Budget revenue from the tax on excess profits of fuel companies will total about PLN 5.2 billion, according to the Ministry of Finance’s response to a question from PAP, the Polish Press Agency. That means the amount should be close to the cost of the first two editions of the “Ceny Paliwa Niżej” (“Lower Fuel Prices”) program.
The windfall tax on fuel companies was originally to be assessed for the period from March 2026 to December 2026. At that time, the regulatory impact assessment of the law estimated revenue from the levy at PLN 4 billion.
During parliamentary work, however, the taxation period was extended to include all of the first quarter of 2027.
PAP asked the Finance Ministry to forecast how much money from the windfall tax would go to the budget in that period. “The estimated revenue from this tax for the first quarter of 2027 is about PLN 1.2 billion,” the Ministry of Finance responded.
The ministry stressed that the final revenue figures from the windfall tax will depend on the geopolitical situation. “The figures presented in the regulatory impact assessment are estimates prepared using available financial data,” it added.
In early October, President Karol Nawrocki signed the law on excess profits of fuel companies and referred it to the Constitutional Tribunal under the so-called follow-up review procedure. In July, the president referred a similar law to the Constitutional Tribunal, at that time under the so-called preventive review procedure.
The estimated revenue from the new tax is intended to finance the government’s “Ceny Paliwa Niżej” relief package. The total cost of the previous two editions of the program, as the Ministry of Finance reported, was about PLN 5.2 billion.
The first edition of the program, known as CPN, ran from March 31 to July 1, and its costs came to PLN 4.7 billion. The program then returned from Aug. 17 to Aug. 31 to limit fuel prices during the last days of summer vacation. That time, the cost reached PLN 495 million. In August, the Ministry of Finance said the total cost of the entire CPN program up to that point had reached about PLN 5.2 billion.
Andrzej Domański, minister of finance and economy, estimated that the monthly cost of running CPN is about PLN 1.6 billion. As a result, in the most recent period, from October to December 2026, the cost of the program could reach PLN 4.8 billion.
Under the law, the windfall tax will be paid by businesses that, between March 1, 2026, and March 31, 2027, independently produce liquid fuels in Poland, as well as businesses that, under a license for trading in liquid fuels with foreign countries, sell fuels from imports or intra-EU acquisition.
The law states that for fuel producers, the tax rate will be 60 percent of the tax base, meaning the excess of the revenue earned by the taxpayer over the amount of revenue the taxpayer would have earned using the reference margin. For sellers that do not produce fuels, the rate will be 50 percent.
The reference margin is the taxpayer’s historical margin from 2025, understood as the percentage share of profit from sales of liquid fuels in revenue from those sales that year (the average sales margin), increased by 20 percent. It may not be lower than 2 percent. (PAP)
