e-Delivery in foodservice: 2026 deadlines
The e-Delivery obligation for CEIDG businesses from 1 October 2026. Deadlines, mailbox activation, the end of awizo and who in the venue checks the mailbox.
You received a notice about e-Doręczenia (e-Delivery, Poland's system of electronic official correspondence) and you do not know whether it concerns you or only companies. If you run a venue as a sole proprietorship entered in CEIDG (the Central Register and Information on Business) before 2025, it does. The deadline for your group is 1 October 2026.
e-Delivery in foodservice is not an accounting topic. It is a topic of document flow in the venue.
Key points at a glance
- Businesses entered in CEIDG by 31 December 2024 must have an electronic delivery address from 1 October 2026.
- Submitting the application alone is not enough. The mailbox must be activated, otherwise the address will not start to work.
- There is no awizo (collection notice). A letter you do not collect is deemed delivered on the day following the expiry of 14 days from its arrival at your address.
- The act does not provide for a financial penalty for the mere lack of an address. The risk is deadlines that run without your knowledge.
- Someone must open the mailbox. With staff turnover, this is a task to assign by name.
Which deadline applies to whom
The schedule follows from Art. 155 of the Act on Electronic Delivery. The deadlines were postponed several times, which is why many outdated dates circulate. Below is the position as of September 2026.
| Who | Obligation from |
|---|---|
| Entities registering in the KRS (National Court Register) from 1 January 2025 | from the day of entry in the register |
| Entities entered in the KRS before 1 January 2025 | 1 April 2025 |
| New CEIDG entries from 1 January 2025 | when submitting the application for entry |
| CEIDG entry by 31 December 2024, when you submit an application to change the entry from 1 July 2025 | with that change application |
| Other CEIDG entries by 31 December 2024 | 1 October 2026 |
Note the second-to-last row. You change your address, add a PKD (Polish Classification of Activities) code after launching delivery, suspend the business for the winter, and the obligation is triggered with that application.
How to set up the mailbox and, more importantly, how to activate it
You submit the application free of charge to a public service provider, through Biznes.gov.pl or gov.pl, logging in with a Trusted Profile or an electronic ID card. The alternative is a commercial provider. You provide the address holder's details, PESEL (national ID number), e-mail address and, if you appoint an administrator, their details as well.
And this is where most businesses stop. Submitting the application is not the end. The mailbox requires activation: after receiving the activation message, you log in, start the mailbox, indicate an e-mail address for notifications and confirm the terms. Only then is the address visible in the electronic address database. With a sole proprietorship you can manage the mailbox yourself or appoint an administrator who adds further users and grants them permissions.
What changes in practice: the end of awizo
A paper letter works according to Art. 44 of the Code of Administrative Procedure: an awizo (collection notice), then a repeat notification, delivery after 14 days from the first awizo. You have a physical signal in your letterbox. Someone sees that slip of paper.
Electronically there is no such signal. Under Art. 41(1)(3) and Art. 42 of the Act on Electronic Delivery, if a letter from a public entity arrives at your address and you do not collect it, the proof of receipt is issued after 14 days, and the correspondence is deemed delivered on the day following the expiry of that period. The clock starts from the arrival of the message, not from its opening.
What will arrive this way at the venue
From 1 January 2026, e-Delivery is the basic means of communication between public entities and businesses, unless special regulations provide for another form. The following may reach you this way:
- a summons to submit explanations or supplement documents
- an inspection protocol and post-inspection statement from the sanitary-epidemiological station
- an administrative decision with a deadline to carry out recommendations and instructions on appeal
- correspondence from the Voivodeship Inspectorate for Environmental Protection (WIOŚ) on waste matters, including summonses concerning BDO obligations in foodservice
- notifications from the municipal office, for example on an alcohol sales permit
It is the same correspondence as before, only without the envelope. What to do after receiving it, we describe in the text on what to do after a Sanepid post-inspection decision (Sanepid is the State Sanitary Inspection), and in the guide to a Sanepid inspection step by step.
The most dangerous scenario: an application left unprocessed
You submit an application: for an alcohol permit, for approval of an establishment, for a change in a register. The office finds a formal deficiency and summons you to remedy it. Art. 64 § 2 of the Code of Administrative Procedure gives a deadline of no less than seven days for this, on pain of leaving the application unprocessed.
The summons lands at your address. Nobody opens it. After 14 days the letter is deemed delivered, the seven-day deadline runs and expires. The application is left unprocessed: there is no refusal decision that you could appeal, you simply have to submit everything again. The deadline for an appeal works the same way, as we write in the text on Sanepid fines and appeal deadlines.
