The Belka tax — how it works and how to avoid it legally

The Belka tax (podatek Belki) is Poland's 19% tax on interest, dividends and gains from selling shares, funds and ETFs. On a PLN 10,000 deposit for 12 months at 3.75%, the bank takes PLN 71.25 out of PLN 375.00 of interest. Over years of saving it adds up to far more: if you put PLN 500 a month into ETFs for 30 years at a 7% return a year, the tax on the gain comes to PLN 81,697. You can avoid it legally in an IKE (an individual retirement account) and in PPK (employee capital plans) if you withdraw after age 60, while an IKZE (an individual retirement security account) replaces it with 10% on withdrawals after age 65; under the act as passed, OKI, a personal investment account, is due to start on January 1, 2027, with a yearly tax on the value of the assets above exempt limits instead of the Belka tax.

What is the Belka tax charged on?

The Belka tax is the everyday name for the tax on capital income under the Personal Income Tax Act. It is 19% and covers:

• interest on deposits, savings accounts and bonds, treasury bonds included, and dividends (article 30a of the act);
• gains from selling securities and fund units, shares and ETFs included (article 30b).

The tax is charged on the gain, not on the whole amount: on the interest itself, or on how much more you sold for than you paid. It is named after Marek Belka, the finance minister in office when the tax on deposit interest was introduced in 2001.

There is no exemption for holding long: an ETF sold after one year or after 20 is taxed the same. The only exceptions are the accounts described below.

Who takes the tax, and when do you declare it yourself?

On interest from deposits, savings accounts and bonds in Poland, the bank or another payer withholds the tax: at capitalisation or when interest is paid out, and on bonds also at redemption. You receive the interest after tax and report nothing in your tax return.

You declare gains from selling shares, funds and ETFs yourself, in the PIT-38 return, filed by April 30 of the following year. A Polish brokerage sends you a PIT-8C statement for it. A foreign broker doesn't, but the tax is still due — you then work out the gain yourself.

How much tax do you pay on a deposit?

Banks quote deposit rates per year and before tax. Take a PLN 10,000 deposit for 12 months at 3.75%. That is the NBP reference rate (in effect from March 5, 2026), which our deposit calculator uses as a benchmark: standard deposits often pay less, promotional ones more.

The bank takes the tax itself at capitalisation and rounds it to whole grosze. So you get 3.04% a year after tax instead of 3.75%: of every złoty of interest you keep 81 grosze. When you renew the deposit, or the bank adds interest every month, the tax is taken at every capitalisation, so only the amount after tax keeps earning.

Why does it matter when you pay the tax?

The rate is always the same, but over years of saving the moment you pay matters a lot: money taken as tax stops working for you. Take PLN 500 saved every month for 30 years at a 7% return a year — PLN 180,000 paid in. The compound interest calculator can charge the tax in three ways:

• when you sell — as with accumulating ETFs and funds: you pay 19% of the whole gain once, when you sell;
• on interest as it comes — as in a savings account: every month the bank takes 19% of the interest it adds;
• no tax — as in an IKE withdrawn from age 60.

This is what you would keep after tax if you cashed everything out after 10, 20 or 30 years:

After 30 years the differences are clear. When you pay the tax once, on the sale, you lose exactly the tax itself: PLN 81,697, or 19% of the gain. When the bank takes the tax from the interest every month, it takes less than on a sale — PLN 68,422 instead of PLN 81,697 — and yet you keep PLN 471,695: PLN 138,291 less than without tax, and PLN 56,593 less than with the tax paid once, on the sale. That PLN 138,291 is the tax itself (PLN 68,422) plus the interest that money would have earned had it stayed invested (PLN 69,868).

Treasury bonds work the same way: EDO bonds add the interest to the capital and the tax is taken once, at redemption, while COI bonds pay interest every year and the tax is taken from it every year. We compare them in the guide EDO or COI, and in the treasury bonds calculator you can switch the tax between “19% — Belka tax” and “0% — IKE”.

How can you avoid the Belka tax legally?

You save without the Belka tax — or, in an IKZE, with a different tax instead — in the accounts Polish law provides for: IKE, IKZE and PPK. From 2027, under the act as passed, OKI is due to join them — more on it below.

