🇵🇱 Poland — Can I Deduct Expenses Under Flat Tax in 2026?

Can I deduct real business expenses under Poland's flat tax?

Yes. Flat tax (podatek liniowy) lets you subtract actual, documented costs incurred to earn, preserve, or secure business revenue, and the 19% rate applies to the resulting income. But normal statutory exclusions and limits still apply — for example to private expenditure, representation, cars, depreciation, and transactions that do not meet the business-purpose test — so "legitimate" is not an unlimited category.

How is this different from ryczałt?

Ryczałt taxes gross revenue directly, with no expense deduction at all. This is the single biggest structural difference between Poland's four JDG-adjacent options: tax scale and flat tax both deduct real costs; ryczałt doesn't, no matter how large your genuine expenses are.

So when does that matter?

If you have significant deductible costs — subcontractors, equipment, software licenses — flat tax (or the tax scale) will usually beat ryczałt even at a low ryczałt rate, because ryczałt has no mechanism to reflect those costs at all. Ryczałt is most attractive specifically when your real costs are low relative to revenue.

See the full Polish freelancer tax guide for the complete comparison across all four methods.