If you plan to do business in Poland or with Polish contractors, it’s always good to check their credibility. Although there are companies that will do that for you for a fee, you should know that there are some investigations that you can carry on for free. Then you will decide whether it is worth paying for more information.
Check the registry
Most entities in Poland have to be registered in Krajowy Rejestr Sadowy (KRS). The registry is open, and free to look through. All you need to know is one of the numbers: KRS, REGON or NIP of your contractor. Those numbers may be easily found on the Internet. I usually check it on the Rejestr.io website. They also offer financial statements of the companies for a fee, but don’t buy it – we will show you how to get it for free. This website is also worth visiting, as you may see connections between the owner or board of the company with other entities.
What information will you find in the registry? Well, a lot:
- who owns the company
- the agreement founding the company
- any changes made to the registry (and documents it was based on)
Some documents may be restricted, but in general, they are free to access and read. Some documents are restricted until the change is declared as valid.
We give detailed information in a separate article on how to access registry data.
Check financial statements
Most entities, except for sole proprietaries, are required by law to submit their yearly financial statement to the KRS (Companies listed on stock exchange need to publish Financial Statements every quarter). Typically, the deadline is in August/September of the next year. If they don’t submit their financial statements, they may be fined (about 1200 EUR). However, many companies still don’t submit their results, those companies can’t be considered as trustworthy.
We give detailed information in a separate article on how to access and read financial data.
Check sole proprietaries
If you are looking for a sole proprietary, things are a bit more complicated. They don’t need to submit any information about their finances, and all data is limited to what they give when they register their business or when they register some changes. Contrary to entities, you can’t get access to their internal data.
To get information, you need to visit the Centralna Ewidencja i Informacja o Działalnosci Gospodarczej website.
Then, you have to enter some data in the search engine – either the name, the firm, or address. The results are less detailed than for entities, there is no information about the finances, but still this might be useful. You will know when the person started his activities, in which sector has he worked, was the activity suspended, what is his registered address etc.
