Duration of Regulatory Inspections of Business Enterprises

Tax audits and regulatory inspections of business operations constitute among the most burdensome forms of state interference with private enterprise. Cognizant of this burden, the Polish legislature embedded rigid temporal limits on inspections in the Law on Entrepreneurs — limits calibrated to the size of the inspected entity. In theory, these provisions afford meaningful protection.

In practice, however, supervisory authorities have for years construed these limits in a manner favorable to the state, counting only the days of inspectors’ physical presence at the entrepreneur’s premises.

A landmark judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court of 15 October 2025 (III OSK 1677/22) has fundamentally altered this interpretive landscape.

The analysis that follows sets forth the current statutory and jurisprudential framework from the perspective of entrepreneurial defense.

I. Statutory Limits on Inspection Duration: Article 55 of the Law on Entrepreneurs

Pursuant to Article 55(1) of the Act of 6 March 2018 — Law on Entrepreneurs (Prawo przedsiębiorców, consolidated text: Journal of Laws 2025, item 1480), the aggregate duration of all inspections conducted by a single supervisory authority at a given enterprise within one calendar year shall not exceed:

• 12 working days — for micro-enterprises,
• 18 working days — for small enterprises,
• 24 working days — for medium-sized enterprises,
• 48 working days — for all remaining (large) enterprises.

These limits are annual and cumulative: they encompass the total duration of every inspection conducted by the same authority in a given calendar year. Accordingly, where an authority conducts multiple inspections of the same enterprise in the course of a single year, their combined duration must remain within the prescribed ceiling.

II. Classification of Enterprise Size and Its Bearing on Inspection Limits

The terms micro-enterprise, small enterprise, and medium-sized enterprise are defined in Article 7 of the Law on Entrepreneurs. Classification rests on two criteria: average annual headcount and either annual net turnover or total balance-sheet assets. As the Supreme Administrative Court confirmed in its judgment of 9 December 2020 (I GSK 962/20), these definitional provisions apply equally for the purpose of determining inspection limits — including inspections conducted by the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) under Article 92a of the Act on the Social Insurance System.

III. The New Interpretive Framework: The Supreme Administrative Court Judgment of 15 October 2025 (III OSK 1677/22)

A. The Prior Interpretive Regime: “Days of Actual Presence”

For an extended period, the prevailing judicial interpretation favored supervisory authorities. Under this approach, only those working days during which inspectors were physically present at the entrepreneur’s registered office or place of business were counted toward the Article 55(1) limit. Activities performed at the authority’s own premises — document analysis, preparation of the inspection report — fell outside the computation. This position was endorsed, inter alia, by the Regional Administrative Court (WSA) in Kraków in its judgments of 10 June 2024 (I SA/Kr 350/24 and I SA/Kr 351/24), as well as in earlier Supreme Administrative Court decisions (e.g., judgment of 7 June 2017, II FSK 1418/15).

The underlying rationale proceeded from the premise that the statutory purpose was to shield entrepreneurs from operational disruption, and that activities conducted away from the enterprise’s premises occasioned no such disruption.

Yet this entire edifice of reasoning rested upon a profound misconception — one that, upon closer examination, verges on the indefensible. The physical presence of inspectors at a company’s registered office is, in the contemporary practice of tax audits, a relatively infrequent occurrence, and for any enterprise of substance — one possessed of its own premises, staff, and operational infrastructure — it is among the least disruptive features of the inspection process.

What genuinely paralyzes the daily conduct of business is not the inspector at the door but the relentless barrage of written demands: dozens of detailed interrogatories requiring immediate responses, each accompanied by explicit or implied threats of penalties for non-compliance, all delivered in an atmosphere of sustained institutional pressure.

It is the obligation to locate, compile, and produce voluminous documentation on compressed timelines — while simultaneously maintaining ordinary commercial operations — that imposes the true burden. It is the pervasive uncertainty, the diversion of management attention, and the chilling effect on business decision-making that constitute the genuine disruption the statute was enacted to curtail.

