What is CEIDG? Poland's register of sole traders, explained

CEIDG is Poland’s free online register of sole traders. If you run a JDG (jednoosobowa działalność gospodarcza, a one-person business in your own name), your business exists because it has an entry in CEIDG. You use it to register, change your details, suspend, resume and close, and anyone can use it to look you up.

What CEIDG is, and what it is not

The name stands for Centralna Ewidencja i Informacja o Działalności Gospodarczej: the Central Register and Information on Business Activity. The government runs it, and you reach it through biznes.gov.pl, the official business portal.

CEIDG holds people, not companies:

• In CEIDG: sole traders, and the individual partners of a civil partnership (spółka cywilna).
• Not in CEIDG: a limited company (sp. z o.o.) or a joint-stock company. These are in the KRS, the National Court Register, which works differently.

If you are not sure which you are, what is a JDG explains the difference.

Two rules make the register matter:

• The law presumes your entry is true. Clients, banks and offices can rely on it.
• You answer for it. If your entry is wrong, or you report a change late, you are liable for any damage that causes (CEIDG Act art. 16).

What is public about you, and what is not

Everything CEIDG publishes is open to anyone, free, with no login.

Contact details (e-mail, phone, website) are changing:

• Until the reform: what you gave in the application is published unless you object.
• From 14 October 2026, when most of a CEIDG reform takes effect: the form gets a separate e-mail field, and contact details are published only if you consent.
• From 1 November 2026: the matching change to the list of unpublished data follows (Dz.U. 2026 poz. 507).

The same reform stops CEIDG recording joint marital property (wspólność majątkowa).

Tip: your address for service is public, and letters sent there can count as delivered even if you never collect them. If you work from home and want privacy, give a different address for service. It can be in Poland, another EU or EEA country, or Switzerland.

Closing does not make the entry disappear. It stays visible, marked as deleted, and is removed only 10 years after the deletion (CEIDG Act art. 49). From 14 October 2026, if you register again within those 10 years, your old entries stay until 10 years after your last deletion.

What you can do in CEIDG

Every action uses the same application, CEIDG-1, with a different section filled in. All of them are free (CEIDG Act art. 13).

Two lesser-known options:

• A published proxy. You can publish a proxy (pełnomocnik), for example your accountant, in your entry. No stamp duty is then due on that power of attorney.
• “Never started”. If you registered but never actually started, you can file a “never started” application (niepodjęcie działalności), and such an entry is not made public. You cannot use it if you traded, even for a day.

Watch out: if your entry still has old PKD 2007 codes, any change, suspension or resumption makes you switch to PKD 2025 in the same form. Everyone must switch by 31 December 2026. After that, CEIDG converts old codes itself where it can, so switch yourself if you want to choose your codes. See PKD codes in 2026.

How you log in

Online, you sign in to biznes.gov.pl through login.gov.pl, the government login. You need one of these:

• a trusted profile (profil zaufany)
• a Polish e-ID card (e-dowód)
• a qualified e-signature.

You can also file in mObywatel, the government’s phone app (the Firma service), but it cannot handle everything. Use the website if you are insured abroad, have a foreign correspondence address or have more than one place of business. Government logins covers how to get a login.

The offline routes are closing:

• New registrations filed at a municipal office or by post after 31 October 2026 are left unexamined. From 1 November 2026 registration is electronic only.
• Changes, suspension, resumption and closing can still go through a municipal office, or by post with a notarised signature, until 31 October 2028.

For foreigners: from 1 November 2026 a foreigner applying to CEIDG needs a PESEL or the identifier issued by an EU country’s eID scheme. Foreigners already registered without either must add one by 1 June 2030, or the entry is struck off. biznes.gov.pl warns that a foreigner’s first registration can take up to 30 days, though it usually takes about 7.

What CEIDG passes on, and what it does not

One application does several jobs. By law, every CEIDG application is also a request to GUS (Statistics Poland) for a REGON, a registration with the tax office for a NIP, and your registration as a contribution payer with ZUS, the social insurance institution, or KRUS, the farmers’ fund (CEIDG Act art. 6 ust. 3).

CEIDG sends your data to the tax office you named by the next working day after the entry. Once your NIP is assigned, it goes on to GUS and ZUS. NIP, REGON and PESEL explains the three numbers.

Passed on automatically:

• your NIP request and your chosen tax form, to the tax office
• your REGON request, to GUS
• your registration as a contribution payer, to ZUS or KRUS
• your e-Doręczenia data, if you set it up in the form
• a suspension, resumption or closing, to ZUS, the tax office and GUS.

Not automatic, unless you attach the form:

• Your own ZUS insurance registration (ZUS ZUA, or ZUS ZZA for health insurance only), due within 7 days of starting. You can attach it to the CEIDG application, or file it separately.
• VAT registration (VAT-R), needed before your first taxable sale if you will not be VAT-exempt.
• When you close: deregistering yourself from ZUS insurance (ZUS ZWUA) within 7 days, and VAT-Z if you were a VAT payer.

If you register through a bank or an accounting service rather than biznes.gov.pl, only the CEIDG part is done. ZUS and VAT-R are separate.

Suspension works differently. ZUS deregisters you itself, using the CEIDG data, so you file nothing with ZUS. When you resume, ZUS registers you again, unless your ZUS situation changed in the meantime. How to suspend a JDG goes through it step by step.

How to check someone else’s entry

Before you sign with a new client or pay a new supplier, a look at their entry takes a minute.

1. Open the business search (Wyszukiwarka firm) on biznes.gov.pl and search their name or NIP.
2. Check the status: active, suspended or deleted. A suspended business may not take on new work.
3. Compare the name, NIP and address with the invoice or contract.
4. If they say they are a company, look in the KRS instead: companies are not in CEIDG.
5. For a VAT payer, check the VAT white list (biała lista), the public list of VAT payers and their business bank accounts. You can search it by NIP, REGON, account number or name, and biznes.gov.pl links to the search.

For your own entry, a printout or electronic document from CEIDG counts as a certificate (zaświadczenie). It is free, and Polish offices may not ask you to show or attach one (CEIDG Act art. 46).

If a foreign authority needs it, the ministry can confirm the printout so that it can be apostilled. That confirmation carries no stamp duty; the apostille itself is a separate step.

CEIDG dates in 2026 and later

What to do next

• Look yourself up. Search your name or NIP on biznes.gov.pl and read your entry as a client would see it.
• Fix what is out of date with a free change application: address, bank account, PKD codes. You have 7 days after any change.
• Check what is public. If your home address is your address for service, decide whether that is what you want.
• Check your PKD codes are PKD 2025 before 31 December 2026, and that your e-Doręczenia address is in place.
• Look up new clients and suppliers before the first invoice: CEIDG or KRS, then the white list.