection exists for an adviser who performs assisting acts without confirmation of an NSP. It may request a written statement from its principal that the arrangement is not a scheme and may suspend its work until the statement arrives (Article 86b § 1a to 1f). Silence for 7 days raises a presumption that the adviser knows about the scheme.

In practice most doubts concern not the scheme itself but who in the chain of advisers is the promoter and when the clock starts. It pays to write down a map of roles and dates before the first implementation step. We prepare such maps for clients as part of our tax opinions and analyses.

Professional privilege

An advocate, legal adviser, tax adviser, patent attorney or lawyer from another Member State does not file information on a scheme where filing would breach legally protected professional secrecy (Article 86b § 4). The list is closed. It does not automatically extend to other professions bound by secrecy.

Such a promoter notifies in writing the promoter that engaged it or, if there is none, the user that engaged it. It has 7 days from the day the reporting period starts (Article 86b § 4a). The notification states that the scheme must be reported and that the promoter will not report it.

Before 1 October 2026 the user could release the promoter from secrecy, and a privileged promoter had to notify the Head of KAS (MDR-2). Both mechanisms were repealed. The amendment also removed from the acts on the legal professions the exception to secrecy for MDR information. For banks, investment funds, brokers and insurers the opposite rule applies: passing MDR information to the Head of KAS does not breach their secrecy.

EU law supports this model. In its judgment of 8 December 2022 in C-694/20 Orde van Vlaamse Balies the Court of Justice held that a lawyer’s duty to notify other intermediaries infringed Article 7 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. In its judgment of 29 July 2024 in C-623/22 Belgian Association of Tax Lawyers it upheld the Directive and confined the protection to lawyers within the meaning of national law. The Polish list in Article 86b § 4 is wider than that minimum. More on who is protected in the entry on tax secrecy and other legally protected secrets.

Sanctions and enforcement

Whoever, contrary to the obligation, fails to file information on a scheme, files it late, or fails to file the quarterly update on the users of a standardised scheme, is liable to a fine of up to 720 daily rates (Article 80f § 1 of the Fiscal Penal Code). The same fine applies to a user who fails to file MDR-3 or files it late (Article 80f § 2). In a case of lesser gravity the act is a fiscal misdemeanour.

The daily rate in 2026 ranges from PLN 160.20 to PLN 64,080, so the ceiling exceeds PLN 46,000,000. Fines imposed in practice are far lower, but a charge means fiscal penal proceedings against a named individual: the promoter, a board member of the user or the person managing its business affairs (Article 9 § 3 of the Fiscal Penal Code). The rules are described in the entry on fiscal penal cases in Poland and the conditions for avoiding punishment in the entry on active remorse. Active remorse excludes punishability only where all the conditions of Article 16 of the Fiscal Penal Code are met.

Two provisions soften this picture. The Head of KAS may call for supplementary information and may impose a procedural fine for an unjustified refusal (Article 86h § 1c). Fiscal penal proceedings are not, however, opened solely on the basis of information filed under MDR, except for late filings and the use of an invalidated NSP (Article 86h § 2). Reporting a scheme is therefore not self-incrimination.

The administrative fine for lacking an internal procedure (former Article 86m) ceased together with the procedure. Businesses operating cross-border keep a procedure voluntarily as evidence of due diligence.

An individual ruling on MDR obligations cannot be obtained. Since 1 October 2026 Chapter 11a is excluded from the scope of individual rulings (Article 14b § 2a(4)). Proceedings opened on applications filed earlier continue under the previous rules (Article 20 of the amending act). The legislature thus closed a dispute in which the administrative courts had found refusals to issue rulings unfounded. See the entry on individual tax rulings.

How MDR relates to the anti-avoidance rule and tax planning

Reporting a scheme does not mean that the arrangement is prohibited, and it gives no protection. The assignment of an NSP confirms only that the described arrangement is a scheme (Article 86g § 6). It does not confirm that the described acts are lawful (Article 86g § 7). A refusal to assign an NSP on the ground that the arrangement is not a scheme works the other way: acting on it cannot harm the filer or the participants (Article 86i § 7).

MDR is an information tool. The Head of KAS collects data on structures and selects them for audit and for proceedings under the general anti-avoidance rule. Reporting therefore also covers entirely lawful arrangements: group restructurings, intra-group financing, distributions to foreign shareholders. How the authorities decide whether to apply the clause is described in our article on tax avoidance in Poland.

Related transparency instruments are the automatic exchange of financial account information, the reporting of crypto-assets under DAC8, the beneficial ownership registries and the controlled foreign company rules, which often concern the same holding structures.

What to check after 1 October 2026

• Whether the arrangement is cross-border within the meaning of Article 86a § 2(13). A purely domestic arrangement is not a scheme even if it meets a hallmark.
• Whether it meets a specific hallmark, which operates on its own, or a generic hallmark together with the main benefit test. Record the assessment in writing.
• Who is the promoter: whether it has an EU nexus, whether it performs assisting acts, whether it is bound by professional secrecy under Article 86b § 4.
• When the 30 days start: the day after the arrangement is made available or prepared for implementation, the day of the first implementation step, or the day after help, support or advice is given.
• The flow of the NSP: 5 business days to pass on the confirmation, 14 days to pass on proof of filing where no number has been assigned yet.
• MDR-3 for 2026 and later years: one deadline by the end of the fourth month after the year, a separate form for each scheme, signature by an authorised representative allowed.
• Transitional rules: filings due by 30 October 2026 under the old rules, no MDR-3 for previously reported domestic schemes, the register of existing NSPs to be kept.

