Before you sign with a new partner, ship on account or extend payment terms, a quarter of an hour spent on what the public registers say about them is time well spent. In Poland a lot of it is public, and free.
1. Find the company in the National Court Register
Start from a number — the NIP is the best one, because every business has it, including sole traders. Companies additionally carry a KRS number, ten digits written with leading zeros. If you only have a name, search on that and make sure you have the right company: similar names are common.
Look at three things: whether the company is active or in liquidation, when it was registered, and its legal form. A company founded yesterday is not a bad sign in itself, but it does mean you have no history to judge it on.
2. See who stands behind it
The register publishes the management board, holders of commercial power of attorney, and — for private limited companies — the shareholders. Two questions matter: whether the person negotiating with you actually has authority to act for the company, and whether the board has changed recently. A change on its own says nothing — a change immediately before a large transaction is worth asking about.
Read the manner of representation too. Very often two board members must act jointly, or one jointly with a proxy. A contract signed by one person where the register requires two is a problem that only surfaces in a dispute.
3. Check the National Register of Debtors
The KRZ shows whether insolvency or restructuring proceedings have been opened against the company. An opened case changes everything: payments can later be challenged, and your claim joins a queue.
4. Check VAT status and the declared bank account
If a partner invoices you with VAT, they must be registered for it. Their EU VAT number is simply their NIP with a PL prefix, so there is no second number to hunt for — what matters is the status behind it. The white list of VAT taxpayers answers that, and it publishes the bank accounts the business has declared.
Check the account you are about to pay into. A transfer above 15,000 złoty to an account missing from the list costs you the deduction and can leave you jointly liable for VAT the supplier never remits. That is a Polish particularity and has an article of its own.
5. Read the annual accounts
Accounts are filed to the Repository of Financial Documents and are public. Look at revenue, at the result for the period, and above all at equity: if it is negative, liabilities exceed assets.
The absence of accounts is itself a signal. Filing is a legal duty and a substantial share of Polish companies do not comply — so a gap does not automatically mean trouble, but for a trading company that has filed nothing for years it is a question worth asking.
What it adds up to
No single one of these is a decision. Together they give a picture clear enough to decide whether to ask for payment up front, shorten the terms, or simply go ahead. And all five are public — you need nobody's permission to look.