Polish Treasury Bond ETFs: What Expats Need to Know in 2026

What launched on 3 August 2026 and why it matters

On 3 August 2026, TFI PZU, the asset manager in the PZU insurance group, listed its first two ETFs on Polish Treasury bonds on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW). The tickers are ETFPZULONGDUR (PZU ETF Obligacji Skarbowych Długoterminowych) and ETFPZUCASH (PZU ETF Obligacji Skarbowych Zmiennokuponowych). For individual investors this creates a third route into Polish government debt, sitting between retail savings bonds bought directly from the state and actively managed bond funds.

Both funds take the legal form of a portfolio closed-end investment fund (FIZ) and use physical replication: they buy the underlying Treasury bonds directly rather than using derivatives. The certificates trade on the GPW like shares, so you need a brokerage account with access to the Warsaw exchange. The ISIN codes are PLPZUDG00010 for the long-duration fund and PLPZUZM00011 for the floating-coupon fund, and Dom Maklerski BOŚ acts as market maker to keep quotes liquid.

Costs are low by Polish fund standards: 0.25% per year for the long-duration ETF and 0.20% for the floating-coupon one. Until the end of 2026 all TFI PZU ETFs run a promotion with a 0% management fee, and the manager also covers administrative and operating costs during that period.

The debut lands in a record year for exchange-traded funds in Warsaw. After eight HANetf funds listed in July, the GPW hosts more than 40 exchange-traded instruments, and the exchange aims to cross 50 listed ETFs before the end of 2026. Assets of ETFs with a primary listing on the GPW reached 2,934.4 million PLN at the end of July 2026, up 92.6% since the start of the year, ETF turnover in the first half of 2026 exceeded the whole of 2025, and roughly 40% of new money flowing into Polish investment funds now goes to ETFs. TFI PZU itself now has five ETFs listed, with more announced for 2026, covering Polish equities, developed-market equities, bonds and gold.

Two very different funds: duration is the key number

ETFPZULONGDUR tracks a benchmark built 75% from the GPWB-B5Y index (fixed-coupon Polish Treasury bonds maturing in more than 5 years) and 25% from GPWB-B3Y5Y (bonds maturing in 3 to 5 years). The portfolio duration is about 6 years, which makes the fund clearly sensitive to interest-rate moves.

Duration is the number to understand before you buy. It measures how strongly a bond portfolio's market price reacts to changes in market interest rates: with a duration of about 6 years, the fund's price rises noticeably when yields fall and drops when yields rise. This is a fund for a longer horizon and for investors who accept visible price swings on the way.

ETFPZUCASH is the opposite animal. It tracks the GPWB-BWZ index of floating-coupon Polish Treasuries: WZ series bonds whose coupons follow WIBOR 6M (the Polish interbank reference rate) and NZ series bonds based on the POLSTR benchmark. Portfolio duration stays below 0.5 years, so the fund behaves like an instrument for parking cash rather than a bet on rates. If that is your use case, compare it first with what banks pay on deposits and savings accounts: our guide to short-term savings in Poland walks through the options.

ETFs vs retail Treasury bonds: the August 2026 numbers

The established route for individuals is the Ministry of Finance retail bond offer, refreshed monthly and available without a stock exchange listing. In the August 2026 offer (on sale 1-31 August) the headline rates are led by the inflation-linked EDO series at 5.35% in the first year. Here is how the retail offer and the new ETFs line up:

The two products answer different questions. Retail bonds give you a rate formula fixed at purchase and no daily price quotes. The ETFs give you exchange liquidity and market pricing: you can sell any trading day at the current quote, which can be above or below what you paid, especially for the long-duration fund.

Demand for the retail route remains huge. According to press reports, Poles bought 74.9 billion PLN of retail Treasury bonds in 2025, the second-best year on record after 82.6 billion PLN in 2024; first-quarter 2026 sales reached an estimated 19.1 billion PLN, up 10% year on year, and PKO BP forecasts a record of around 91 billion PLN for the whole of 2026. The new ETFs will compete for a slice of that money.

The Belka tax, PIT-38 and the wrappers that shelter you

The Belka tax is Poland's 19% tax on capital gains and investment income, and it applies to profits from selling ETF certificates on the GPW. The mechanics matter for a foreigner: your broker does not withhold the tax. It issues a PIT-8C form summarising your results, and you then file a PIT-38 return yourself and pay the tax by 30 April of the following year. If you have never filed a Polish tax return beyond your employer's annual settlement, budget time for this.

There are legal ways to reduce the bill. Investing through a brokerage IKE or IKZE account (Polish individual retirement wrappers) lets you avoid capital gains tax if you meet the conditions attached to those accounts. If your employer already enrols you in PPK, that is a separate scheme worth understanding too: see our guide to PPK for foreign employees.

A bigger change is in the pipeline, but it is not law yet. According to press reports, the Sejm passed the act on Personal Investment Accounts (OKI) on 3 July 2026 and the Senate approved it without amendments on 22 July 2026. The scheme is planned to start on 1 January 2027 and is expected to exempt investments up to 100,000 PLN from the Belka tax (25,000 PLN for savings products), with a 0.85% fee on assets above the limit in 2027. As of early August 2026 the presidential signature had not been confirmed, so treat OKI as a plan, not something to base decisions on today.

A practical checklist before you buy

First, the account. You need a Polish brokerage account with GPW access; the ETF certificates trade like shares under the tickers ETFPZULONGDUR and ETFPZUCASH, with Dom Maklerski BOŚ maintaining liquidity as market maker. Before opening an account, check whether the broker offers an English-language platform and documents, because tax forms and corporate communications will otherwise arrive in Polish.

Second, currency. Both the ETFs and retail Treasury bonds are PLN instruments. If you earn in euros or dollars, or plan to move the money home eventually, exchange-rate swings sit on top of the investment result. A dedicated EUR or USD currency account can cut conversion costs around your investments.

Third, match duration to your horizon. Money you may need within months belongs in cash-like places: ETFPZUCASH, a savings account or a term deposit, remembering that an ETF is an investment, not a guaranteed bank deposit. Money you can leave for years can take the long-duration fund's price swings in exchange for exposure to fixed coupons above 5-year maturities. And if you want a rate formula you can write down on day one, the retail bond offer, with EDO at 5.35% in year one in August 2026, remains the simplest tool in the box.