Viewed in this light, the “physical presence” criterion was not merely doctrinally unsound; it was functionally inverted — measuring the one variable that mattered least while ignoring everything that mattered most.

The inevitable consequence was that the criterion served no protective purpose whatsoever; it served, rather, as a convenient judicial fiction permitting supervisory authorities to circumvent the very temporal constraints the legislature had imposed, draining the statutory safeguard of its substance while preserving its form.

B. The New Interpretive Paradigm: Days Counted “From Initiation to Conclusion”

The Supreme Administrative Court’s judgment of 15 October 2025 (III OSK 1677/22) consolidated and reinforced an interpretive trajectory inaugurated by the Court’s earlier decision of 19 February 2020 (I FSK 2243/19), rendered under the since-repealed Act on Freedom of Economic Activity. In that earlier ruling, the Court held that the inspection time limit encompasses consecutive working days running from the commencement of the inspection to its conclusion. The 2025 judgment transposed this interpretation to the currently operative Law on Entrepreneurs, endowing it with general applicability.

The Supreme Administrative Court held:

“The duration of a supervisory authority’s inspection of an entrepreneur within one calendar year, within the meaning of Article 55(1) of the Law on Entrepreneurs, may not exceed the number of consecutive working days specified therein, counted from the date of initiation of the inspection to its conclusion.”

The Court undertook a comprehensive interpretive analysis, deploying three modalities of statutory construction:

1. Textual interpretation. The Court acknowledged that a strictly textual reading might arguably support the authorities’ prior position rather than that of the applicant company. This concession rendered the results of the systemic and teleological analyses all the more dispositive, as they overcame the direction indicated by the statute’s literal terms.

2. Systemic interpretation. The Court drew upon Article 56(1) and (2) of the Law on Entrepreneurs, which regulates a distinct mechanism for suspending an inspection during the examination of samples. The legislative premise is plain: since the legislature provided a separate suspension mechanism — with an express provision that the suspension period does not count toward the limit — it necessarily follows that, absent such a suspension, all working days from initiation to conclusion are counted against the limit. Were one to adopt the authorities’ construction (counting only days of physical presence), the suspension provision would be rendered entirely otiose — inspection activities conducted away from the enterprise’s premises would, under that reading, never be counted in any event.

The Court further emphasized that the statute draws no distinction between inspection activities stricto sensu and “other” activities. Such an artificial bifurcation would violate the canon lege non distinguente nec nostrum est distinguere — where the law does not distinguish, neither should the interpreter.

3. Teleological interpretation. The Court invoked the preamble to the Law on Entrepreneurs, which foregrounds the constitutional principle of freedom of economic activity, the rule of law, and legal certainty. The purpose of Article 55, the Court reasoned, is to protect entrepreneurs against “interminable, permanent inspections that disrupt business operations.” Such disruptions are not confined to the physical presence of inspectors; the very pendency of an inspection compels the entrepreneur to maintain a state of readiness, restricts access to documentation, and engenders uncertainty regarding the outcome.

C. Practical Ramifications of the New Interpretive Framework

The holding in III OSK 1677/22 forecloses the erstwhile practice whereby supervisory authorities would “stretch” inspections over many months, conducting on-site activities only sporadically (for example, once every several weeks), while devoting the intervening periods to document analysis at the authority’s own offices. Under the new framework, every working day between the initiation and conclusion of the inspection consumes the statutory limit — unless the authority formally suspends the inspection pursuant to Article 56 of the Law on Entrepreneurs.

IV. Customs and Fiscal Inspections: Application of Temporal Limits and Recurring Pitfalls

A. Applicability of Article 55 to Customs and Fiscal Inspections

As a matter of principle, the limits apply. Article 94(1) of the Act on the National Revenue Administration (Krajowa Administracja Skarbowa, hereinafter “NRA Act”) provides for the mutatis mutandis application of Chapter 5 of the Law on Entrepreneurs (i.e., Articles 45–65, including Article 55) to customs and fiscal inspections. This was expressly confirmed by the Supreme Administrative Court in its judgment of 9 December 2020 (I GSK 962/20).

