Financial statements filed with the Krajowy Rejestr Sądowy establish a documented earnings and debt profile for a Polish entity. For a foreign buyer or lender, that profile is the starting point for any collateral assessment: it shows what the borrower owns, what it owes, and whether the numbers submitted to the court match the numbers presented across the table.
- What the source shows
- Annual financial statements filed by the entity, including balance sheet, profit-and-loss account, and auditor's report where applicable. Source: Repozytorium Dokumentów Finansowych (KRS) · verified 2026-06-06
- Cost of access
- Free of charge. No registration required. Source: Repozytorium Dokumentów Finansowych · verified 2026-06-06
- Access condition
- Search by KRS number or company name. Documents are available as PDF files. No structured data export.
- What the source does not show
- Management accounts, interim figures, off-balance-sheet commitments, and intra-group transactions are not filed and are not visible here.
The repository is public and free of charge. What a structured collateral report provides is the removed path: locating the correct KRS number, identifying the applicable filing obligation, extracting figures across multiple years, cross-referencing those figures against the pledge registers, and flagging where the declared asset base diverges from the encumbrance record.
What the financial statements cover — and what sits alongside them
Polish limited liability companies (sp. z o.o.) and joint-stock companies (S.A.) file annual financial statements with the KRS. The filing obligation attaches to the entity, not the asset. A statement covers the full legal person: all assets, all liabilities, all equity movements for the reporting year.
For collateral purposes, the balance sheet line items most relevant to a lender are fixed assets, receivables, inventory, and financial instruments on the asset side; and long-term debt, trade payables, and provisions on the liability side. The statement alone does not show which specific assets are already pledged. That requires a parallel search of the pledge registers.
| Register | What it shows | Cost | Access condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Repozytorium Dokumentów Finansowych (KRS) | Filed annual statements: balance sheet, P&L, auditor's report | Free | KRS number or name; PDF output |
| Rejestr Zastawów (Ministry of Justice) | Registered pledges on movable assets and rights; pledgee, pledgor, subject, value | DW-1 certificate: 20 PLN · DW-2 certificate: 20 PLN · DW-4 extract: 15 PLN | Search by pledgor or by subject; certificates issued by Centralna Informacja |
| Rejestr Zastawów Skarbowych (Ministry of Finance) | Fiscal pledges securing tax liabilities; search by asset subject | Search: free · Wypis/zaświadczenie: 50 PLN via e-Urząd Skarbowy | Search by subject; formal certificate available electronically |
| Elektroniczne Księgi Wieczyste (EKW) | Mortgage entries on real property; encumbrances in Section IV | Free | Requires KW number; name search not available to private parties |
| Krajowy Rejestr Zadłużonych (KRZ) | Insolvency and restructuring proceedings from December 2021 | Free | Search by NIP, KRS, or PESEL; no login required |
| Biała lista podatników VAT | VAT status, declared bank accounts, dates of exclusion or restoration | Free | Search by NIP; historical date query available |
| CRBR (beneficial ownership) | Declared ultimate beneficial owners and their shareholding percentages | Free | No login required; search by NIP or KRS |
The pledge register split — a structural gap for foreign lenders
Poland operates two separate pledge registers. The Rejestr Zastawów covers registered pledges under civil law — the standard security instrument for movable assets and receivables. The Rejestr Zastawów Skarbowych covers fiscal pledges, which arise automatically when a tax liability is not paid and the tax authority registers a claim against the debtor's assets.
A clean result in one register does not confirm a clean result in the other. Both must be searched to establish the full encumbrance profile of a Polish entity's asset base. The financial statements do not reference either register. A lender relying only on filed accounts will not see existing pledges.
Real property: the KW number problem
Mortgages on Polish real property are registered in the Elektroniczne Księgi Wieczyste. The EKW is publicly accessible and free of charge. However, search by the owner's name is not available to private parties. Access requires the KW (land register) number for the specific property.
Obtaining that number requires a prior search of the ewidencja gruntów i budynków — the land and buildings registry, held at the local starostwo. The ewidencja links the cadastral parcel to the KW number. This two-step path is not visible from the financial statements and is not accessible remotely without the correct parcel identifiers.
For a foreign lender assessing real property as collateral, the practical sequence is: identify the property from the transaction documents, obtain the cadastral parcel number, retrieve the KW number from the ewidencja, then pull the land register entry showing mortgages in Section IV.
Insolvency check: the pre-2021 gap
The Krajowy Rejestr Zadłużonych replaced the former Rejestr Dłużników Niewypłacalnych in December 2021. KRZ contains proceedings opened from that date forward. Proceedings opened before December 2021 are not migrated to KRZ and must be checked through the Monitor Sądowy i Gospodarczy archive or the relevant court directly.
A negative KRZ result confirms no open insolvency or restructuring proceeding registered after December 2021. It does not confirm absence of earlier proceedings. For entities incorporated before 2021, the pre-December 2021 period requires a separate check.
