— No to SENT for clothing and footwear! We have had enough of these absurd regulations, entrepreneurs from the clothing and footwear industry chanted in front of the Sejm on Wednesday. From March 17, they must report the transport of their goods to the tax office (the SENT system is used for this purpose). This applies to all companies, mainly honest entrepreneurs, although the pretext for covering the industry with the SENT system was the abuse of entities importing goods from Asia (Wólka Kosowska). This was confirmed once again yesterday by Jurand Drop, deputy minister of finance, during a meeting of the parliamentary committees for deregulation and economy and development. Yesterday, the committees dealt with the effects of introducing the SENT system on clothing and footwear. However, the responsibilities fell not on Asians operating in Poland and avoiding taxes, but on Polish companies, including: importing clothing and footwear. That is why yesterday there was a protest of entrepreneurs in front of the Sejm.
— SENT in this form means chaos, fear and a real risk of closing companies. Every mistake means a penalty. Every transport is a problem. This is not how normal business is run. We do not agree to a law that cannot be understood or applied – chanted the entrepreneurs. These are goods worth approximately PLN 60–80 billion annually and approximately PLN 100,000. companies operating in the clothing and footwear industry.
As Dominik Szlęzak, senior consultant at BTTP, says, the problem is that the tax authorities are adding fuel to the fire. Although SENT should apply to the transport of goods between companies, in practice the tax office requires companies to report every transport, even to a bazaar or fair where clothes and footwear are sold to consumers.i.e. people who do not run a business.
Representatives of the Ministry of Finance responded to some of the allegations during a committee meeting in the Sejm.
Read also: It will be more difficult to sell a car to a family without tax. Not everyone will lose from the changes
Who must monitor the transport of clothes and shoes and what are the penalties
SENT (Electronic Transport Supervision System) is a system for monitoring the transport of goods. The point is to know where, where and how many so-called sensitive goods (including fuel) are transported. From March 17, the system was extended to the transport of clothes and shoes.
As we reported on Business Insider, the obligation to report transport in the SENT system included, among others, entities importing clothing and footwear intended for further sale, including those importing these goods for their own needs, e.g. for marketing purposes or as work clothing for employees – provided that the shipments exceed certain limits (e.g. over 10 kg in the case of clothing or over 20 pieces of footwear).
Companies importing clothing and footwear to Poland must:
- report the transport of goods in the SENT system before crossing the Polish border or releasing the goods for circulation,
- provide the data to the carrier, who must complete the notification and activate the GPS locator in the car that transports clothing and footwear,
- confirm receipt of goods in the SENT system after completion of transport.
There are severe financial penalties for reporting errors or failure to report. For failure to report transport in the SENT system, the penalty is 46%. value of the undeclared goods (but not less than PLN 20,000). If the company makes a mistake and the goods are inconsistent with the SENT declaration, it may face drastic sanctions. — The risk is at the level of the minimum fine, i.e. PLN 20,000. PLN, is so large that it calls into question the sense of undertaking any commercial initiative – points out Dominik Szlęzak.
If the data in the notification changes and the entity does not update them, the penalty is PLN 10,000. zloty. You have to pay the same fine for not having a GPS device in your car or not turning it on.
What transports need to be reported – what results from the regulations and what from the authorities' practice
During the committee meeting, one of the problems reported was that: entrepreneurs must report not only the transport and receipt of goods from companies (B2B), but also the sale of goods to consumers (B2C), e.g. at bazaars, marketplaces, fairs.
As Dominik Szlęzak emphasizes, B2C sales of goods should not be reported in SENT at all. Pursuant to Art. 5 section 1 of the SENT Act, the obligation to report on sales (domestic, WDT, export) applies (apart from carriers and drivers) to sales parties who meet the criteria of the sending entity and at the stage of closing the notification of the receiving entity. Both the receiving entity and the sending entity are defined in Art. 2 points 6 and 7 of the SENT Act as entrepreneurs.
— As a result, since the seller's obligations in SENT require the transportation of goods to the receiving entity (and this entity, according to the above-mentioned definition, must be an entrepreneur), the lack of reporting in the case of transportation to consumers is justified, explains Dominik Szlęzak.
This is also confirmed by the Ministry of Finance in official guidelines published on the PUESC platform (Tax and Customs Electronic Services Platform, https://puesc.gov.pl/faq). In response to one of the questions we read: “The transport of clothing to a natural person who does not run a business is not subject to the SENT system, however – for the purposes of possible control – it is recommended to have documents confirming the delivery of goods to natural persons during transport.”
