The financial statements for 2025 must be prepared in electronic form and signed with a qualified electronic signature. The next step is to approve and submit them to the court register.
Signing the financial statement
Since 1 October 2018, companies have been preparing their financial statements exclusively in electronic form. The prepared document must be signed electronically using a qualified electronic signature or a Trusted Profile.
The legislator does not specify what type of signature an entrepreneur should choose to sign the statement, but in order to use a Trusted Profile, it is necessary to have a Polish PESEL number. For this reason, the vast majority of board members who are foreign nationals are forced to obtain and use a qualified electronic signature.
The statement is signed by the person representing the entity and the person responsible for keeping the accounting books, e.g. the chief accountant. It is important to note that if the organisation is managed by a multi-person management board, the statement must be signed by all members.
However, from 1 January 2022, it will be possible to apply simplifications in the signing process for multi-person management boards. If the entity is managed by a multi-person body, the statement may be signed by at least one person, and the other members of that body shall submit statements that the financial statement meets the requirements specified by law.
Form of the financial statement
The financial statement submitted to the National Court Register must be prepared in electronic form, i.e. it must be:
- saved in a specific structure and file format,
- signed with a qualified electronic signature or a Trusted Profile.
The financial statement should be created as a single XML file containing all elements of the statement (balance sheet, profit and loss account and additional information). An XML file is a type of text file containing structured data described by tags. This file should also comply with the XSD schema describing the data structure in the statement.
The applicable structures and format of financial statements for entities entered in the National Court Register (KRS) are published on the website of the Ministry of Finance. Files generated in a manner inconsistent with the published structures will not be accepted by the government system.
Submission of financial statement
Companies entered in the National Court Register submit e-statements within 15 days of the date of approval of the annual financial statements.
Financial statements can be submitted in two ways:
- via eKRS,
- via the S24 portal.
Submission of financial statement via eKRS
This option is free of charge and available to all entities entered in the National Court Register. The financial statements may be submitted by a person authorised to represent the company if their PESEL number is listed in the National Court Register. The process is carried out in the so-called Financial Document Repository (RDF).
Submitting financial statement via the S24 portal
The fee-based submission of financial statements mainly applies to companies whose management board members are foreigners without a PESEL number, i.e. persons whose PESEL number is not listed in the KRS. In this case, the statement is submitted via the S24 portal together with a fee of PLN 140.
Documents attached to the statement
Other financial documents submitted to the National Court Register together with the financial statements do not have a mandatory format, but for most of them, electronic form is mandatory.
You must prepare the following in electronic form, in any format:
- activity report,
- auditor’s opinion/report on the audit of the annual financial statements.
These documents should be prepared in the form of a file that can be saved and read using computer software, e.g. in the form of a text file, image file or mixed file (usually a PDF file) and signed electronically with a qualified electronic signature or Trusted Profile.
It is not necessary to prepare in electronic form (scans may be attached to the notification) such documents as:
- resolutions or decisions on the approval of the annual financial statements,
- resolutions on the distribution of profits or coverage of losses.
Summary
The process of signing and submitting the financial statement for 2025 requires not only substantive correctness, but also full formal and technical compliance. It is crucial to maintain the correct structure of the XML file, to have the documents signed correctly by all required persons, and to meet the 15-day deadline for submitting the statement to the National Court Register from the date of its approval.
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