Thinking of moving to Poland. Cars, taxes (IT) and location questions

TLDR: I’m a petrol head, working in IT, considering moving to Poland. I have a bunch of random questions, mainly related to cars/motorsport and taxes. I’ve numbered them, it would be very helpful if you could respond to some of the topics you have experience with!

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Hi all,

I’m a freelance IT guy (security), I moved from my home country to Portugal, as it was a good compromise of culture, weather, location (mountains!) and taxes. I’m a bit of a petrol head, and I really messed up checking that part in Portugal. It is not a car friendly country (very expensive cars, very expensive first registrations when importing a car, pretty much no modifications allowed, hard to register something a bit more special). That’s really starting to bother me, so I’m looking at other options.

My first idea was Bulgaria, as it is known for a good tax rate, has great nature and car taxes and flexibility looks pretty good as well. It’s however already quite far away and I have the impression that the culture shock/language barrier might be a bit too much.

When checking some details, I found out that Poland had some recent tax changes that look very benificial for IT-ers. I have the impression that car culture is doing pretty well there too (big events, NightRide youtube channel, many motorsport companies). It’s also next to Germany and some other countries that have a decent motorsport events are close by. Nature looks good as well, standard of living/safety/health all looks pretty good as well as far as I can tell, so it basically went to the top of my list.

A few things I’m a bit worried about and would like to doublecheck/get some comments on:

**Taxes**

1. I’m looking at the lump sum tax regime for IT-ers. 12% for most, 8.5% for some categories. It looks like I would fall under the 12% (to be checked). This site mentions a health contribution of 1007 pln: [https://businessinsider.com.pl/prawo/opodatkowanie-programisty-jaki-ryczalt-wybrac/k3n33my](https://businessinsider.com.pl/prawo/opodatkowanie-programisty-jaki-ryczalt-wybrac/k3n33my)

A calculator I found ([https://www.polskilad.wtf/](https://www.polskilad.wtf/)) mentions “ZUS” and has a few different options, which seems to be that health contribution and some other costs. What would be relevant for me?

2) Exit tax: this one worries me. My goal is to reach “FIRE”, so I am saving aggressively and I am unsure yet what would be my forever home. Poland currently seems to check a lot of boxes, but this might change over the years, so I prefer flexibility. I’ve read 19%, and having stayed 5 or more years in Poland as a private person. Is this correct? So if I would leave in year 4, no exit tax?

3) Are there other things to keep in mind that could make a dent in my projections? Like municipal taxes, random fees for all sorts of things,…?

**Cars**

4) Based on the Polish youtubers I follow, car tuning rules seem relatively lax. I don’t care too much for exterior modifications, but performance mods is something I’d like to be able to do. Small things like uprated suspension, wider tires, but also more extreme things like a rollcage or an engine swap. What is allowed? Can you legalize these mods if needed, how hard/costly is this to do?

5) it seems there’s an import tax for EU cars, varying from 3 to \~18% (IIRC) for petrol cars. Is that correct?

6) is it possible to register a kit car or something similar? Most of the time from the UK, no European certificate of conformity.

7) there’s only a transfer tax of 2% payable and some smaller costs to buy and register a 2nd hand car in Poland, correct?

8) no yearly road tax?

9) estimates for the necessary insurance? Let’s say a 400hp 2001 Corvette. Me being in my mid 30ies, having my license for 15+ years and no accidents in the last 5 years.

10) track with the most drift events/best location to live close to different kind of events?

11) kart tracks where you can drive your own kart?

**Country**

12) I’m not much of a city person, but not knowing the language, I imagine it’s easier to live close to a city or a smaller city with amenities like food delivery, entertainment, bank, accountant, necessary government bodies nearby. Close to an airport, nice driving roads and beautiful scenery are a big plus as well of course. Suggestions?

13) How well will I be able to get by with English?

**Misc**

14) Any interesting groups/forums to follow related to cars/car events/racing and to freelancing in Poland?

15) Recommended sites for finding apartments/homes to rent and to find second hand cars?

16) Advise on mobile phone plans, internet, electricity, heating?

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I apologize for the long post. Some of these questions are very specific and they are all over the place. These are just the things I’m thinking of now. For the tax stuff, I’ll also contact accountants, but from earlier experience, I’ve learned that it is good to do some research on your own, as they are not completely impartial/not necessarily familiar with a specific use case. I do plan to go there somewhere in the next few weeks as well, but it would be good to have a starting point, as it is a big country.

Thank you for reading!