compliance teamWho must register in BDO? Marketplace, own webshop and B2B routes
Step 1
Identify who first supplies the Polish market
Step 2
Separate each sales channel
Step 3
Test the B2B and branch positions
Step 4
Record the conclusion and its evidence
| 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 |
The statutory test is first availability, not sales technique
The packaging act defines placing on the market as making packaging or packaged products available on the territory of the country for the first time, for consideration or free of charge, for use or distribution — and it expressly includes import and intra-Community acquisition. The obligated entrepreneur is the one that does that under its own designation.
A foreign seller shipping to a Polish buyer is therefore in scope for every layer it puts into consumption: the product's own packaging, the shipping carton, the void fill, the tape and the mailer. Membership of a scheme in the seller's home country does not substitute for the Polish entry.
Marketplace and own-webshop sales are treated the same way
Selling through Allegro, Amazon.pl or another platform does not move the obligation onto the platform, and selling through your own webshop does not remove it. Published BDO guidance does not make the sales channel decisive, and marshal-office practice reported consistently by Polish practitioners follows the same reading; we have found no official statement to the contrary.
There is also no volume floor for registration itself. The one-tonne de minimis threshold in the packaging act removes recycling levels and fees; it never removes the entry in the register, and it is applied for after the fact rather than assumed in advance.
B2B sales and Polish establishments need their own analysis
Where goods are sold to a Polish importer or distributor, the obligated entity is whoever first makes them available on Polish territory. On a delivered-duty-paid sale that can still be the foreign seller; on an ex-works sale it is normally the Polish buyer performing the intra-Community acquisition. Poland has published no guidance that settles this the way some Member States have, so we route it to human review instead of encoding a confident rule.
A company established in Poland, including a foreign company with a Polish branch, registers itself electronically through the ordinary BDO route and does not need this service. Where channels are mixed, separate the flows before any application is prepared rather than after.
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.