Civil-law transaction tax (PCC) on buying a car: when you pay 2 percent and when you pay nothing

How much PCC is and what the tax office calculates it from

The rate is 2 percent. You calculate it from the car's market value, meaning the average price at which the same model, year and condition trade on the market on the day the contract is concluded. The amount written into the contract is only the starting point for that calculation.

A car at 60,000 zł means 1,200 zł of tax. On a car at 150,000 zł it comes to 3,000 zł.

Who files the PCC-3 declaration, and at which tax office

The buyer files the declaration, never the seller. You have 14 days from the day the contract is concluded, and you pay the tax within that same deadline. What counts is the date on the contract, not the day you collect the car or the day it is registered at the vehicle registration office.

The competent office is the tax office for your place of residence. You can do all of it in the online tax office (e-Urząd Skarbowy): you log in with a trusted profile (profil zaufany), submit the PCC-3 and pay the tax into your individual tax account (mikrorachunek podatkowy).

Buying a car together? There is still one tax

With co-ownership the tax obligation rests on all the buyers, who are jointly and severally liable for it. The tax office can therefore claim the whole amount from one person.

Formally it works like this: one of you fills in and signs the PCC-3, ticking in field 7 the option "entity jointly and severally obliged to pay the tax" (podmiot solidarnie zobowiązany do zapłaty podatku), and every other co-owner adds a PCC-3/A annex. The tax is still 2 percent of the car's value, not 2 percent per person.

When PCC does not arise at all

The act excludes from PCC those transactions which on the seller's side are covered by VAT or exempt from VAT. In practice you will not pay the tax when:

You receive a VAT invoice (faktura VAT), for example from a dealership or from a company that trades in cars.

You receive a VAT-margin invoice (faktura VAT-marża), the standard for used cars from professional sellers.

The seller runs a business and uses the VAT exemption, because the exclusion covers that case as well.

The market value of the car does not exceed 1,000 zł.

At the moment the contract is concluded the car is located abroad and you sign the contract there as well.

Here sits a trap that is rarely talked about. The mere fact that the seller has a company settles nothing. When an entrepreneur sells a car out of their private assets, outside their business activity, you pay PCC as normal. What decides is whether they act as a VAT taxpayer in that particular sale, not what is entered in the business register (CEIDG).

The 1,000 zł threshold has stood untouched since 2001. On 1 June 2026 the Ministry of Finance and Economy published a draft raising it to 3,000 zł. In August 2026 the provision is still not in force, so calculate using the old threshold.

What the tax office does when the contract amount is out of line with the market

Tax offices compare contracts against vehicle valuation catalogues. If the amount entered departs from the market value, you receive a summons to state or raise it, with a deadline no shorter than 14 days from delivery. The office gives its own preliminary valuation in the summons.

Ignore it, or stand by your amount? The value will be set by an expert appraiser. When their valuation differs from yours by more than 33 percent, you cover the cost of the opinion, and late-payment interest is added to the tax you have to top up, at 10.5 percent a year since 5 March 2026. An understated amount also stays in the paperwork for years, and on resale you lower your own reference point.

A late declaration

Failing to file the PCC-3 on time is a fiscal offence, and the fiscal penalty ticket reaches 24,030 zł in 2026.

There is a way out. File a voluntary disclosure (czynny żal) together with the overdue declaration and pay the tax with interest before the office finds the matter itself. Once the tax authority gets there first, czynny żal stops working.

Where CARMA fits into all this

When you buy a car from a company you get an invoice and PCC does not arise. That is also how the buyout at CARMA looks: the formalities end with an invoice, and you file no PCC-3. The rental contract you sign at the start of a purchase on preferential rent terms does not appear in the catalogue of transactions covered by PCC either.

Nobody chooses how to buy a car with PCC in mind. But on a car at 150,000 zł we are talking about 3,000 zł you do not transfer to the tax office, and one declaration fewer in the calendar.