In practice, however, customs and fiscal authorities routinely invoke the exemptions catalogued in Article 55(2) — particularly the ground that the inspection is necessary for the prevention of a fiscal offense or the preservation of evidence (paragraph 2), and the ground that the inspection concerns the legitimacy of a VAT refund prior to its disbursement (paragraph 6). In carousel fraud cases or matters involving fictitious invoices, the allegation of a fiscal offense is advanced almost reflexively, thereby rendering the Article 55 limit inapplicable.

B. The Anatomy of Multi-Year Customs and Fiscal Inspections

Customs and fiscal inspections and their attendant proceedings protract over years for several overlapping reasons, the understanding of which is critical to an effective defense.

First, the prior “days of actual presence” construction — operative until the Supreme Administrative Court judgment of 15 October 2025 — permitted authorities to count only days of physical on-site presence. An inspection could formally span well over a year while the authority maintained that it had “utilized” only a modest fraction of the statutory allotment. The balance — document analysis at the authority’s offices, awaiting responses from counterparties, correspondence with other agencies — remained uncounted.

Second, the mechanism for converting a customs and fiscal inspection into a tax proceeding under Article 83 of the NRA Act opens an entirely new temporal regime. Tax proceedings are governed by Article 139 of the Tax Ordinance (prescribing a one- or two-month deadline), but these time limits are directory rather than mandatory — their breach neither nullifies the authority’s actions nor halts the proceeding.

Third, the instrument of unlimited extension of deadlines under Article 140 of the Tax Ordinance is systematically misused. The case resolved by the Regional Administrative Court in Poznań in its judgment of 13 January 2026 (I SAB/Po 11/25) is illustrative: the authority issued eleven successive extension orders over the span of two and a half years, each setting a new deadline two to three months hence. The absence of official delivery confirmations (UPD — urzędowe poświadczenie doręczenia) for a number of these orders meant that even this procedural mechanism had not been properly effectuated.

Fourth, the multi-instance structure of proceedings and the attendant avenues of appeal generate additional years of delay. The Gliwice case (I SA/Gl 338/25) is instructive: a tax inspection initiated in 2021, the inspection report delivered in August 2022, tax proceedings commenced in January 2023, a first-instance tax decision issued in June 2024, and the appellate decision of the Director of the Tax Administration Chamber rendered in December 2024 — a total exceeding three years, with the case remanded for rehearing due to the authority’s failure to take requested evidence.

Fifth, parallel fiscal criminal investigations accompanying inspections — as in the Gliwice matter, where a “developmental” prosecution (expanded both in terms of subjects and subject matter) ran concurrently — serve not only to toll the statute of limitations on tax liabilities but effectively “freeze” the matter: the tax authority awaits the prosecution’s findings, the prosecutor draws upon materials from the tax proceedings, and the process becomes circular. The entrepreneur operates for years in a state of legal uncertainty, simultaneously bearing the costs of legal representation and accruing interest.

V. Circumstances Exempting Inspections from Temporal Limits

Article 55(2) of the Law on Entrepreneurs sets forth a closed catalogue (numerus clausus) of circumstances in which the temporal constraints do not apply. The most significant exemptions include:

• inspections necessary for the prevention of a criminal or fiscal criminal offense;
• inspections justified by an imminent threat to life, health, or the environment;
• inspections concerning the legitimacy of a VAT refund prior to its disbursement;
• inspections conducted in the course of proceedings relating to competition and consumer protection;
• inspections arising from directly applicable provisions of European Union law;
• inspections of entities holding decisions recognizing the correctness of transfer pricing (within the scope of such decisions);
• inspections of accounts reported under the FATCA implementation statute.

Additionally, Article 61 of the Law on Entrepreneurs excludes from the temporal limits, inter alia, activities subject to financial supervision, sanitary supervision in the domain of food safety, and inspections of healthcare providers.