IKE

An IKE (Indywidualne Konto Emerytalne, individual retirement account) is free of the Belka tax if you withdraw after turning 60 (or 55 with early pension rights), and you contributed in at least 5 calendar years or made more than half of the contributions at least 5 years before the withdrawal. An IKE can hold deposits, funds, shares and ETFs (a brokerage IKE), or treasury bonds (IKE-Obligacje). Everyone can have one IKE, and the contribution limit for 2026 is PLN 28,260.

An earlier withdrawal (zwrot) costs 19% of the gain — the same as an ordinary account. In the example of PLN 500 a month for 30 years, an IKE gives PLN 609,986, and an ordinary brokerage account, after the tax on the sale, PLN 528,288 — PLN 81,697 less.

IKZE

An IKZE (Indywidualne Konto Zabezpieczenia Emerytalnego, individual retirement security account) works differently. You deduct contributions from your income for personal income tax (PIT), so for every year of contributions you get part of the tax back — 12% or 32% of the amount paid in, depending on your tax bracket, or 19% on the flat tax (podatek liniowy). When you withdraw after turning 65, having contributed in at least 5 calendar years, you pay 10% of the whole amount instead of 19% of the gain. An earlier zwrot is added to your income and taxed at the progressive PIT rates. The contribution limit for 2026 is PLN 11,304, or PLN 16,956 if you run a business. Everyone can have one IKZE.

In the IKE, IKZE and PPK calculator, on a PLN 8,000 gross salary (12% tax bracket), the same PLN 500 a month paid into an IKZE, with the tax refunds paid into an IKE, grows to PLN 618,253 after 30 years — PLN 8,267 more than an IKE alone, despite the 10% tax on withdrawal. We compare the two accounts in detail in the guide IKE or IKZE.

PPK

In PPK (Pracownicze Plany Kapitałowe, employee capital plans) you pay no Belka tax if you withdraw after turning 60: 25% at once and the rest in at least 120 monthly installments. On an earlier zwrot you pay 19% of the gain, 30% of the money from your employer's contributions goes to your account at ZUS (the Social Insurance Institution), and the state's payments are returned. Your employer's contribution also counts as your income, on which you pay PIT. Whether that pays off is the subject of the guide Is PPK worth it.

What is OKI and how is it taxed?

The personal investment account, Osobiste Konto Inwestycyjne (OKI), is due to start on January 1, 2027 under the act as passed. Gains on assets held in an OKI aren't subject to the Belka tax. Instead, a yearly tax is due on the value of the assets, based on their average value over the year across all your OKI accounts. You file the return through e-Urząd Skarbowy, the tax office's online service, between March 15 and May 31 of the following year, and pay the tax by May 31.

Only some assets are exempt:

• up to PLN 25,000 — savings assets: złoty in a bank account, deposits included, treasury savings bonds, złoty treasury bills and some of the lowest-risk funds;
• up to PLN 100,000 — złoty assets: złoty bonds and covered bonds, shares of companies with share capital in złoty, and funds that invest at least 70% of their assets in such instruments.

The two exemptions together never exceed PLN 100,000, and savings assets count first. Other assets, such as foreign companies' shares and most global ETFs, have no exemption, so the tax applies to their whole average value. From 2030 the exempt amounts rise with inflation every year.

For 2027 the act sets a fixed rate of 0.85%. From 2028 the rate is 19% of the NBP reference rate in force on October 31 of the previous year, rounded down to two decimal places and no lower than 0.1%. As an illustration: at today's reference rate (3.75%, in effect from March 5, 2026) that would be 0.71% a year, or PLN 71 for every PLN 10,000 of taxable value. The rate for 2028 will be set by the reference rate on October 31, 2027, which may still change before then.

The OKI tax is charged on the value of the assets, not on the gain: the 0.85% rate equals the Belka tax on a gain of about 4.47% a year, and the illustrative rate (0.71%) the tax on a gain of about 3.74%. When the taxable assets earn more in a year, you pay less than the Belka tax on their gain; in a weaker year, or one with a loss, the tax is due all the same.

Anyone aged 18 or over can open an OKI. You can have several, but the exemptions count across all of them. You can only pay in cash — you can't move shares or bonds you already own into an OKI.

Can you offset a loss against gains?

Yes, if you sell securities, such as shares or ETFs, at a loss. You can offset it against gains of the same kind in the following 5 years, declaring them in PIT-38. A loss on ETFs therefore won't reduce the tax on deposit interest, which the bank has already taken.