President signs the fuel windfall tax and demands cuts now. What it means for fishermen and ports

President Karol Nawrocki announced in a televised address on 1 October that he has signed the act taxing the extraordinary profits of fuel companies, the same law whose first version he sent to the Constitutional Tribunal in July. He signs it, but promises to ask the Tribunal to review it after the fact, and places the whole responsibility for prices on the government.

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01 october 2026   |   20:05   |   Source: Gazeta Morska   |   Prepared by: Kamil Kusier   |   Print

fot. KPRP

- I have signed the act on the excess profits of fuel companies and I will end the process of placing Poles in the role of political hostages. It is the government that bears full responsibility for fuel prices, the president said.

More than 4 billion zloty from the new tax is to fund a repeat of the government's "Fuel Prices Lower" package, the cuts in VAT and excise that applied in spring and summer. Prime Minister Donald Tusk had promised the package would start immediately after the signature.

The most expensive fuel ever, after a campaign promise of 5.19 zloty

The address opens with the questions households ask in autumn: whether there will be enough for electricity, gas, coal, pellets, for filling the car. The source of the rises is crude, which after the events in the Middle East and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz passed 107 dollars a barrel.

- The state cannot answer these questions with another political brawl, because that never makes fuel cheaper and never makes a bill lower, the president says.

He then turns to the prices at the stations, which he calls the highest in living memory: petrol above 8 zloty a litre, diesel past 9. He adds that the price of fuel is present in the price of bread, milk, children's products and building materials.

The president recalls the campaign promise of petrol at 5.19 zloty and argues that the government could have cut prices without a new act, as it did in spring and in August.

- Instead of lowering prices, the government prefers to earn on fuel taxes, because diesel at 9 zloty means more money in the budget from VAT and a bigger profit for Orlen, which then pays the finance minister a solid dividend, he says.

Four demands and one condition

The president sets the government four expectations: cuts immediately, the whole tax spent on cuts, a higher rebate on agricultural fuel and work on his own bill.

- The cuts at the stations are to happen immediately and should bring fuel prices to the level promised to Poles in the election campaign. Every zloty raised thanks to this act must be spent on lowering fuel prices. Not in a month. Not after the next political brawl. Not in a week or two. Fuel is to be cheaper now, he says.

The excise rebate on agricultural fuel is to rise "to a level that restores the profitability of production". The president's bill would cap fuel companies' margins by law and exempt fuel sales from VAT; it is sitting in the Sejm, and he accuses the Speaker of "freezing" it. Fuel market experts warn that a statutory margin cap could end in shortages at the pumps, because importers and stations would no longer find sales worthwhile.

The condition concerns further taxes, which the president says he will not sign.

- I expect that in the near future further proposals to raise even a dozen or more taxes will land on my desk. This is a dangerous series. The citizen cannot be the hostage and the cash machine of those in power, he warns.

A tax that not only the giants will pay

The act sets a 60 per cent rate on profits above the average margin of 2025 plus 20 per cent, calculated retroactively from 1 March to the end of the year, with entry into force on 1 November. The retroactivity was the reason the first version went to the Tribunal in July and will be the reason for the review request now.

- By signing the act I am not withdrawing my objections regarding its unconstitutionality, the president stresses.

The Finance Ministry acknowledged during the legislative work that the levy will cover not only Orlen but also small and medium-sized fuel firms, because Poland does not have enough large companies for one of them to yield the assumed 4 billion. The Sejm passed the act again on 18 September by 237 votes to 202. The president had until 9 October. A SW Research poll for Wprost showed that 63 per cent of Poles wanted him to sign.

"Poland is reaching a financial wall"

The second part of the address is devoted to public finances: the rating downgrade, the deficit and the debt.

- Recently the Moody's agency downgraded Poland's rating, the assessment of our credibility that we worked on for 35 years, the president says, warning of more expensive borrowing by the state.

He lists a deficit after August of "more than 150 billion zloty", the approach to statutory debt thresholds and "more than a trillion zloty" of new debt in four years, "more than 26,000 zloty for every Pole", including a child born today.

- Today there is no money to react on the fuel market or for hospitals, and tomorrow there may be none for armaments and pensions, he warns.

In the passage on security the president adds that a politics of stoking fears cannot excuse inaction.

- A difficult time must not be mistaken for a weak Poland, he says.

The address ends with the assurance that spring follows every winter and that Poland can emerge from its difficulties stronger if the government returns to what it was appointed to do, and with the slogan: "Tomorrow must be better!"

At sea there is no VAT or excise, but the price still rises

The dispute over pumps bypasses part of the maritime economy, but not its costs. Marine fuel used for navigation, including fishing trips, is exempt from excise duty at the point of purchase, and supplies to deep-sea fishing vessels carry a zero VAT rate. That means the tax cuts of the "Fuel Prices Lower" package give shipowners and trawler operators nothing, since they pay no such taxes, while they buy fuel at a market price that has risen with crude. For a trawler on a multi-day trip, fuel is the largest cost after wages, and the price list in port reacts to the barrel faster than a roadside station.

Ports and their hinterland do the same arithmetic. Several million containers a year pass through Baltic Hub in Gdańsk and the Gdynia terminals, and every one of them travels on by truck or rail. Road hauliers have fuel clauses in their contracts, so diesel at 9 zloty reaches shippers automatically, without negotiation. The president mentions in his address "the owner of a transport company who has to fill up the truck". Port haulage is that company on a national scale.

A fisherman is not a farmer, though he pays for the same diesel

The address features the farmer and the haulier. It does not feature the fisherman or the shipowner. Under Polish law a sea fisherman is not a farmer: he is not covered by the farmers' social insurance scheme, his activity counts as business rather than agriculture, and the excise rebate on agricultural fuel whose increase the president demands does not extend to sea fisheries. For trawlers that makes no difference, since marine fuel is excise-exempt at source. It matters for small-boat fisheries: fishermen filling outboard motors and small craft at ordinary stations pay the full price with excise and VAT, with neither the exemption trawlers enjoy nor the rebate farmers receive.

Fuel is not a separate problem for Baltic fisheries, only the latest one. Fishermen enter the season with the cod fishery closed, herring and sprat quotas cut and a fleet that has been shrinking for years through scrapping. A precedent for help exists: after Russia's attack on Ukraine in 2022 the EU fisheries fund activated its crisis mechanism, and Polish fishermen received compensation for increased costs, including fuel, through the agricultural paying agency. Whether the agriculture ministry will reach for that instrument a second time is today an open question.

Hormuz is also a question of where Gdańsk's crude comes from

The president speaks of prices, but the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is also a question of supply. Orlen brings its crude in by sea through Naftoport in Gdańsk, which handled a record 37.4 million tonnes last year, with cargoes from Saudi Arabia, Norway, the United States and West Africa. Some of those routes pass through the Persian Gulf, so every week of blockade means different tanker freight rates and different contract prices. The company is at the same time the largest beneficiary of expensive oil, the main payer of the new tax and a company whose dividend feeds the budget. The state as Orlen's owner earns twice on high prices, on VAT and on the dividend, and that is precisely the mechanism the president names as the reason for delaying the cuts.

The relief package returns, and the argument over who pays for it and whether it is constitutional moves to the Tribunal. For the maritime economy a third question matters more than either: whether crude at 107 dollars is the peak or only the start of the season.

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