compliance teamBDO registration for a foreign company: the paper route, step by step
Step 1
Confirm entity, branch status and signatory
Step 2
Assemble certified documents and translations
Step 3
Pay the fee and file with the Warsaw marshal
Step 4
Arrange proxy access to the register account
| Control | Evidence to retain |
|---|---|
| Scope | Entity, product, channel, stream and source |
| External action | Version, date, authorised filer and issued receipt |
| Maintenance | Source data, approval, invoice and next deadline |
One office, on paper, thirty statutory days
A foreign entrepreneur that has not established a branch in Poland cannot use the electronic form. The application is generated, printed, signed by the entrepreneur or its representative and filed in writing with the Marshal of the Mazowieckie Voivodeship in Warsaw. A foreign entrepreneur with a Polish branch files electronically, to the marshal competent for that branch.
The marshal has thirty days from a complete application. Handling of foreign paper applications has been observed to run materially longer, so we neither publish a promised date nor treat the statutory period as a service level. What we do publish is what has been filed, when, and what the office asked for next.
The attachments are where applications stall
Filed with the application: a copy of the signatory's passport certified by a foreign notary or a Polish consul; a sworn Polish translation where it was certified abroad; a declaration in Polish that the foreign natural person does not reside in Poland; an apostille for documents originating outside the European Union; and proof of payment of the registration fee.
Where a proxy files, the power of attorney is attached with the 17 zł stamp duty paid to the Śródmieście district office of the city of Warsaw. The form also carries a tax-identifier field, and a distance seller using the EU one-stop shop usually holds no Polish tax number. We confirm the current requirement with the office rather than assert either answer, and we say plainly that obtaining a Polish tax number is not a VAT registration.
The fee band, and who will operate the account afterwards
The registration fee is 200 zł for a micro-enterprise and 800 zł for everyone else, in force since 1 January 2025; a great deal of published material still quotes the older, lower figures. Micro-enterprise is the statutory definition in the Entrepreneurs' Law, not a self-assessment. No annual fee is due in the year the registration fee was paid; from the next year it falls due by the end of February.
Registration is paper, but everything afterwards runs in the BDO web system, which authenticates through the national identification node. The available means require a Polish personal identification number, which a foreign company cannot hold. The system's own answer is a proxy who holds one and has their own account, granted permissions over the entity. Decide who that will be before filing, not after the number arrives.
Conclusion
Scope comes before a form. Connect the legal entity, product, sales channel and EPR stream to the rule that actually applies.
Evidence must remain traceable. Keep source data, versions, approvals, filings, receipts and every record issued by an external body.
Third-party decisions are never guaranteed. The marshal, the register, recovery organisations and marketplaces control their own procedures, timing and decisions.