Counterparts in other jurisdictions

DAC6 applies throughout the EU, but only a few Member States, including Poland until September 2026 and Portugal, extended it to domestic arrangements. Germany, after years of debate, abandoned domestic MDR and applies cross-border rules only (sections 138d to 138k of the Abgabenordnung). The United Kingdom, after leaving the EU, replaced DAC6 with a narrower regime based on the OECD rules for arrangements that circumvent information exchange or obscure beneficial ownership (International Tax Enforcement (Disclosable Arrangements) Regulations 2023). The United States has long required the reporting of reportable transactions on Form 8886, with a catalogue of listed transactions identified by the IRS. After the amendment the Polish model has returned to the EU minimum. The fiscal penal sanction remains severe.

Frequently asked questions

Do domestic tax schemes have to be reported in Poland after 1 October 2026?

No. A tax scheme is now only a cross-border arrangement meeting a hallmark (Article 86a § 2(13) of the Tax Ordinance). Filings whose deadline fell by 30 October 2026 still follow the previous rules. No MDR-3 is filed any longer for domestic schemes reported earlier.

Who must report a tax scheme?

First the promoter, including a person performing the former assisting acts. The user reports itself where there is no promoter, where it received neither an NSP nor proof of filing, or where the promoter invoked professional privilege (Articles 86b and 86c).

How much time is there to report a scheme?

30 days. The period runs from the day after the arrangement is made available or prepared for implementation, from the day of the first implementation step, or from the day after help, support or advice is given (Article 86b § 1). MDR-3 is filed once a year, by the end of the fourth month after the end of the year.

Is an MDR procedure still required?

No. The obligation to maintain an internal procedure and the fine for its absence were abolished on 1 October 2026. A voluntary procedure for cross-border arrangements remains good practice.

What is the penalty for failing to report?

A fine of up to 720 daily rates for a fiscal offence under Article 80f of the Fiscal Penal Code, in 2026 theoretically up to PLN 46,137,600. In a case of lesser gravity a fine for a misdemeanour applies. Effective active remorse may exclude punishability where all the statutory conditions are met.

Does reporting a scheme mean the authority will challenge it?

No. MDR is an information duty, not an assessment of legality. The assignment of an NSP confirms only that the arrangement is a scheme. A reported arrangement may be examined in an audit or in anti-avoidance proceedings, but the report itself neither triggers such proceedings nor protects against them.

Related entries

• Tax secrecy and other legally protected secrets
• Fiscal penal cases in Poland
• Active remorse
• Individual tax rulings
• Beneficial ownership registries
• Related parties and affiliated entities
• Holding companies in tax law

Skarbiec Law Firm assesses cross-border arrangements for MDR obligations, prepares filings and represents promoters and users in cases concerning failures under Article 80f of the Fiscal Penal Code, as part of its strategic advisory for international structures.

Legal status as of 1 November 2026.

Robert Nogacki

Robert Nogacki is a Polish attorney at law (radca prawny), the founder and managing partner of Kancelaria Prawna Skarbiec (Skarbiec Law Firm), which has operated continuously since 2006.

The law is equal for everyone, but the parties rarely are: on one side stands an organization with time, money, and lawyers, on the other a person with one business, one nest egg, and one life.

Clients rarely come to him with a legal problem. They come with a problem that also has a legal side: an audit that began with a single invoice, money entrusted to someone who has disappeared, a company that has to be passed on before it is too late. Most such matters are decided long before the first letter is written, in decisions made without asking and in deadlines nobody remembered. So he begins by asking how the client got here, not what the client should have done.

He advises entrepreneurs and families from more than a dozen countries, including those whose accounts the tax office has just seized and who do not know what to do tomorrow morning. He defends them in tax audits, customs and fiscal inspections, disputes with the tax authorities, and criminal tax proceedings. He represents victims of investment fraud and Ponzi schemes. He helps families set up family foundations and plan succession, so that a life’s work outlasts a single generation.

Not every case can be won. Every case can be run so that the client knows where they stand. Since 2006 he has represented the victims in the WGI case (Warszawska Grupa Inwestycyjna, the Warsaw Investment Group), one of the longest criminal cases in the history of the Polish financial market, because some things must not be left half finished, even when they take two decades. In the case of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange Zonda (Zondacrypto, operated by BB Trade Estonia OÜ), he represents several hundred victims in the criminal investigation conducted by Poland’s National Prosecutor’s Office and in the Estonian bankruptcy proceedings.

Kancelaria Prawna Skarbiec is listed in the rankings of Poland’s largest tax advisory firms published by Dziennik Gazeta Prawna and Rzeczpospolita, and it is a four-time recipient (2015 to 2018) of the European Medal awarded by the Business Centre Club and the European Economic and Social Committee. Robert Nogacki publishes regularly, in the press and on the firm’s website, for people who have a problem rather than a law degree, because a legal opinion the client cannot understand protects only the lawyer.

He believes that the best legal advice is the kind that means the client never has to appear in court.