Invocation of an exemption ground is not committed to the authority’s unfettered discretion. The ground must be actually present, and the authority must document it accordingly. As the Supreme Administrative Court held in its judgment of 4 July 2023 (II OSK 2495/20), the initiation of an inspection stricto sensu — and consequently the commencement of the Article 55 time limit — is determined by Article 48(2) of the Law on Entrepreneurs and occurs irrespective of any prior formalized actions by the authority.

In practice, the entrepreneur should in every instance verify whether the authority genuinely possesses a factual basis for invoking an exemption. A generalized reference to “suspicion of a fiscal offense,” unsupported by specific factual circumstances giving rise to such suspicion, ought to be challenged by way of objection.

VI. Extension of Inspection Duration: Grounds and Constraints

A. Extension for Causes Beyond the Authority’s Control (Article 55(3))

The authority may extend the inspection for causes beyond its control, provided that the extension is justified in writing, served upon the entrepreneur, and does not exceed the limits prescribed by Article 55(1). This provision thus permits only a temporal redistribution of the inspection — not an enlargement of the annual ceiling.

B. Extension Upon Discovery of Irregularities (Article 55(4))

Where an inspection reveals an understatement of a tax liability exceeding 10 percent of the declared amount (but not less than PLN 500), an overstatement of a loss exceeding 50 percent of the declared amount (but not less than PLN 2,500), or a failure to file a tax return despite a statutory obligation to do so, the authority may extend the inspection. However, the aggregate duration may not exceed double the standard limit (Article 55(6)). The maximum extended inspection durations are therefore: 24 days for micro-enterprises, 36 days for small enterprises, 48 days for medium-sized enterprises, and 96 days for large enterprises. The authority must notify the entrepreneur of the discovered circumstances, specifying the evidentiary material gathered (Article 55(5)).

C. Repeat Inspection Following Flagrant Violation of Law (Article 55(7))

Where the results of an inspection disclose a flagrant violation of statutory provisions by the entrepreneur, a repeat inspection of the same scope may be conducted within the same calendar year. The duration of such a repeat inspection may not exceed 7 days and does not count toward the annual limit.

VII. Consequences of Exceeding the Statutory Inspection Limit

A. Does Exceeding the Limit Render the Inspection Void?

Under the prevailing jurisprudence — it does not. Administrative courts have consistently held that a breach of the temporal limits prescribed by Article 55(1) of the Law on Entrepreneurs does not preclude the continuation of the inspection and does not vitiate actions taken in the course of the proceeding (see Regional Administrative Court in Lublin, judgment of 18 April 2013, III SA/Lu 112/13; Regional Administrative Court in Warsaw, judgment of 2 June 2017, V SA/Wa 1796/16).

This position, while arguably controversial, possesses a systemic justification: the legislature did not expressly link a breach of the limit to a sanction of nullity with respect to inspection activities.

B. The Entrepreneur’s Objection: An Effective Defensive Instrument

A more efficacious protective mechanism is the objection (sprzeciw) regulated by Article 59 of the Law on Entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur may lodge an objection against the initiation and conduct of inspection activities in violation of statutory provisions, including a breach of the Article 55 limits. The filing of an objection suspends the inspection activities, and the authority must determine — by way of a formal order — whether to continue or discontinue the inspection.

As the case resolved by the Supreme Administrative Court on 15 October 2025 (III OSK 1677/22) demonstrates, an objection grounded in the correct interpretation of Article 55 can effectively lead to the reversal of an authority’s order to continue the inspection.

C. The Evidentiary Exclusion Rule Under Article 46(3)

Independently of the foregoing, Article 46(3) of the Law on Entrepreneurs introduces a significant evidentiary sanction: evidence obtained in the course of an inspection conducted in violation of statutory provisions, where such violation had a material impact on the inspection’s findings, may not constitute evidence in administrative, tax, criminal, or fiscal criminal proceedings. This instrument acquires heightened significance in light of the Supreme Administrative Court’s new interpretive framework for computing inspection duration.

VIII. Inaction and Excessive Delay in Tax Proceedings: A Cognate Problem

The question of inspection time limits is closely intertwined with the broader problem of administrative inaction and undue delay (bezczynność i przewlekłość) in tax proceedings. The judgment of the Regional Administrative Court in Poznań of 13 January 2026 (I SAB/Po 11/25) furnishes an instructive illustration.

