Poland - 2019 eInvoicing Country Sheet

Legislation

The law transposing the eInvoicing Directive (2014/55/EU) was introduced in November 2018 and the Act on electronic invoicing has been in force since April 18, 2019..

eInvoicing platform and eInvoicing management solutions

eInvoicing in Poland is the responsibility of the Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Technology and Institute of Logistics and Warehousing. Poland successfully completed the implementation of the eInvoicing Directive and building a platform (PEF) for eInvoicing to process and exchange eInvoices. PEF is the main eInvoicing platform used by public entities and economic operators for B2G eInvoicing in public procurement.

The platform supports the sending and receiving of eInvoices, orders and additional documents in a standardised xml format such as dispatch advices, receipt advices, correcting invoices and accounting notes. The platform consists of PEPPOL Access Points implemented by service providers. The two service providers were selected through tender procedure that finished in Q2 2018.

The implementation of PEF services has been divided into three stages. The first stage of the project was the selection of the future PEPPOL Access Point service providers - PEF Brokers. In Q4 2018, the first PEF functionalities, eInvoicing and eOrdering, went live. Finally, the project was completed in Q2 2019 delivering full PEF functionality (including DesAdv, RecAdv and reporting) to public and private users. Accompanying works related to the promotion of the project and conducting trainings are still in progress.

Approach for receiving and processing eInvoices

The Polish government intends that all eInvoices for public supplies will be delivered to contracting authorities by the PEF platform. Issuing eInvoices is on voluntary base, while the receiving - according to the Directive - is mandatory.

Status on the implementation of the European Standard on eInvoicing (EN)

The European Standard on eInvoicing in Poland is implemented through the use of PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 as the basic specification of eInvoices in public procurement (mandatory on the PEF platform). A guide to implementing this specification in Polish conditions has been developed. Similar implementation guides were prepared for the remaining post-award documents (Order, DesAdv, RecAdv, Correcting Invoices, Accounting Notes).

The project of law was adopted in September by the Council of Ministers and was sent to the Polish Parliament on 22 November 2018. The final wording of the Act was adopted by Polish Parliament and signed by the President. The legislative work on the implementation of the provisions of the Directive has been successfully completed.

Use of Core Invoicing Usage Specifications (CIUS) at national level

Poland will not create its own CIUS but will use the PEPPOL CIUS, as the Polish specifications are covered by the PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 specification (and other PEPPOL BIS specifications). Therefore, due to the specific requirements of Polish law regarding corrected invoices, its specification was developed and published in accordance with the PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 semantic model and its syntax.

Poland - specifically, Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Technology - acts as a PEPPOL Authority servicing PEPPOL Access Points.

Additional information

Aside from the implementation of the European standard on eInvoicing based on PEPPOL BIS, the PEF project provides complementary services, such as education and PEF promotion dedicated to public and private stakeholders. It targets also the Polish IT sector, especially application and service providers as one of the most important building blocks of the Polish eInvoicing framework.

In addition, the then Polish Ministry of Economic Development (antecessor of Ministry of Entrepreneurship and Technology) joined OpenPEPPOL at the end of 2016, becoming the Polish PEPPOL Authority and the 200^th member of the Association. 

The use of structured eInvoices in Poland is low. This is the main reason why B2G eInvoicing for the economic operators takes place on a voluntary basis. Nevertheless, one of the main assumptions of the developed platform is to encourage issuers to handle eInvoices.

The platform is offered free of charge to contracting authorities and suppliers to support the exchange of eInvoices between both actors. The platform will only allow the exchange of EN conformant eInvoices – using PEPPOL eDelivery Network and Access Points. End-users will be able to use an eInvoicing platform as well via web and desktop applications as via their own software, thanks to the simple API interface, that was successfully prepared.

Last updated:  Dec 20, 2019 17:38