What is the Polish “White List” (Biała Lista)? And what changes this VATpayers business register brings to companies in Poland?
Introduced September 1st, 2019 & obligatory since January 1st, 2020, a new electronic database of Polish companies that remain VATpayers includes among others such data as official companies' bank accounts. The White List is also the best source to verify company active taxpayers status.
The White List & your right to deduct the VAT
Currently in Poland, all business-to-business (B2B) transactions exceeding PLN 15,000 ($3,700) have to be verified on the White List unless you want to lose your right to deduct the VAT from a transaction.
In other words, if the Polish company isn’t registered on the White List, it means that it doesn’t have official company bank account and you won’t be able to deduct the VAT from this particular transaction.
What is more, if company is registered, but with different company bank account that you were given for ex. on your invoice, it also means that you are going to lose the right of VAT deduction.
The way to avoid VAT deduction loss
The Polish company must be checked in the database on the day of ordering the banking transaction
The only way to avoid VAT deduction loss, even if you have already paid your invoice to the bill not mentioned on the White List, is to verify company on the White List on the same day.
If, within 3 days from the date of the transfer order, we notify the relevant tax office to the seller that the contractor’s bank number does not appear on the White List, we will still be able to deduct VAT.
How to access the White List & verify companies there
Before we move to the details of accessing this database, let’s firstly learn some basic relevant phrases.
Useful Polish-English company’s TAX dictionary & basic info:
- Biała Lista — the White List, is a popular name for an electronic list of VAT taxpayers (in Polish also Wykaz Podatników VAT) hold by Ministry of Finance of Poland
- VAT — the standard Value Added Tax (VAT) rate in Poland is 23%. On some services and products like for example books or food, the VAT rate is 8% or 5%
- NIP — ten-digit code used in Poland as VAT identification number
- status podatnika — taxpayer status, in Poland can be czynny (active) or zwolniony (relieved). Ofcourse you can deduct VAT only from transactions done with companies that remain active taxpayers.
You can basically access the White List, 3 ways:
- verify each Polish company one by one, manually, via official electronic database [LINK] — this e-register is free and provided only in Polish. To be able to check a company, you need to already have or it’s bank account or NIP number or REGON number, eventually, it’s company name
- the official White List API (in Polish, API Wykazu Podatników VAT) — the Ministry of Finance’s free API is also available on the register’s website, and enables mass verification of Polish companies. Unfortunately, it has its limits — you can make only 300 queries a day. Not much for large companies and stores that record thousands of transactions per day
- compressed flat file with all(!) the NIP-bank accounts relevant pairs (in Polish, Plik płaski) — also to find on e-register website.
As you’ve probably noticed, none of these options are suited to large businesses. Therefore, RegTech companies like ours quickly sewed the right solutions.
The White List Transparent Data solutions for large businesses
Both solutions automate the process of mass verification of contractors in the list of VAT taxpayers, reducing the time of manual work of employees to a minimum and removing the limits:
- The White List API — enables thousands of queries a day, no limits as in the case of the government API. All data is consistent with the current state of original source. Returns all the relevant data in JSON ( NIP number for the given bank account, bank account for the given NIP number, request if the given NIP number and bank account exist) and also enables to download The White List Report on the checked company, where we clearly indicate the correct tax office address, where you can report the absence of a contractor on the list, thus ensuring the right to a VAT deduction,
- The White List module of Data Integrator (online platform) — enables everything that our API provides — mass and single checking, and downloading reports. The difference is that you can start using the platform right away — all you need is a login and access to the internet.
Find out more about these solutions on our website, Transparent Data .
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