Tax refund in Poland: how to file PIT-37 for 2026

A tax refund in Poland for 2026 comes through your annual tax return: for most workers on umowa o pracę (employment contract) or umowa zlecenia (civil-law contract of mandate), that is PIT-37. Under the current rules, it is filed from 15 February to 30 April 2027, most easily online in the Twój e-PIT service. If more tax was deducted during the year than you owe, the overpayment is refunded within 45 days when you file online.

Who files PIT-37 and are you a tax resident

PIT-37 is for people who received income taxed on the tax scale through an employer or client: from umowa o pracę, umowa zlecenia or a pension. Self-employed people file other forms, such as PIT-36.

Your tax status decides which income you declare in Poland:

• resident – you stay in Poland for more than 183 days in the tax year or your centre of personal or economic interests (ośrodek interesów życiowych) is here. A resident declares all their income in Poland, including income from abroad, taking double taxation treaties into account;
• non-resident – declares in Poland only income from Polish sources. The rules on reliefs and joint filing are different for non-residents, so in that case it’s worth contacting Krajowa Informacja Skarbowa (KIS, the National Tax Information service) or the tax office (urząd skarbowy).

Tax rates and reliefs for 2026 income

The relief for one child has an income limit: PLN 112,000 if you were married for the whole year or are raising the child alone, and PLN 56,000 in other cases. For two or more children there is no limit. On 29 September 2026 the government put a bill before the Sejm introducing a new tax scale from 2027 (a PLN 130,000 threshold, 24% on income from PLN 130,000 to PLN 150,000 and 32% above PLN 150,000); as of October 2026 it has not yet been passed. It doesn’t affect the return for 2026.

Step 1. Get a PIT-11 from every employer

After the year ends, each employer, or each client under umowa zlecenia, sends you a PIT-11: how much you earned, what contributions were paid and how much tax was deducted. The tax office gets the same data and uses it to prepare your return in Twój e-PIT.

• Worked for two companies – you should get two PIT-11 forms.
• Worked through an employment agency – the agency sends the PIT-11, because it is your employer.
• Changed your address – tell your employer so the document reaches you.
• No PIT-11, or a mistake in it – contact your employer so they send or correct it.

Step 2. Log in to Twój e-PIT

Twój e-PIT is part of the online tax account e-Urząd Skarbowy (e-US). Under the current rules, a pre-filled return for the previous year is waiting there from 15 February. You can log in:

• through login.gov.pl: the mObywatel app, e-dowód (electronic ID card), online banking or Profil Zaufany;
• through the e-US mobile app;
• with tax data: your PESEL or NIP, date of birth, the income from one PIT-11 for the year you are declaring, and the total income and the amount overpaid or owed from last year’s return.

Logging in with tax data won’t work if this is the first time you earned income in Poland, or if any of those amounts is zero. In that case use login.gov.pl or the e-US app, which usually requires a PESEL. We explain how to get one in our article PESEL number in Poland, and all the login methods are described on podatki.gov.pl.

Step 3. Check the details and add reliefs

Check that every PIT-11 is in the return and the amounts match. The relief for young people is pulled in from your employers’ data, but you often have to add other reliefs yourself.

• Child tax relief (ulga na dziecko). You claim it in PIT-37 with the PIT/O attachment, giving your children’s PESEL numbers or, if they don’t have one, their first name, surname and date of birth. The official page sets no separate condition about the country where the child lives, but you need parental responsibility (władza rodzicielska), and the tax office may ask for documents such as a birth certificate. If your tax is too low to use the full relief, the difference is refunded, but no more than the ZUS (social security) and health contributions you paid.
• Joint filing for married couples (wspólne rozliczenie). It’s possible if the couple has joint marital property (wspólność majątkowa), both are Polish tax residents (or one is an EU, EEA or Swiss resident, subject to extra conditions) and neither uses an excluded form of taxation. It usually pays off when one spouse earns much less than the other.
• 1.5% for an OPP. Enter the organisation’s KRS number, and the tax office will transfer 1.5% of your tax to it.

Step 4. File the return and get your money

• File the return in Twój e-PIT by 30 April 2027 – it’s a Friday, so the deadline doesn’t move. Keep the official receipt confirmation (UPO).
• Give a bank account for the refund. If you file individually, it must be an account you own or co-own.
• Overpaid tax is refunded within 45 days if you file online and within 3 months for a paper return.
• If you neither file nor reject the PIT-37 in Twój e-PIT, it is accepted automatically at the end of the deadline, and the 45 days run from the next day. PIT-36 and PIT-28 are not accepted this way.
• You can fix a mistake later by filing a korekta (corrected return), and you can claim reliefs within 5 years of the end of the year in which the tax payment deadline passed: for 2026, until 31 December 2032.

Automatic acceptance doesn’t add reliefs the tax office has no data on – for example, a child relief you haven’t claimed before. Check the return yourself, even if it looks ready.

Common mistakes

• Filing a paper PIT-37 with only one PIT-11 when you had two employers. Your tax is then calculated wrongly, and you’ll have to correct the return.
• Forgetting the PIT-11 from an employment agency for a few months of work.
• Not checking whether your employer applied PIT-2: if not, part of the overpayment only comes back after you file the return.
• Relying on automatic acceptance when you are entitled to the child tax relief.
• Giving someone else’s account when filing individually.
• Not knowing your residence status and filing under the wrong rules.

How STARKO helps

STARKO employs people on a legal contract under Polish law, with insurance, and pays wages into your bank account every month on a fixed day. We also help with PESEL and residence cards, and with a PESEL it’s easier to log in to Twój e-PIT. Our article Minimum wage in Poland: take-home pay explains how much you actually get from the minimum wage, and current vacancies are on the Jobs in Poland page.