VAT status and bank accounts as a collateral signal
The Biała lista podatników VAT, maintained by the Head of the National Revenue Administration, publishes the bank accounts declared by each VAT-registered entity. A payment made to an account not on this list triggers joint and several VAT liability for the payer under Polish tax law. That rule makes the Biała lista a standard pre-payment check for Polish counterparties.
For collateral purposes, the list also shows dates of VAT deregistration, the reasons for exclusion, and the dates of any reinstatement. An entity deregistered for VAT fraud is a material fact in any lending assessment. The list allows a historical query — status on any past date — and is updated daily.
The limit of what the sources allow
Filed financial statements show the declared position as of the balance sheet date. They do not show what happened between filing and the date of the lender's assessment. A company may have taken on additional debt, disposed of assets, or had a pledge registered against it — none of which appears in a prior-year statement.
The pledge registers show registered encumbrances. They do not show contractual restrictions — negative pledge clauses, financial covenants, or cross-default provisions in loan agreements — because those are not filed with any public register in Poland.
The EKW shows mortgages on real property. It does not show whether the property is the subject of a pending enforcement proceeding unless that proceeding has produced a court entry. The KRZ shows insolvency proceedings from December 2021. Earlier proceedings, informal arrangements, and debt restructurings outside formal insolvency are not captured. The CRBR shows declared beneficial owners. It does not verify the accuracy of those declarations against underlying corporate documents.
Where the sources disagree
The most common divergence encountered in Polish collateral work is between the asset values stated in the financial statements and the encumbrance values registered in the pledge registers. A fixed asset carried at book value in the accounts may be pledged at a higher or lower value in the Rejestr Zastawów. The pledge register records the secured amount, not the asset's current market value.
A second divergence arises between the KRS company record and the CRBR beneficial ownership entry. The KRS shows registered shareholders; the CRBR shows declared ultimate beneficial owners. Where these differ — for example, where a nominee shareholder appears in the KRS but a different natural person is declared in the CRBR — the divergence is itself a result requiring further examination.
What is included at each tier
| Tier | Price | Included | Not included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Signal | €290 | Filed financial statements (up to three years): balance sheet, P&L, auditor's report where filed. KRS company record. KRZ insolvency check. Biała lista VAT status and declared accounts. CRBR beneficial ownership entry. Summary table of findings. | No pledge register searches. No EKW mortgage check. No pre-2021 insolvency search. No cross-register divergence analysis. |
| Standard | €470 | Everything in Signal, plus: Rejestr Zastawów search (DW-1 by pledgor, DW-2 by subject). Rejestr Zastawów Skarbowych search and formal certificate. MSiG archive search for pre-2021 insolvency and restructuring notices. Cross-register divergence section identifying conflicts between statement values and pledge register amounts. | No EKW mortgage check on real property. No cadastral parcel search. No management accounts or interim figures (not publicly filed). |
| Extended | €960 | Everything in Standard, plus: EKW land register search on identified properties (requires KW numbers; cadastral path included where parcel identifiers are provided). CRBR-to-KRS divergence analysis. Full collateral summary: asset categories, encumbrance by register, unencumbered asset estimate based on filed data, identified gaps where public sources reach their limit. | No valuation of assets. No legal qualification of findings. No review of underlying loan agreements or pledge contracts. No management accounts or off-balance-sheet items (not publicly filed). |
Questions about this report
The financial statements are free — what does the report add?
The Repozytorium Dokumentów Finansowych is public and free of charge. The report adds the path: identifying the correct KRS number, retrieving statements across multiple years, extracting the figures relevant to collateral assessment, and cross-referencing those figures against the pledge registers and insolvency records. The output is a structured document in English with source citations, not a set of Polish-language PDFs.
Can a foreign lender access these registers directly?
The KRS, KRZ, Biała lista, and CRBR are accessible without registration. The Rejestr Zastawów requires submitting a formal request to Centralna Informacja with the correct subject or pledgor identifiers and paying the applicable fee per certificate type. The EKW requires a KW number, which is not derivable from the company name alone.
How current are the filed statements?
Polish entities are required to file annual financial statements within fifteen days of approval by the shareholders' meeting. The approval deadline is typically six months after the financial year end. For a December year-end entity, the most recent filed statement may therefore be eighteen months old at the time of review. The report identifies the filing dates and flags any gap between the most recent filed statement and the report date.
What if the entity has not filed statements?
Failure to file is itself a finding. Certain categories of entity — sole traders operating under uproszczona ewidencja, for example — are not required to file with the KRS. The report identifies the applicable filing obligation and states whether the obligation has been met. A missing filing where one is required is noted as a gap, not treated as a clean result.
Does the report cover subsidiaries?
The Signal and Standard tiers cover the single legal entity identified in the brief. The Extended tier can include up to two additional KRS entities — subsidiaries or parent companies — where their statements and pledge profiles are material to the collateral assessment. Additional entities beyond that scope are quoted separately.
Disclaimer: This report is a factual compilation from official registers and public sources. It is provided for informational purposes only, does not constitute legal advice, and contains no legal qualification of the facts established. KORDECKI & Partners assumes no liability for actions taken or not taken based on this material. For advice regarding your particular situation, please contact info@kordeckipartners.com.