What the “Return Relief” Is
The relief consists of an exemption from personal income tax for certain income earned in four consecutive tax years by taxpayers who moved their place of residence to Poland after December 31, 2021.
The relief can be applied for four years starting from the beginning of the year in which the taxpayer moved his or her place of residence to Poland, or from the beginning of the following year.
Who Can Take Advantage of the Relief
You can take advantage of the relief if you meet all of the following conditions:
- You are subject to unlimited tax liability in Poland as a result of moving to Poland after December 31, 2021.
- You did not live in Poland during: the three calendar years immediately preceding the year in which you returned to Poland, and the period from the beginning of the year until the day before the day you returned to Poland (i.e., until the day you changed your tax residence, if that change took place during the tax year).
- You have Polish citizenship or a Karta Polaka (Pole’s Card); foreigners can also take advantage of this relief if they meet certain conditions.
- You have a certificate of residence or other proof documenting your place of residence in other countries for tax purposes during the period necessary to establish your right to this exemption, e.g., a certificate of US tax residency (see https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/certification-of-us-residency-for-tax-treaty-purposes).
- You have not previously used this exemption, in whole or in part – in the case where you are moving your place of residence to Poland again.
What Income Qualifies for the Relief
The return relief covers income earned from work, including from: an employment contract, a service relationship, outwork, a cooperative employment relationship, a commission contract (umowa zlecenia), and business activity (taxed according to the tax scale, the 19 percent flat tax, the 5 percent rate – the so-called IP Box relief – and the lump-sum tax on recorded revenue). The relief also covers maternity benefits.
Note: The relief does not cover pensions, disability pensions, sickness benefits, or income from contracts for specific work (umowy o dzieło) or from copyrights. Seniors who return to Poland in retirement unfortunately do not get the relief and must pay taxes on their worldwide income, including US Social Security benefits. Only working seniors who have temporarily stopped collecting their Polish pension are exempt from PIT (Polish personal income tax) up to about PLN 85.5 thousand. But that is a different relief, called the relief for working seniors.
How Much Is Exempt
The return relief gives the taxpayer the right not to pay tax on PLN 85,528 in a given tax year.
Important! The rule is that the total income exempt from tax under PIT-0, that is, the return relief, the relief for young people, the relief for families with 4+ children and the relief for working seniors, may not exceed PLN 85,528 a year.
If you exceed the relief limit, you apply the tax-free amount of PLN 30,000 a year to the income taxable according to the tax scale. In total, you have as much as PLN 115,528 tax-free in Poland in the 2026 tax year.
When the Relief Can Be Applied
The relief can be applied already during the year, to avoid sending in advance tax payments, but you will settle it finally in your annual tax return.
If you are required to calculate your advance payment or tax yourself because you earn foreign income from a full-time job, commission contracts or business activity, you apply this relief yourself, excluding the income it covers from your taxable income.
What Steps to Take
In practice, taking advantage of the relief means not reporting the income covered by the relief on your tax return. If you earn income in Poland from a full-time job or from a commission contract with a company, you should submit an appropriate statement to your employer or the company that commissioned the work, so that it can apply the relief.
There is no official form for the statement, so you can draft it yourself or use the sample form included at the end of the Ministry of Finance brochure “Przewodnik dla Podatnika. Ulga na powrót” (“Taxpayer’s Guide: The Return Relief”), which you can download from the internet. You submit the statement in writing, stating that you meet the conditions for the relief and indicating the year in which the employer or the commissioning party is to start and stop applying the exemption.
If the statement meets all the requirements as to its content, the employer or commissioning party will apply the exemption no later than from the month following the submission of the statement.
In Closing
The return relief applies only to income from work, not to pensions. If you return to Poland to enjoy your golden years there, don’t count on any privileges.
The return relief may apply to you if, for example, you want to work a few more years to add to your Polish ZUS (Poland’s Social Insurance Institution) pension. In that case, remember that if you stop meeting the conditions for the relief (e.g., you work for two employers and your total income exceeds the relief limit), you are required to inform your employer or commissioning party. After receiving such information, it will stop applying the relief no later than from the following month.
If you have income from other sources or exceed the exemption ceiling, then after the end of the tax year you will settle with the urząd skarbowy (tax office) in your annual tax return.
You can read more in the Ministry of Finance guide mentioned above (“Przewodnik dla Podatnika. Ulga na powrót”), on which this article is based.
Updated October 2026.
