How to Report Foreign Dividends on PIT-38: A Step-by-Step Guide

Do you need to file PIT-38 for dividends?

Yes, if you're a Polish tax resident who received dividend income from foreign stocks or funds during the tax year — regardless of whether you also file PIT-37 for employment income. PIT-38 is a separate return specifically for capital income (dividends, interest, and gains from the sale of securities) taxed at the flat 19% rate under Article 30a/30b of the PIT Act, and it's filed alongside, not instead of, any other return you submit for the same year.

What you need before you start

For every dividend payout during the year: the gross amount and currency, the pay date, the tax actually withheld abroad, and the NBP average exchange rate for the business day before the pay date. Unlike domestic income reported by your employer or broker directly to the tax office, foreign dividend income generally isn't pre-filled in Twój e-PIT — you're responsible for compiling and reporting it yourself.

Getting the numbers from your broker

Most brokers let you export a full transaction and dividend history for the year, which has everything above except the NBP rate. Some — XTB is a notable example — publish a dedicated supplementary report formatted specifically for PIT-38 foreign-dividend reporting. If your broker doesn't provide one, a plain account statement covering dividend payouts and withheld tax is enough; you look up the NBP rate for each pay date yourself.

Converting each payout to PLN

Each gross dividend converts to PLN using the NBP average exchange rate for the last business day before the pay date — not the date you request the report, not an average over the year, and not whatever rate your broker's statement happens to show. Getting this date wrong is the single most common source of a PIT-38 dividend calculation being off.

Where it goes on the form

Foreign dividend income and the corresponding foreign tax credit are reported in the section of PIT-38 covering income taxed under Article 30a, alongside the Polish tax due (19% of the gross PLN amount) and the credit for tax already withheld abroad — capped at whichever is lowest: what was actually withheld, the treaty rate for that country, or the Polish tax due itself. The exact box numbers can shift between annual form revisions, so check the current year's official instructions rather than a specific box number from an older guide.

Filing and the deadline

PIT-38 is filed electronically, most commonly through the Twój e-PIT portal or e-Deklaracje, by the same deadline as other annual returns: 30 April for the previous tax year. Since foreign dividend income isn't pre-filled, you'll need to add it manually to whichever return Twój e-PIT has prepared for you before submitting.

Mistakes that show up at filing time

Most of these come from treating foreign dividends like they'll show up automatically, the way domestic income does:

• Forgetting to report foreign dividend income at all, because Twój e-PIT doesn't flag it the way it flags a PIT-11 from an employer.
• Using the wrong NBP rate — the report-generation date or a broker-supplied rate instead of the day before the pay date.
• Not keeping per-payout records until well after filing, then having to reconstruct everything from scratch if the tax office asks for substantiation.

Where odlicz.com fits in

This is exactly the record-keeping PIT-38 filing requires: every payout's gross amount, pay date, foreign withholding, and the correct NBP rate, tracked automatically as dividends happen — and exportable at filing time instead of reconstructed from scratch.