The Polish invoice lives in KSeF, and the copy is what reaches you
· This page is provided in English.
Since 1 April 2026 a supplier established in Poland issues its invoices through the national system, KSeF. A buyer abroad is not inside that system and is sent a visualisation instead: a readable copy of the structured original, carrying the number the system gave it.
Neither shape changes the check itself: an invoice against the price list a buyer holds, answered by email. That is what Price Double Check does, and the Polish changeover moved none of it. What follows is where the dates now stand, and the two things a buyer of Polish goods should ask for.
Where the dates stand
The system rests on a derogation the Council granted in 2022, which lets Poland require electronic invoices without asking each buyer to consent to them. The obligation itself arrived in two steps this year, with one window still open.
| From | Who | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 1 February 2026 | Taxpayers whose 2024 sales passed 200 million zloty | Invoices issued through KSeF |
| 1 April 2026 | Every other taxpayer established in Poland | The same obligation, with narrow exceptions |
| Until 31 December 2026 | Invoices of small value, up to 10,000 zloty gross in a month | May still be issued outside the system |
| 1 January 2027 | Those remaining exceptions | They end |
For most food and drink suppliers of any size, the second row is the one in force: since April the invoice they raise exists first as structured data inside the national system, and everything else is a rendering of it.
What a buyer outside Poland receives
A company with no establishment in Poland has no place in the system and cannot pull its own invoices out of it. In practice the supplier sends a visualisation, usually a PDF that looks much as the invoice always looked, with two additions worth knowing about.
- The number the system assigned when it accepted the invoice. It is unique, it is assigned once, and it identifies that document better than the supplier's own numbering ever did.
- A code printed on the page that leads back to the stored original, which is how a recipient outside the system can confirm that the copy in their inbox corresponds to something the system holds.
The direction of travel is the same one described in the note on PDF invoices going away: the page a person reads becomes a view of the data rather than the document itself. France reached its own version of that date this month, and the shape of that one is in the piece on French invoice reception.
The assigned number is an identity, not a verdict
A unique number for every accepted invoice quietly fixes one of the oldest problems in accounts payable. In the validation set behind this service three separate files carried one invoice number, one date and three different totals, and a credit note cancelled only one of two documents that shared another number. Where every document has an identity the system issued, that class of confusion has an answer in the document itself.
What the number does not do is say anything about the prices on the lines. A structured invoice, accepted by a national system and rendered into a tidy PDF, can bill an item at €13.23 that the last price list you were sent puts at €11.235. That is a real line out of the chain behind this service: 17.75 per cent over, €47.76 on one invoice, and enough on its own to take 91 per cent of the margin on that delivery. It broke no rule of form.
Two things to ask a Polish supplier for
Neither is a technical request, and both fit in one message. Ask for the visualisation to keep arriving by email, with the assigned number on it, so that your own records and your checks carry the same identity the system uses. And ask for the current price list as a file, dated, because the mandate governs invoices and says nothing at all about price lists, which will keep arriving as spreadsheets attached to messages for years yet.
That asymmetry is the practical lesson of the Polish year. The invoice side of the relationship has been standardised and the price side has not, so the comparison between them is exactly as manual as it was in 2025 and rather better documented on one of the two sides.
Forward one invoice and the price list it should have been billed on, in whichever shape your Polish supplier now sends them, and the reply names the lines where the two documents disagree.