A. Service of Extension Orders as a Condition of Legal Efficacy

In that case, the Court found the Head of the Tax Office to be in a state of inaction after having conducted tax proceedings for over two and a half years (from March 2023 to October 2025), repeatedly extending the deadline for resolution under Article 140 of the Tax Ordinance. The Court emphasized that the effective extension of a deadline requires not merely the issuance but also the service of the extension order before the expiry of the preceding deadline.

The Court relied upon the seminal resolution of the Supreme Administrative Court of 7 March 2022 (I FPS 4/21), which established that the assessment of effective service is “binary” — either effective service occurred, or it did not. The absence of official delivery confirmations for a portion of the extension orders led to the conclusion that the authority had failed to discharge its obligations under Article 140 of the Tax Ordinance and had fallen into a state of inaction.

The Tax Office Head’s contention that “what matters for the proper designation of a new resolution deadline is the timely issuance of such an order, not its service” was rejected as unfounded. The Court observed that under a model predicated upon the principle of official service (zasada oficjalności doręczeń), the responsibility for the effectiveness and propriety of service rests with the tax authority, and that a decision not served upon a party is, from a legal standpoint, a decision that does not exist.

B. Directory Deadlines: Illusory Protection

The Poznań case exposes a fundamental systemic deficiency: the directory character of the deadlines prescribed by Article 139 of the Tax Ordinance (one or two months for the resolution of a matter). Although the authority issued eleven successive extension orders over two and a half years and official delivery confirmations were lacking for three of them, the Court — while finding inaction — concluded that the breach was not flagrant and declined to award a monetary sum to the applicant. In so holding, the Court pointed to the authority’s undertaking of “activities directed toward establishing the factual state of the matter.”

For the entrepreneur, this means that even a successful demonstration of administrative inaction does not guarantee meaningful redress. It becomes all the more imperative, therefore, to avail oneself preventively of protective instruments — above all, the objection and the formal demand for action (ponaglenie) — before proceedings reach a multi-year scale.

IX. Default Interest and the Duration of Customs and Fiscal Inspections

Of considerable practical significance is the Supreme Administrative Court’s judgment of 25 November 2025 (III FSK 804/24), which concerned the applicability of Article 54(1)(7) of the Tax Ordinance to customs and fiscal inspections. The Court vacated the Regional Administrative Court’s judgment dismissing the taxpayer’s complaint and remanded the case for rehearing, indicating an interpretive direction favoring the application of Article 54(1)(7) to customs and fiscal inspections — notwithstanding that Article 94(1) of the NRA Act does not expressly cross-reference Article 54 of the Tax Ordinance. The Court did not definitively resolve the issue but instructed the lower court to undertake a renewed analysis informed by the reasoning articulated.

The Court drew upon the Constitutional Tribunal’s judgment of 18 October 2011 (SK 2/10), in which the Tribunal held it unconstitutional to differentiate the legal position of taxpayers according to which authority conducts their inspection. The Tribunal found that the regulatory scheme “places taxpayers inspected by fiscal control authorities in a worse position compared with the legal situation of taxpayers inspected by tax authorities” and that “this differentiation is unjustified and must be regarded as the legislature’s arbitrary choice.”

The Supreme Administrative Court in case III FSK 804/24 adopted this reasoning as its own, further adducing teleological considerations: the cessation of default interest accrual after three months from the initiation of a customs and fiscal inspection operates as an additional incentive for the authority to resolve the matter expeditiously, thereby advancing the principle of procedural efficiency enshrined in Article 125(1) of the Tax Ordinance.

The Court endorsed the applicant’s argument that a strict literal construction of Article 54(1)(7) of the Tax Ordinance would impinge upon constitutional values and produce an unjustified enrichment of the State Treasury through inflated default interest, at the expense of the taxpayer’s assets.