The Ministry's response indicates a potential income problem, which – according to entrepreneurs and experts – is real. As Dominik Szlęzak explains, the point is that The tax authorities require the taxpayer to prove that the sale and transport of clothes and shoes is exclusively to a natural person (B2C), also in the case of transport to a bazaar or fair.
— The authorities therefore place the obligation on entrepreneurs, including micro-entrepreneurs, to prove the nature of the transport, and may additionally question it. The cited position of the Ministry of PUESC should be considered a voice of reason, but the problem is that following it is highly risky due to the lack of clear evaluation criteria when a sale to B2C is considered probable – points out Dominik Szlęzak. He explains that we are talking about the transport of goods that can only be sold at the bazaar. — During the inspection, the seller may try to demonstrate in various ways that his customers are only consumers and that he documents the related turnover at the cash register, but the official does not have to believe these explanations. No guidelines have been created to safely apply existing regulations, which should not be the case and requires urgent intervention – Dominik Szlęzak convinces.
What are the demands of companies from the clothing and footwear industry? What does the Ministry of Finance say about this?
During the April 15 meeting of the joint committees Industry representatives also put forward several demands. Basically, the idea is to ensure that honest entrepreneurs are able to meet the requirements related to SENT and that they are not severely punished. Especially since the problem of non-payment of taxes and economic crime concerns mainly entities from Asia (Wólka Kosowska), and not Polish companies.
MPs and senators pointed out that the system that was supposed to protect honest entrepreneurs is making it dramatically more difficult for them to function. There was a consensus among parliamentarians that urgent changes are necessary to the regulation that introduced SENT for clothing and footwear (Regulation of the Minister of Finance and Economy of September 10, 2025, Journal of Laws, item 1244, let us remind you that it entered into force on March 17 this year, i.e. with a six-month vacatio legis).
As Michał Lesiak from Bazaar Głuchów said, the industry would like to suspend the regulations so that entrepreneurs do not receive PLN 20,000. PLN fine for, for example, carrying 10 kg of socks worth PLN 200-300. Secondly, the idea is that SENT should apply to transport to the first warehouse in Poland, and transit around Poland should be exempt from reporting in this system.
Other industry representatives (Małgorzata Łukawczyk) pointed out, among others: to that the current limits (10 kg for clothing, 20 pieces of shoes) for reporting transport in SENT are extremely low. For example, Hungary controls container transport (from 2.5 tons). The Polish system should also focus on such shipments.
Robert Michalski, deputy director of the Department for Combating Economic Crime at the Ministry of Finance, explained that During consultations on the regulations, no one raised the issue of the limit in kilograms and pieces of shoes. – The shoes are in pieces, not in pairs, because if the regulations referred to pairs, they could be easily bypassed by importing a container of left shoes and a container of right shoes – explained Robert Michalski. However, he admitted that small entrepreneurs were not represented during the consultations. He also did not rule out the ministry's reaction to reports from small entrepreneurs.
According to clothing and footwear producers, SENT should not apply to them at all, because all problems are related to the import of these products, and not to their production by domestic entities. Today – as the manufacturer's representative said – because of these regulations, companies are unable to operate.
However, representatives of the Ministry of Finance replied that SENT does not apply to producers. – The manufacturer who displays the goods for sale has no obligations regarding SENT notification. So there are no penalties or fines – replied Robert Michalski from the Ministry of Finance. He also pointed out that small and medium-sized entrepreneurs are often not even aware that they are part of the gray and black zone. – If we do not limit the gray and black zones, Polish small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, as well as large legal importers, will be at a loss. Our goal is not to limit the legal activities of Polish companies, argued Robert Michalski.
— Inconsistent interpretation of the regulations is also a problem, especially when the SENT procedure starts and the recipient refuses to accept the goods, said Jakub Drożdż from the Polish Organization of Trade and Distribution. In this way, entrepreneurs are exposed to penalties. Jakub Drożdż also appealed for the suspension of the regulations and for the moderation of penalties.
Robert Michalski from the Ministry of Finance replied that the regulations allow for instructing entrepreneurs and in practice, auditors also apply instructions. He also provided statistics. Since March 17, over 54,000 transactions have been made in the SENT system. reports, of which KAS carried out 653 inspections, of which irregularities were found in 86 cases. KAS imposed 34 fines, 13 on foreigners and 21 on Poles.
Dobromir Szymański from the Office of the Ombudsman for Small and Medium-sized Entrepreneurs admitted that entrepreneurs wrote to the Ombudsman a lot of complaints and comments about SENT. The smallest entities that have the most problems are those who do not have the organizational and financial resources to meet the new SENT reporting requirements. “They also encounter interpretation doubts,” said Dobromir Szymański.
Author: Łukasz Zalewski, journalist of the Law section, Business Insider Polska
