Poland extends tax rights to same-sex couples with foreign marriages

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland has granted same-sex couples who married abroad and have had their wedding certificates transcribed into the Polish registry the same tax rights as other married couples.

The decision follows a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) requiring Poland – whose domestic law does not allow same-sex couples to form any type of legal union – to recognise same-sex marriages contracted in other EU member states.

“Today, I signed a general interpretation ensuring that persons who have obtained a transcription of their marriage certificate will have the same tax rights and obligations in Polish tax offices as all other married couples,” announced finance minister Andrzej Domański in a social media post.

A general interpretation is an official position taken by the finance ministry aiming to clarify the application of tax law in a specific area.

Among the benefits that couples with a transcribed foreign marriage certificate can now receive include preferential treatment under inheritance and gift tax rules and the ability to file joint personal income tax returns.

Couples may also pay tax on behalf of a spouse and refuse to testify as a witness in proceedings involving their spouse.

“This is about basic equality, justice and fairness,” Domański told broadcaster TVN. “We want these rights to be enforceable in an effective way.”

The finance minister said that “several hundred” people would likely be affected by the decision, which would have a “negligible” impact on the state budget.

Domański added that such couples would also be subject to the obligations that apply to other married couples in Poland, which include liability for their spouse’s tax obligations.

The finance minister’s decision has drawn criticism from right-wing politicians, who argue that recognition of same-sex marriage violates the constitution, which states that “marriage, being a union of a man and a woman, shall be placed under the protection and care of the Republic of Poland”.

Paweł Szefernaker, chief of staff to President Karol Nawrocki, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition, said Domański’s actions were “inconsistent with the constitution” and had been carried out “without legislation, without debate, without honestly telling Poles what is really happening”.

“Everyone has the right to a private life,” he added. “However, the state has a duty to protect the legal order and provide tax support for marriage.”

Patryk Jaki, a deputy leader of the national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS), Poland’s largest opposition party, said that the finance minister’s actions “clearly violate Polish law and will have legal implications in the future” for Domański, who is “writing additional points in the indictment against himself”.

Sławomir Mentzen, one of the leaders of the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) group, said the tax interpretation “will be revoked on the very first day” if his party comes to power.

The changes follow a ruling issued by the CJEU in November 2025 ordering Poland to recognise same-sex marriages contracted in other EU states. The court found that failing to do so infringes the freedom to move and reside within the EU as well as the right to respect for private and family life.

In light of that ruling, in March this year, Poland’s own Supreme Administrative Court (NSA) ordered Warsaw’s registry office to recognise a marriage conducted by two Polish men in Germany by transcribing it into the Polish civil registry.

In May, the Polish government issued a regulation allowing such transcriptions of foreign same-sex marriages to take place nationwide. It went into force in August. However, even before then, some cities had begun transcribing marriage certificates, beginning with Warsaw and Wrocław in May.

At the end of August, digital affairs minister Krzysztof Gawkowski reported that 84 same-sex couples had already transcribed their foreign marriages under the government’s new regulation.

While foreign same-sex marriages can now be entered into Poland’s civil registry, questions have remained as to what that will mean in practice for such couples, especially as domestic law does not recognise same-sex relationships.

In another development, labour minister Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk announced last week that the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) has begun paying care allowances to qualifying same-sex couples who married abroad and have had their wedding certificates transcribed into the Polish registry.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Polina Tankilevitch / Pexels

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is deputy editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She has written for Clean Energy Wire and The Times, and she hosts her own podcast, The Warsaw Wire, on Poland’s economy and energy sector. She previously worked for Reuters.