Ryczałt, liniowy or skala: which tax form should you choose?

A JDG (jednoosobowa działalność gospodarcza, a sole proprietorship) pays income tax in one of three forms: the tax scale (skala podatkowa), the flat tax (podatek liniowy) or the lump sum on revenue (ryczałt). As a rough guide, ryczałt suits a high-earning business with few costs, the flat tax suits a high earner with real costs, and the scale suits smaller incomes. Your costs and the health contribution decide the real answer, so do the sums before the deadline.

The three forms side by side

These are the 2026 rules. The fourth form, the tax card (karta podatkowa), is closed to newcomers.

“Income” (dochód) is revenue minus costs. “Revenue” (przychód) is what you invoice. The difference matters most for ryczałt: 12% ryczałt means 12% of everything you invoice, not 12% of your profit.

On the scale, the 120,000 PLN threshold applies to income after costs, not to turnover. The 3,600 PLN tax reduction is what gives the 30,000 PLN tax-free amount, and it exists only on the scale.

Ryczałt rates depend on what you do:

• 12% for most software work;
• 15% for many consulting and advertising services;
• 8.5% for services not listed elsewhere;
• 17% for listed “free professions”, such as lawyers or accountants who do the work personally, without staff doing the same work.

Our guide to ryczałt rates goes through the list.

How the health contribution changes the numbers

The health contribution (składka zdrowotna) is paid every month to ZUS, the Social Insurance Institution, on top of your social contributions. How much you pay depends on your tax form, and it is often the reason one form beats another.

• On the scale you pay 9% of your income and cannot deduct any of it.
• On the flat tax you pay 4.9% of your income and may deduct it, up to 14,100 PLN in 2026.
• On both, the minimum is 432.54 PLN a month, from the contribution for February 2026.
• On ryczałt you pay a fixed amount, set by your revenue since 1 January:

Half of what you pay on ryczałt comes off your revenue before tax. Because the amount is fixed, it stays the same as your income grows within a band. On the other two forms, it grows with every złoty of income. Our article on the health contribution explains the monthly and annual settlement.

When does each form win?

Mostly, it depends on your costs. This worked example shows how.

Example: IT work at 12% ryczałt, 240,000 PLN of revenue in 2026 (20,000 PLN a month), full ZUS contributions without sickness insurance, and no reliefs. The pension, disability and accident contributions (19,798 PLN for the year) are deducted under every form; the Labour Fund contribution is left out. The figures are income tax plus health contribution for the year, rounded. This is our own arithmetic from the 2026 rules, not an official calculation.

What the example shows:

• Ryczałt’s cost does not move with your costs. At 12% it stays cheapest until costs reach roughly a quarter of revenue. With the same numbers, the break-even point is about 35–40% of revenue at 8.5%, and about 15–20% at 15%.
• The flat tax beats the scale when income sits deep in the 32% band. At 30% costs, the scale’s 30,000 PLN tax-free amount and 12% band still win.
• At lower revenue the scale often wins outright. At 120,000 PLN of revenue with 10% costs, the same sums give about 14,900 PLN on the scale against about 21,400 PLN on ryczałt.

Your own result changes with preferential ZUS, the ZUS start-up relief, reliefs such as the child relief (scale only), and joint filing with a spouse (scale only). What counts as a cost is explained in what a JDG can count as a business cost. An accountant or a comparison calculator can run your real figures.

Watch out: invoicing your current or former employer for the same work you did for them as an employee can cost you your tax form. This catches many people who move from a job to B2B (invoicing as a business) with the same company.

• Ryczałt looks at employment in the current or previous year. You lose ryczałt from the day of that revenue to the end of the year.
• The flat tax looks only at the current year, but you lose it for the whole year. You recalculate your advances on the scale from 1 January, with interest.

Some activities cannot use ryczałt at all, for example running a pharmacy or a currency exchange. If your records do not separate revenue taxed at different ryczałt rates, the highest rate applies to all of it.

When and how to choose or change

The rule is the same for all forms: file your choice by the 20th of the month after the month of your first revenue in the year. If your first revenue comes in December, the deadline is 31 December.

A deadline that falls on a Saturday, a Sunday or a public holiday moves to the next working day.

How: on biznes.gov.pl, file a free application to change your CEIDG entry and pick the new form. CEIDG passes it to your tax office. You can also send a signed written statement to the head of your tax office. Nobody approves it: the statement itself is the choice.

The choice rolls over. The flat tax or ryczałt stays in place every year until you file a different choice.

• Miss the deadline and you keep last year’s form for the whole year.
• A new business that never files a choice is on the scale.
• You cannot switch mid-year.

After a suspension. The deadline counts from your first revenue of the tax year. So if your business earned nothing earlier in the year and you resume, it should run from your first revenue after resuming. No official page deals with this case directly. If you are unsure, ask KIS (Krajowa Informacja Skarbowa), the tax office’s information line. More in resuming a suspended JDG.

What records does each form need?

• Scale and flat tax: a tax book of revenue and expenses (KPiR, podatkowa księga przychodów i rozchodów) and a register of fixed assets. Every cost needs a proper document.
• Ryczałt: a revenue register (ewidencja przychodów) and a list of fixed assets. Costs do not reduce your tax, but you must still keep your purchase documents.

Both are moving into software in stages. If you file monthly VAT returns (JPK_V7M), your books have had to be electronic since the 2026 tax year, and the first annual files (JPK_PKPIR or JPK_EWP) are due by 30 April 2027. Quarterly VAT filers and VAT-exempt businesses follow from the 2027 tax year.

Whatever the form, keep every invoice filed by month. Komplet, our free Mac app, files each invoice into the right month and pairs it with the payment on your bank statement, so the documents behind your KPiR or revenue register sit in one place. It does not keep the books themselves.

What could change in 2027?

Nothing below is law yet. As of 24 September 2026, a government draft (UD458) proposes, from 1 January 2027:

• cutting the ryczałt limit from 2,000,000 EUR to 250,000 EUR of previous-year revenue (about 1.06 million PLN at the rate used for the 2026 limits), which would look at your 2026 revenue;
• a 17% ryczałt rate on revenue above 300,000 EUR in a year;
• a gentler scale: 12% up to 130,000 PLN, then 24% up to 150,000 PLN, then 32%, but only if the draft’s ryczałt and company-tax changes take effect on the same day.

Today the ryczałt limit for 2026 is 8,517,200 PLN of 2025 revenue. The 2027 flat-tax health deduction limit and the 2027 ryczałt health amounts are not published yet.

What to do next

1. Estimate your 2027 revenue and costs, and look up your ryczałt rate.
2. Run the numbers for all three forms, including the health contribution, or ask an accountant.
3. If you want to change, file in CEIDG by 22 February 2027 (if your first revenue of 2027 comes in January).
4. Put the next deadlines in your calendar with our tax deadlines for 2026, and see what goes in your annual return.