Website: amortization or expense? The PLN 10,000 threshold

The invoice for a new website goes to your accountant, and the accountant asks: do we expense it right away or amortize it? The answer determines whether the expense reduces your tax this month or is spread over two years or longer.

Three things decide it: what you are buying (a service or the rights to the website), how much it costs (the PLN 10,000 threshold) and how you are taxed (the tax scale, the flat tax, CIT or the lump-sum ryczałt).

I write about the legal situation as of 31 October 2026. This is not tax advice. I build websites, I don’t do tax accounting, so always consult your accountant or a tax advisor on the decision. I rely on the ustawa o PIT (the Personal Income Tax Act; consolidated text, Dz.U. 2026, item 592) and the ustawa o CIT (the Corporate Income Tax Act; consolidated text, Dz.U. 2026, item 554) as amended (Dz.U. is Poland’s Journal of Laws).

Short answer: 6 typical situations

I write “usually” because the details depend on the contract and the invoice.

When a website is an intangible asset (WNiP)

Art. 22b(1) of the PIT Act contains a closed catalog of intangible assets (wartości niematerialne i prawne, WNiP for short). The words “internet website” are not in it. What is there are economic copyrights and licenses, and they are what decides the matter. So what you amortize is not the website itself but the rights to it.

For the rights to a website to be WNiP, they must meet all of these conditions:

1. be acquired from another entity, for example from the company that made the website,
2. be fit for use on the day they are accepted,
3. have an expected period of use longer than a year,
4. be used in your business.

In an interpretation of 16 March 2018 (ref. 0115-KDIT3.4011.40.2018.2.WM), the Director of Krajowa Informacja Skarbowa (KIS, the National Tax Information service) held that a business owner who bought a website for nearly PLN 80,000 with a transfer of economic copyrights can account for it only through amortization write-offs.

When you buy just a service, watch out for copyright law: if the contract doesn’t say explicitly that rights are transferred, the law assumes that the author granted a license (Art. 65 of the ustawa o prawie autorskim, the Copyright Act), and a license for longer than a year can also be a WNiP. So the classification is decided by the content of the contract, not by the name of the line item on the invoice. What to look for in the contract I describe in the guide on the website development contract.

A website made by you or by your employees is not a WNiP, because it was not acquired from another entity.

The PLN 10,000 threshold: what counts toward it

Art. 22d(1) of the PIT Act allows you not to amortize WNiP whose initial value does not exceed PLN 10,000. The whole expense is then deductible in the month the website is put into use, not in the month the invoice is issued.

The most common question: net or gross? The initial value is the acquisition price reduced by VAT, but only if you can deduct that VAT (Art. 22g(3)). In practice it looks like this:

Two things that are easy to forget:

• The whole website counts, not a single invoice. The interpretation of 17 April 2025 (ref. 0112-KDIL2-2.4011.52.2025.1.IM) concerned an online store built by an IT company and invoiced monthly for hours worked. The KIS Director held that remuneration for work up to the day the store is put into use increases the initial value of the WNiP. So you can’t “carve out” services from the price to get below the threshold.
• Above the threshold there is no one-off amortization of WNiP. The write-off for small taxpayers and businesses in their first year of activity (Art. 22k(7)) and the write-off of up to PLN 100,000 (Art. 22k(14)) apply only to fixed assets, for example computers or machines.

Where do typical small-business websites fall? In my offer the Starter website costs from PLN 1,490 net and the turnkey business website from PLN 4,900 net, so the base prices fall below the threshold even with VAT. A store on a custom engine starts at PLN 14,900 net, so it is already above it. You can estimate the approximate cost of your own project in the calculator on the pricing page, and I describe the market ranges in the guide how much a website costs in 2026.

Amortization: how many months and from when

Above PLN 10,000, the minimum write-off periods are set by Art. 22m(1) of the PIT Act:

• 24 months for economic copyrights and licenses for computer programs,
• 60 months for other WNiP, for example other licenses.

The period can be longer but not shorter, and you set the rate for the whole period before the first write-off (Art. 22m(3)). With your accountant, also decide right away whether the license for your website is a license for a computer program (24 months) or another license (60 months).

Example: you buy a store with a transfer of copyright for PLN 24,000 net, and your business deducts VAT. With 24 months, the monthly write-off is PLN 1,000, with 60 months PLN 400.

You start the write-offs in the month following the entry of the WNiP in the records (Art. 22h(1)(1)), and you enter it no later than in the month the website is put into use. That is why the date in the acceptance protocol matters. For a website up to PLN 10,000, acceptance on 30 December or on 2 January means an expense in two different tax years.

Domain, hosting, maintenance and website expansion

Around the website you also pay for things that are not rights to it:

• Domain. It is not in the catalog in Art. 22b, so it is not a WNiP, and the fee for it is an ordinary expense. The KIS Director held this, for example, in an interpretation of 10 February 2023 (ref. 0114-KDIP2-1.4010.285.2022.1.PP).
• Hosting, email, an SSL certificate, technical maintenance, SEO and ads. These are services, so they are ongoing expenses. When you pay in advance for a period longer than a tax year, the expense is usually accounted for proportionally to that period (Art. 22(5c)). How much these items cost per year I calculate in the guide on the annual cost of running a business website.
• A website builder subscription. You pay for access to a tool and do not acquire any rights, so it is an ongoing expense.
• Website expansion. The provision on improvements that raise the initial value (Art. 22g(17)) applies to fixed assets, not WNiP. Small changes and fixes are usually an ongoing expense. A new module bought with a transfer of rights, however, may be a separate WNiP. Tax authorities and courts have ruled on such cases differently, so for a larger expansion ask your accountant before ordering.

VAT, the lump-sum tax and companies

• VAT from the invoice for the website you deduct under the normal rules, if your business is an active VAT payer and the website serves taxable sales. Amortization concerns only income tax.
• Flat-rate tax on recorded revenue (ryczałt) is calculated on revenue without deducting expenses, so the “expense or amortization” dilemma doesn’t apply to you.
• Companies paying CIT (other than Estonian CIT) apply the same rules. Art. 16b, 16d and 16m of the CIT Act have the same content as Art. 22b, 22d and 22m of the PIT Act.

What to prepare for your accountant: a checklist

Go through this list before you sign the contract, not after the invoice arrives:

1. The contract. Whether it contains a transfer of economic copyrights, a license (for how long), or just a service.
2. An invoice with itemized lines. Design and implementation separately, licenses for ready-made components (theme, plugins), domain, hosting and maintenance.
3. An acceptance protocol with a date. This date determines the month of the expense or the start of amortization.
4. VAT status. It determines whether you count net or gross toward the threshold.
5. Form of taxation. On the ryczałt, the income tax question goes away.
6. Amortization period. For a value above PLN 10,000, set it before the first write-off.

When your case is unusual, browse the individual interpretations in Eureka, the Ministry of Finance’s search engine, or file your own request for an interpretation. Remember that someone else’s interpretation protects only the business that received it.

Summary

A website bought as a service, without rights, is usually an immediate expense, while copyright or a license worth over PLN 10,000 means amortization. Domain, hosting and maintenance are ongoing expenses. Make the decision with your accountant before you sign the contract.

If you are planning a new website, with the turnkey business website the code stays your property, and you get a quote within 24 hours. Write to me and I’ll start with questions about the scope and the budget.