Who in the venue should check the mailbox and how to build it into document flow
This is the core. Most guides end at "set up a mailbox". In foodservice the problem starts a day later.
A restaurant is not an office. The owner is often in the kitchen or at the wholesaler. The shift manager changes every week. The accountant has access to invoices but not necessarily to official correspondence. A mailbox with no assigned owner is a mailbox nobody opens. Treat it like a temperature register: a specific person, at a specific moment, with a record.
1. Name the person responsible and a deputy
One main person, one deputy, because holidays and illness are normal. Enter both where you keep your scopes of duties. If a manager is to handle the mailbox, give them user permissions instead of sharing a login. Sharing a password is the road to a dispute over who saw what and when.
2. Set the checking frequency
With a 14-day running deadline, checking once a week is too little to react in time to a summons with a seven-day deadline. A sensible minimum is every working day. After an inspection, after submitting an application and during proceedings, check daily.
3. Separate the notification address from a private mailbox
You provide the notification e-mail address at activation. Do not give a mailbox swamped with supplier newsletters. Set up a separate business address for official matters and check that the notifications do not land in spam. It is the only signal you will get.
4. Write it into the rhythm of the day, not into good intentions
What works best is attaching the task to an action that happens anyway: opening the venue, the morning order, goods receipt. The same principle makes HACCP registers work. Add the item "check the e-Delivery mailbox" to the venue opening checklist.
5. Decide what happens to a letter after it is collected
Checking the mailbox alone settles nothing. Set out the path: who downloads the file, where they save it and whom they inform. A rule that works in venues: a letter from an office goes to the owner the same day, by phone, not by e-mail. File the printout in the binder with the venue's documentation.
6. Record dates, do not rely on memory
Set up one table: date of arrival, sender, subject, deadline to respond, who is responsible, date completed. The date of arrival matters more than the date of reading, because the running of the deadline is counted from it.
7. Review with every change in the team
A manager leaving means a mailbox with no owner. Add the handover of access to your onboarding and offboarding actions, and remove the departing person's permissions. It is the same kind of order that the full list of Sanepid requirements for foodservice demands.
What if you missed a deadline
First check whether the deadline really passed. What counts is the date the correspondence arrived at the address, not the date you opened it.
If it passed, what remains is an application for restoration of the deadline under Art. 58 of the Code of Administrative Procedure. You submit it within seven days of the cause of the failure ceasing, at the same time performing the neglected action, and you make it plausible that the failure occurred through no fault of yours. To be fair: "I did not look at the mailbox" is not an absence of fault. That is why the procedure described above has value that is not only organisational.
And if you do not have an address yet, submit the application and activate the mailbox. Until activation, the office may send letters via the public hybrid service: print the document and deliver it by post. This does not release you from the obligation.
Frequently asked questions
Does a sole-proprietorship foodservice business have to have e-Delivery?
Yes. Businesses entered in CEIDG by 31 December 2024 must have an electronic delivery address from 1 October 2026. If, however, you submit an application to change the entry from 1 July 2025, you provide the data for creating the address with it. Businesses registering from 1 January 2025 set up the address at registration.
How much does an e-Delivery address cost?
You obtain the address and mailbox from a public service provider free of charge through Biznes.gov.pl or gov.pl. Sending to public entities is also free. Services from commercial providers and sending between non-public entities are paid.
When is a letter from an office deemed delivered?
At the moment you collect it from the mailbox, and if you do not collect it, on the day following the expiry of 14 days from the day the correspondence arrived at your address. This follows from Art. 41(1)(3) and Art. 42 of the Act on Electronic Delivery. There is no awizo or repeat notification here.
Is there a penalty for not having an e-Delivery address?
The act does not provide for a financial penalty for the mere lack of an address. The consequences are, however, real: with an application to change the CEIDG entry, providing the data for creating the address is required, and in pending cases you risk missing deadlines.
Is it enough to submit an application for an e-Delivery address?
No. The mailbox still has to be activated: log in after receiving the activation message, start the mailbox and indicate an e-mail address for notifications. Only then is the address visible in the electronic address database.
Legal status as of: 1 September 2026
Legal basis: Act on Electronic Delivery of 18 November 2020 (including Art. 41(1)(3), Art. 42, Art. 155); Act of 14 June 1960, Code of Administrative Procedure (including Art. 44, Art. 58, Art. 64 § 2). The e-Delivery implementation deadlines were changed many times, so before acting check the current schedule on gov.pl and biznes.gov.pl.
Last review: 1 September 2026
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