Polish Personal Investment Accounts (OKI)

As of 1 January 2027, the provisions of the Act of 3 July 2026 on Personal Investment Accounts (the “OKI Act”) enter into force. The Act regulates the principles governing the accumulation of assets by natural persons in a personal savings account (OKI) — including the rules on operating an OKI, as well as the taxation of assets held in an OKI by way of an asset value tax.

Legal and Tax Structure of the OKI

The OKI is a solution inspired by the Swedish investment savings accounts, ISK (Investeringssparkonto). It takes the form of a segregated account (for example, a bank or securities account) or an entry in the register of participants of an investment fund. It may be operated exclusively for a natural person. In this respect, the arrangements under the OKI Act bear similarity to the provisions governing individual retirement accounts (IKE) and individual retirement security accounts (IKZE).

What distinguishes the OKI — both from the IKE and IKZE and from “standard” accounts — is primarily its different taxation regime and the absence of any restrictions on the withdrawal of funds.

Assets accumulated in an OKI are subject to an asset value tax (Article 21 et seq. of the OKI Act) rather than personal income tax (Article 2(1)(10) of the PIT Act).

In addition, Article 26 of the OKI Act provides for an exemption from the asset value tax up to a total average asset value of PLN 25,000 (in the case, in particular, of cash held in bank or cash accounts and bonds constituting government savings securities) or up to a total average asset value of PLN 100,000 (in the case, in particular, of shares, corporate bonds, investment fund units, and covered bonds). In somewhat simplified terms, the exemption applies to assets of a “Polish” character — for example, in the case of cash held in a bank account, the account must be maintained in Polish złoty, and in the case of shares, the company’s share capital must be denominated in złoty.

The sum of the total average values of OKI assets exempt from the asset value tax on the basis described above may not exceed PLN 100,000 in a given tax year.

Entities Authorised to Operate an OKI

The OKI Act defines the range of entities authorised to operate an OKI by introducing the concept of an “OKI financial institution” (Article 2(1)(8) of the Act). Such an institution is a domestic bank, an entity conducting brokerage activity, an investment fund, a voluntary pension fund, or an insurance undertaking that operates an OKI. At first glance, therefore, it would appear that an OKI cannot be operated by a credit institution not established in the territory of Poland (in simplified terms, a bank from another Member State, such as Germany).

However, to determine precisely which entities are authorised to operate an OKI, it is also necessary to establish the scope of the term “entity conducting brokerage activity.” This is defined in Article 2(1)(16) of the OKI Act as a brokerage house, a domestic bank, or a foreign investment firm within the meaning of Article 3(32) of the Act on Trading in Financial Instruments, conducting brokerage activity in the territory of the Republic of Poland in the form of a branch, authorised to perform the activities referred to in Article 69(2)(1) and (2) and Article 69(4)(1) of the Act on Trading in Financial Instruments.

Pursuant to Article 3(32) of the Act on Trading in Financial Instruments, a foreign investment firm means a legal person or an organisational unit without legal personality having its registered office in the territory of another Member State — or, where the law of the relevant State does not require the establishment of a registered office, having its head office in the territory of another Member State — or a natural person resident in the territory of another Member State, conducting brokerage activity in the territory of another Member State on the basis of an authorisation from the competent supervisory authority, as well as a foreign credit institution. A foreign credit institution, in turn, is defined in Article 3(31) of the Act on Trading in Financial Instruments as a credit institution referred to in Article 4(1)(1) of the CRR Regulation which, on the basis of an authorisation from the competent supervisory authority, either conducts brokerage activity in the territory of another Member State, or maintains accounts in the territory of another Member State on which securities admitted to trading on a foreign regulated market are recorded.

A foreign credit institution within the meaning of the Act (in simplified terms, a bank from another Member State) may operate an OKI, but only if it conducts brokerage activity in the territory of Poland in the form of a branch.

The OKI Act — What We Deliver

• an assessment of a given institution’s ability to operate an OKI;
• the preparation of documentation for the operation of an OKI (including a template OKI account agreement, a template umbrella agreement, and detailed terms and conditions and the procedure for concluding and terminating an OKI account agreement);
• opinions and analyses concerning the OKI Act.

Information current as of 13 October 2026.