Cancelling invoices and issuing new ones is a common practice in many European countries. However not in Poland. Cancelling / correcting invoices to zero is possible in Poland only in few situations:

  • invoice was issued to wrong customer,
  • all goods were returned to the supplier,
  • prepayment was returned to the purchaser after down payment invoice was issued,
  • invoice was issued by mistake – transaction did not take / will not take place (empty invoice),
  • the same transaction was documented twice and the supplier noticed a mistake.

In any case other than listed above the supplier is obliged to issue a corrective invoice (credit note / debit note) according to Polish VAT rules.

Please find more information about corrective invoices in our article.

In case of technical issues that do not allow to adjust the transactions data by one correcting invoice, taxpayer needs to take into account the objections of the tax clerks. The issue is the more important recently, as Polish VAT rules indicate different moments when invoices decreasing and increasing should be reported (on ongoing basis vs in the past reportings). When original invoice is cancelled and the taxpayer decides to issue a new one, tax authorities usually try to show that VAT liability arise and penalty interest should be paid.

Depending on the case at hand we are ready to support our Clients with explaining the nature of performed correction (even though it is not entirely in line with Polish VAT rules) and defend way of reporting the documents in one month, not to generate additional financial cost for the taxpayer.