Is this Polish account on the white list?
Enter your Polish supplier’s NIP and the account from their invoice. The question goes to the Ministry of Finance’s official register, and the answer applies to today’s date.
White-list status is per day. This answer is about the date above and nothing else: for the payment to be compliant, the account has to be listed on the date you actually pay. If you pay later, check again that morning.
What the white list is
The *biała lista podatników VAT* is a register the Polish Ministry of Finance publishes, and it is unusual: alongside each VAT-registered business it lists the bank accounts that business has declared to the tax authority. No other EU country publishes this. It exists so that a buyer can check, before paying, that the account on the invoice is one the supplier actually told the tax office about.
Why 15,000 PLN matters
For a payment to a Polish VAT-registered supplier above 15,000 PLN gross, paying an account that is not on the white list has two consequences for the buyer: the expense cannot be deducted for corporate income tax, and the buyer becomes jointly liable for the VAT the supplier owes on that transaction. The threshold is per transaction, and it is the total invoice value rather than the individual instalment. Below it, the check is prudence rather than law — and the account is just as worth checking.
Split payment does not make it unnecessary
Paying under the mandatory split-payment mechanism (*mechanizm podzielonej płatności*) releases you from the joint VAT liability, but not from the income-tax consequence. Many foreign buyers assume it covers both. If you are paying by ordinary transfer — which most cross-border payments are — neither protection applies and the white-list check is the only thing standing between you and both.
What to do if the account is not listed
Do not treat it as proof of fraud, and do not simply pay anyway. The ordinary explanation is a supplier who changed banks and did not update the tax office, which they can fix in a day. The dangerous explanation is an invoice whose account was altered before it reached you. Both are resolved the same way: phone the supplier on a number you already had and ask which account is on the white list. If they confirm the one on the invoice, ask them to update the register, and check again before you pay.
Questions
Is this the official register?
Yes. The question goes to the Ministry of Finance’s own API at wl-api.mf.gov.pl, which is the same source behind the Ministry’s public search page. Nothing here is a copy or a mirror.
Why does the date matter so much?
Because white-list status is recorded per day, and the compliance question is whether the account was listed on the day you paid. An answer from last Tuesday does not cover a payment made today, however reassuring it was. Check on the morning of the payment.
What is the request ID for?
It is the Ministry’s identifier for your specific query, and Polish tax practice treats it as the evidence that you performed the check. Keep it with the invoice. A result you cannot tie to an official query is a screenshot; one with this identifier is a record.
The account is not listed but my supplier insists it is theirs.
That is a common and usually innocent situation: businesses open accounts and forget to report them, and the register only knows what was declared. It is still the buyer who carries the tax consequence, so the fix has to happen before payment — the supplier updates the register, and you check again. Do not accept the assurance instead of the listing.
Does this check the VAT number too?
Not on this page. The main vendor check does that alongside the sanctions lists, the company register and the sending domain — this page answers only the account question, which is the one with a legal deadline attached.