In practical terms, this ruling affords entrepreneurs subject to protracted customs and fiscal inspections a potent argument against the accrual of default interest for the period of inspection exceeding three months — by analogy with the regime applicable to tax proceedings. While the Court did not formulate a binding rule in this case, the interpretive direction indicated constitutes substantial support for taxpayers challenging the assessment of interest during periods of prolonged customs and fiscal inspection.

X. The Entrepreneur’s Evidentiary Initiative: Impermissible Obstruction

The judgment of the Regional Administrative Court in Gliwice of 7 November 2025 (I SA/Gl 338/25) brings into focus a further dimension of inspection and tax proceedings: the party’s right to active participation in the proceeding and to submit evidentiary requests.

The Court set aside the decision of the Director of the Tax Administration Chamber, which had upheld the determination of substantial VAT liabilities and tax payable under Article 108 of the VAT Act — notwithstanding significant deficiencies in the evidentiary proceeding.

A. Refusal to Admit Evidence as Indicative of a Predetermined Conclusion

The case concerned an entrepreneur with over thirty years of market experience, operating warehouses, employing staff, and maintaining a vehicle fleet, whom the tax authorities treated as a participant in fictitious invoice transactions — relying principally on findings made in separate proceedings against the entrepreneur’s counterparties.

The entrepreneur requested the examination of seven witnesses regarding the factual occurrence of the commodity transactions at issue. The first-instance authority declined to take this evidence, offering the following justifications with respect to individual witnesses: that decisions under Article 108 of the VAT Act had already been issued against some, that others did not appear in the National Court Register in connection with the counterparty companies, and that still others “did not possess material information.” The appellate authority upheld this stance, concluding that the evidentiary record as gathered permitted a “thorough analysis” without the necessity of hearing the requested witnesses.

The Court emphasized, citing the Supreme Administrative Court’s judgment of 28 January 2025 (I FSK 915/23), that Article 188 of the Tax Ordinance does not justify the rejection of a party’s evidentiary request concerning circumstances material to the case merely because the evidence gathered to date — in the authority’s assessment — suffices to establish the facts. Such an approach amounts to conducting proceedings under a predetermined thesis, sanctioning the “arbitrary selection of evidentiary material,” and constituting a violation of the principles of legality, objectivity, and impartiality.

The Court further noted an internal inconsistency in the authority’s reasoning: the very same warehouse documentation upon which the authority relied to establish a surplus of sales over purchases was not evaluated when determining whether the impugned suppliers had in fact delivered the goods. The adoption of the thesis that the goods did not exist — without taking the requested evidence — relieved the authority of its obligation to examine the entrepreneur’s good faith, which the Court deemed impermissible.

B. A Decision Against a Counterparty Does Not Bind in the Taxpayer’s Proceedings

The Regional Administrative Court in Gliwice expressly underscored that the issuance of a decision against a supplier does not render that decision binding in proceedings conducted against the purchaser. The Court invoked the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Case C-189/18, in which the CJEU rejected the concept of automatic binding effect of a decision issued against a counterparty (developed under Hungarian law). The party is therefore entitled to submit evidentiary requests aimed at challenging findings made in separate proceedings.

XI. Practical Recommendations for Entrepreneurs

In light of the jurisprudence of 2025–2026 surveyed above, entrepreneurs would be well advised to adopt the following measures:

1. Monitor inspection duration. Maintain an internal log of the dates of initiation and conclusion of each inspection, applying the Supreme Administrative Court’s new interpretive framework (consecutive working days from initiation to conclusion). This applies to both tax inspections and customs and fiscal inspections — with due verification of whether the authority has legitimately invoked an exemption under Article 55(2).

2. File objections promptly. Where the cumulative inspections conducted by a given authority within a calendar year approach or exceed the prescribed limit, the entrepreneur should promptly avail himself of the objection mechanism under Article 59 of the Law on Entrepreneurs. In the case of customs and fiscal inspections, the factual basis for any claimed exemption should be challenged where the authority has failed to demonstrate specific justifying circumstances.

3. Verify the effectiveness of service. Every order extending the deadline for resolution of a matter must be served before the expiry of the preceding deadline. The absence of an official delivery confirmation (UPD) signifies that the order has not entered legal circulation. Entrepreneurs should request inspection of delivery confirmations when reviewing the case file.

