Belka Tax "Abolition" and OKI Accounts: What Really Changes for Investors in Poland

What is OKI and why headlines about "abolishing the Belka tax" are misleading

The Belka tax (podatek Belki) is Poland's flat 19% tax on capital gains and interest income. It applies to profits from shares and funds, and to the interest your bank pays on deposits and savings accounts. Polish media have been running headlines about its "liquidation", but that is a shorthand, and a misleading one. The tax itself stays at 19% for everything held outside the new account.

What the new law actually creates is OKI: Osobiste Konto Inwestycyjne, or Personal Investment Account. It is a voluntary account for investing in assets such as shares, investment fund units and bank deposits. Gains on assets held inside an OKI, up to defined limits, would be exempt from the Belka tax. Think of it as a Polish cousin of a tax wrapper, not a general tax cut.

The government adopted the draft law on 5 May 2026. The Sejm passed it on 3 July 2026 with a striking cross-party result: 427 votes for, 5 against, 1 abstention. The Senate approved it without amendments on 22 July 2026, with 60 senators in favour. Finance minister Andrzej Domański argues the scheme introduces no new burden because it is entirely voluntary, and publicly stated he sees no grounds for a veto.

The limits: 100,000 PLN per person, 25,000 PLN for savings

The exemption covers up to 100,000 PLN of investment assets (shares, fund units) per person. Within that amount there is a sublimit of 25,000 PLN for savings assets: bank deposits and savings bonds. Both limits are assigned to the person, not the account. You can open multiple OKI accounts at different institutions, but your exemption is counted jointly across all of them.

For couples the numbers double. According to minister Domański, a married couple can jointly use an exemption of up to 200,000 PLN (2 x 100,000 PLN). He called the exemption a significant incentive to invest. From 2030 the limits are set to be indexed to inflation, so they should not erode in real terms the way fixed thresholds often do.

What happens above the limit? Assets on OKI exceeding the thresholds would be covered by a new tax, and this is where the design gets unusual: it is a tax on the value of assets, not on your gains. The rate formula is 19% of the NBP reference rate (the central bank's main interest rate, set by the RPP, Poland's Monetary Policy Council) as of 31 October of the previous year, with a floor of 0.1%. The Finance Ministry has estimated the 2027 rate at around 0.85%, though the actual figure will depend on where the NBP rate stands on 31 October 2026.

Can foreigners open an OKI? The PESEL condition

Yes, in principle. The law says an OKI can be opened by any adult with a PESEL number, Poland's national identification number. There is no citizenship requirement in that condition. If you live in Poland legally, you most likely already have a PESEL, since it is needed for taxes, healthcare and most contracts. That makes OKI directly relevant to expats who invest or save in Poland and currently lose 19% of every profit to the Belka tax.

This matters most for money you keep in Poland medium term. Interest on ordinary Polish deposits is taxed at 19% today, which is a real drag on returns; our guide to short-term savings in Poland shows how that tax works in practice. An OKI savings sublimit of 25,000 PLN would let a slice of your deposit interest go untaxed. If you hold larger amounts, the 100,000 PLN investment limit is the bigger prize.

One caveat for internationally minded investors: the exact catalogue of assets that qualify for the exemption, including how foreign shares and ETFs are treated, is still being described cautiously by Polish analysts pending publication of the final act. If your portfolio is mostly non-Polish assets, wait for the published law before assuming they qualify. In the meantime, the basics of banking in Poland still apply: watch out for hidden bank fees, and if you earn in euros or dollars, a currency account may sit alongside your zloty savings.

When does it start, and what could still stop it

The launch date is 1 January 2027. President Karol Nawrocki signed the law on 13 August 2026, closing the legislative path; in the official statement the president highlighted the attractive tax-free threshold and the guarantee of zero account fees as tools for building family wealth.

Expect a competitive scramble among providers. Broker XTB has announced it will launch a brokerage OKI from 1 January 2027, and offers from banks and other brokerage houses are expected. The market potential is large: a report by PKO BP's brokerage estimates that assets on OKI accounts could exceed 100 billion PLN after 3 years and 200 billion PLN after 5 years.

What should you do now? Nothing irreversible. There is no account to open yet and no provider list to compare. A sensible preparation: know where your savings sit and what they earn after the 19% tax, and compare current deposit offers and savings accounts so you have a baseline to measure OKI offers against in 2027. The law is now signed; we will update this guide as providers publish their OKI offers.