The return of the KSeF – i.e. the revision of the amendment and the new invoice schema

The Ministry apparently decided to dose up the excitement about the KSeF project and a week after the publication of the assumptions of the draft law amending the law introducing the compulsory KSeF in the list of legislative works of the Council of Ministers, a draft law with an explanatory memorandum was published on the RCL website[1] , and in addition a draft of the new structured invoice schema was also published .[2]

Project phasing

Given the assumptions of the bill published earlier and the course of the consultations that have taken place over the course of this year, it can be said that the bill does not really come as a surprise.

In line with the Ministry’s earlier assumptions, it is planned to phase the implementation of the KSeF, according to the criterion of sales value achieved in 2025, and so:

– Taxpayers with sales values (including VAT) in excess of PLN 200 million will be required to use the KSeF from 1 February 2026.

– For other taxpayers, the KSeF will become compulsory from 1 April 2026.

According to a comparison of the adopted criteria and data presented in the Regulatory Impact Assessments to the draft law, the KSeF will apply to approximately 5 000 taxpayers on 1 February 2026, while from April this obligation is expected to already apply to nearly 3 million taxpayers (active and VAT-exempt).

Transitional periods

Due to the postponement of the entry into force of the mandatory KSeF, the transition periods for issuing invoices on cash registers and treating receipts with a TIN up to the amount of PLN 450 as simplified invoices have been adjusted accordingly – according to the draft, these solutions will be applicable until the end of July 2026.

Also until the end of July 2026, there will be a transitional period in which there will be no obligation to provide KSeF numbers (or collective identifiers) in transfer descriptions, and importantly, this also applies to split payment transfers.

In addition, ‘small’ taxpayers for whom the total value of receivables on invoices issued does not exceed PLN 450 and the total value of sales (including VAT) documented by these invoices does not exceed PLN 10 000 per month, will be able to issue invoices in the current form (outside KSeF) until the end of September 2026.

Additionally, the draft stipulates that all taxpayers will be able to benefit from a certain simplification in the form of issuing structured invoices offline by the end of 2026. There were higher expectations in this respect and many taxpayers requested that, at least for some industries, the offline mode should be a generally available solution, which would be a significant convenience for entrepreneurs selling at retail outlets.

Consumer invoices at KSeF – voluntary

It was repeatedly requested during the consultation that consumer invoices could be issued in KSeF. The Ministry seemed to be hesitant on this point, although there were also ideas in the final draft that consumer invoices should nevertheless become KSeF mandatory. In the end, the draft put forward the proposal that consumer invoices should be issued in KSeF on a voluntary basis.

In this regard, the bill also contains provisions adjusting the obligation to provide access to invoices issued in KSeF for non-taxable persons. This refers to the unfortunate Article 106gb(6) of the VAT Act, which, in its original wording, provided for the obligation to provide access to invoices by providing a QR code or making an invoice marked with a QR code available outside KSeF in all cases where the purchaser is not an active VAT taxpayer. In the current draft, the provision stipulates that the obligation to provide access to an invoice applies to invoices issued to a customer who, for the purposes of issuing that invoice, does not use a number by which he is identified for tax purposes or a tax identification number.

Aggregate payment identifiers

The bill also included a small but significant change with regard to bulk payment identifiers. The original wording of the bill provided that these identifiers could be generated for invoices issued by one taxable person to one recipient. In contrast, the current bill provides that the generation of the said identifier will also be possible for invoices issued by the taxpayer to multiple recipients. This solution seems interesting, although the question is how it will be implemented in practice.

Non-statutory changes

Some of the solutions discussed during the KSeF consultation, the legislator decided to transfer to the technical sphere.

First and foremost, we are referring to the annexes to the structured invoice, the use of which, according to the assumptions of the KSeF Act published in the first quarter of this year, was to be regulated directly in the Act. Currently, this issue is completely ignored in the regulations, while the annex itself has appeared as part of the proposed new version of the FA(3) schema. It is intended that the appendix will be an optional node that taxpayers will be able to tailor to their needs. Interestingly, according to the published ‘Concept for the functioning of the invoice attachment in KSeF’, the ability to use attachments is to be rationed, as taxpayers will have to request it by making an appropriate notification in the system in order to use it. According to the concept, the request is to be processed within 30 days and the permission granted for the use of attachments is to be valid for two years. At this point, the question arises whether, since the possibility to use an annex is limited and depends on a decision (it is not entirely clear whose decision it is), it should not nevertheless be regulated. Perhaps the Ministry will provide more clarification on this point or propose appropriate regulations after comments have been made.

The second issue that the drafter decided to resolve at the technical level is the requirement to provide the TIN of a sub-unit of a territorial self-government unit or a member of a VAT group. The solution is based on the introduction of mandatory fields – flags, indicating whether the purchaser is a sub-unit of a territorial self-government unit or a member of a VAT group. Although these fields are intended to be compulsory, the Entity3 node (appropriate for providing the data of such entities) still remains a ‘technically’ voluntary element. From the point of view of the VAT Act, it is also difficult to conclude that the lack of filling in of the entity3 node would constitute an error in the invoice issued – as the regulations are clear and require the data of the buyer (entity2 node) to be provided, and this is respectively the territorial self-government unit or the VAT group.

Changes to the e-invoice scheme

Apart from the already mentioned invoice attachment and the designations in terms of territorial self-government unit and VAT groups, the planned changes to the schema are not revolutionary and respond to the demand reported by taxpayers.

First and foremost, it is worth noting that the element containing the payment deadline will no longer require a specific daily date, and it will be sufficient to provide the deadline in descriptive form. In addition, provision has been made for the addition of new fields allowing information on the form of payment to be provided separately for each partial payment.

In addition, the data format of the goods and services description field on the invoice line has also been changed and, as a result, descriptions will be able to contain up to 512 characters.

It is also worth noting that the new version of the schema provides for a limit on the number of occurrences of a given adjusted invoice, so that a maximum of 10,000 invoices can be adjusted with a single invoice.

There is still time to comment on the draft legislation (until 19 November) and on the new version of the schema (until 22 November). It is worth taking advantage of this opportunity, it may be the last chance, as the draft amendment is scheduled to be adopted by the Council of Ministers by the end of this year.

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[1] Documents available at https://legislacja.gov.pl/projekt/12391205/katalog/13092618#13092618

[2] Schema and additional documents available at https://www.gov.pl/web/finanse/konsultacje-podatkowe-struktur-logicznych-fa3-i-farr1-oraz-koncepcji-funkcjonowania-zalacznika-do-faktury-w-ksef.