4. Exercise the evidentiary initiative proactively. Submit requests for witness examination, document production, and site inspections. A refusal to admit such evidence, absent a demonstration that the relevant circumstances have already been established in the party’s favor, constitutes a violation of Article 188 of the Tax Ordinance. It is of particular importance to document the actual course of transactions — through warehouse photographs, dispatch notes (WZ), and delivery confirmations.

5. Challenge interest accrual during protracted inspections. In the case of customs and fiscal inspections exceeding three months, invoke Article 54(1)(7) of the Tax Ordinance in conjunction with the Constitutional Tribunal’s judgment (SK 2/10) and the interpretive direction indicated by the Supreme Administrative Court in its judgment of 25 November 2025 (III FSK 804/24). As the Court emphasized, an erroneous determination of the period for which interest is due results in an enforcement title encompassing a partially non-existent obligation — constituting a ground for objection in enforcement proceedings.

6. Document the inspection’s impact on business operations. Assemble evidence of the operational disruption occasioned by the pending inspection — restricted access to documentation, the necessity of dedicating staff resources, impediments to ordinary business activities — as such evidence may prove material in judicial-administrative proceedings.

7. Do not passively acquiesce to the “freezing” of matters by fiscal criminal investigations. Where the statute of limitations on tax liabilities has been tolled by the initiation of fiscal criminal proceedings, verify whether such initiation was instrumentally motivated. Administrative courts are obligated to examine this question ex officio (Supreme Administrative Court resolution of 24 May 2021, I FPS 1/21).

XII. Conclusion

The year 2025 has yielded significant shifts in the jurisprudence governing the duration of regulatory inspections of business enterprises. The Supreme Administrative Court’s judgment of 15 October 2025 (III OSK 1677/22) has tilted the interpretive balance in favor of entrepreneurs, mandating that inspection duration be computed as consecutive working days from initiation to conclusion — without the artificial isolation of days of inspectors’ “actual presence.” Concurrently, the jurisprudence on default interest (III FSK 804/24) and on administrative inaction (I SAB/Po 11/25) is constructing a coherent doctrinal edifice in which the protracted conduct of administrative proceedings may not be visited upon the taxpayer.

Of particular practical consequence is the intersection of these rulings with the domain of customs and fiscal inspections — the most pervasive instrument for the verification of tax settlements in matters of substantial disputed value. The mechanisms by which inspections are “prolonged” — from the routine invocation of Article 55(2) exemptions, through the conversion of inspections into tax proceedings governed by directory deadlines, to the accompanying fiscal criminal investigations that toll the running of limitation periods — constitute a system in which proceedings against a single taxpayer may extend over years. The jurisprudence of 2025–2026 furnishes entrepreneurs with instruments to resist these practices, but the effective deployment of those instruments demands an active procedural posture from the very inception of the inspection.

Entrepreneurs should regard these decisions not merely as abstract legal pronouncements but as practical tools for the defense of their rights — both during ongoing inspections and in any subsequent judicial-administrative proceedings.

Robert Nogacki

Founder and Managing Partner of Skarbiec Law Firm, recognized by Dziennik Gazeta Prawna as one of the best tax advisory firms in Poland (2023, 2024). Legal advisor with 19 years of experience, serving Forbes-listed entrepreneurs and innovative start-ups. One of the most frequently quoted experts on commercial and tax law in the Polish media, regularly publishing in Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza, and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. Author of the publication “AI Decoding Satoshi Nakamoto. Artificial Intelligence on the Trail of Bitcoin’s Creator” and co-author of the award-winning book “Bezpieczeństwo współczesnej firmy” (Security of a Modern Company). LinkedIn profile: 18 500 followers, 4 million views per year. Awards: 4-time winner of the European Medal, Golden Statuette of the Polish Business Leader, title of “International Tax Planning Law Firm of the Year in Poland.” He specializes in strategic legal consulting, tax planning, and crisis management for business.