No law requires a person running unregistered business activity to open a business account — client payments may land on an ordinary personal account. The way payments are collected does, however, have real consequences: it can determine whether you are exempt from using a cash register, and a well-organised account makes it much easier to track the quarterly limit and settle PIT at year-end. We cover the rules of unregistered activity itself in our article Unregistered business activity in Poland 2026 — limits and rules.
Why a business account is not mandatory
Unregistered business activity is not regular business activity, and the person who runs it is not an entrepreneur. They do not file a CEIDG application, so they do not provide any account number there. They usually do not need a NIP either — biznes.gov.pl indicates that NIP is required only once someone registers as a VAT payer or starts recording sales on a cash register. Since there is no firm, there is also no "business" account in the legal sense; an account kept under the person's own name is the natural choice.
Restrictions can only come from the agreement with the bank. Some terms state that a personal account is intended for private purposes. Before launching sales, it is therefore worth reading the terms and, if in doubt, asking the bank whether it allows regular inflows from clients onto such an account.
Account and the cash-register exemption
This is the most important and often overlooked aspect. The obligation to record sales on a cash register also applies to unregistered activity. The Minister of Finance's regulation of 17 December 2024 exempts (until the end of 2027), among others, taxpayers whose sales to private individuals and flat-rate farmers did not exceed PLN 20,000 in the previous year. With a quarterly limit of PLN 10,813.50, the annual revenue of a person without a firm can exceed PLN 43,000, so the PLN 20,000 threshold can easily be crossed without leaving unregistered activity.
Once sales exceed the threshold, the exemption lapses two full months after the month in which this happened. Object-based exemptions, which are directly tied to a bank account, then come into play:
- services for private individuals — exempt if the entire payment is received via post, a bank or a credit union to your account, and the record and payment evidence make it unambiguously clear which activity it concerned;
- shipping of goods by post or courier — exempt if the entire payment is received in the same way, and the documents show what it concerned and to whose benefit (buyer's name and address).
Three practical conclusions follow. First, what counts is the inflow onto the taxpayer's account, i.e. the account kept in your own name. Second, a single cash payment or a transfer from a client to a family member's account may mean that this sale does not meet the condition. Third, the transfer reference should let you link the payment to a specific sales invoice or order.
These exemptions do not cover goods and services that always require a cash register (e.g. hairdressing and beauty services, vehicle repair, certain electronic goods) — here the method of payment makes no difference.
One account, two ways of counting revenue
An account also helps reconcile the two different definitions of revenue that apply in unregistered activity:
| Purpose | What counts as revenue | Role of the account |
|---|---|---|
| Quarterly limit of PLN 10,813.50 (2026) | amounts due on issued bills or invoices, including unpaid ones | supporting — you count the limit from the sales record, not from a statement |
| Income tax (PIT-36) | amounts actually received during the year | a separate account's statement is a ready list of inflows |
Example: In March 2026, Mr Tomasz issued bills for PLN 3,000, of which the client paid PLN 2,000 in March and PLN 1,000 in April. The entire PLN 3,000 counts towards the Q1 limit, but in the tax return the PLN 1,000 will only become revenue at the moment it comes in. If every payment flows into one dedicated account, comparing the record with the statement takes just a few minutes.
A second personal account instead of a business one
For most people without a firm, the most sensible solution is a second personal account used solely for settlements with clients. This works especially well when:
- revenue is approaching the PLN 20,000 annual threshold for sales to private individuals and the cash-register exemption is to depend on payment via the bank;
- you use several sales channels and payment processors that pay out funds in batches;
- a joint account with a spouse makes it hard to separate client inflows from private transfers;
- you plan to set up a firm in future — the inflow history will show how sales grew.
With payment processors, keep in mind that a batched pay-out does not replace the record. Every transaction must be reproducible from the processor's report, and the sales-record entry for a given day must be made at the latest before any sale on the next day.
You can pay the tax from any account
A person running unregistered activity does not pay advance payments during the year. Tax on income (revenue minus documented costs) is settled in a PIT-36 return and paid by 30 April of the following year. The transfer to the tax office may come out of any account, including a personal one. If revenue exceeds the quarterly limit, you must register a business within 7 days — and only at that stage does a separate account for the firm become worth considering.
How Good Balance helps
We help organise payment collection so that it meets the conditions for the cash-register exemption, we prepare a sales-record template linked to the statement, and we settle PIT-36. When the activity outgrows the limit, we guide you through registration as part of our sole proprietorship support service, and in case of doubts specific to a given industry, we offer a legal consultation.