Running an online shop in Poland for EU customers (2026)

An online shop selling to EU consumers must handle its privacy policy, payments, redirect consent, orders for collection and complaints. Your Europe rules.

An online shop that sells to consumers in other EU countries has several things to handle at once: its privacy policy, how it takes payments, the rules on redirecting customers to local versions of the site, orders from countries it does not deliver to, and complaints. Below we have gathered these obligations in one place, based on the EU's Your Europe portal.

Informational website or online shop

When creating a business website, decide whether it should provide general information or also include an online shop. The EU portal Your Europe makes this distinction.

Two ways to create a shop

Your Europe describes two options:

build it yourself using your own resources;
use an external sales platform provider to do it for you.

Both require attention to making the website clear and easy for customers to use.

Choosing how to build it is not everything

If you choose an external platform with software developed neither by you nor by the company handling your website, Your Europe says additional aspects need consideration. If you build the shop yourself, ensure regulatory compliance.

In every case, protect your website against threats such as data theft. After selling online, also fulfil obligations concerning delivery, order fulfilment and customer service.

Privacy policy: when to display it and where to make it available

If your business website collects personal data directly from users, according to the EU rules described on the Your Europe portal, the privacy policy should be displayed when data collection begins.

How should you make it available?

The privacy policy should be:

concise, transparent and understandable;
easily accessible;
available free of charge and provided at the appropriate time.

It must be in writing and provided electronically where appropriate. Publish it in a dedicated section of your website, such as “Privacy policy”, and ensure it is directly accessible from every page or subpage.

Payments: hosted page or integrated gateway

Do you want more control over your payment page or fewer tasks related to its security? Your Europe presents two solutions.

Provider-hosted page

The payment service provider ensures an appropriate level of security. You do not have to handle security updates and compliance matters for this solution, saving you time.

Integrated gateway or API

An integrated payment gateway or application programming interface (API) gives you greater flexibility and control over the payment page. However, it requires IT skills and management of security updates and compliance matters.

What remains the shop’s responsibility?

A hosted payment page does not exempt the shop from its other obligations. You must still, among other things, tell customers which payment methods you accept at the start of the ordering process and disclose the total cost of the product or service and any additional payment charges. Online sales also entail tax and VAT obligations.

Redirecting to a local version of the shop and customer consent

Before redirecting customers to another version of your online shop tailored to their location, you must obtain their explicit consent. Your Europe describes this obligation under EU geo-blocking rules.

Consent alone is not enough. After redirecting customers, you must also allow them to return to the page they originally visited.

You can save consent in customers’ preferences, but they should be able to withdraw it at any time.

What do these rules cover?

The source states that the Geo-blocking Regulation covers sales of goods, such as clothing, footwear and accessories, and certain online digital services: cloud services, data warehousing and website hosting. This description should therefore not automatically be extended to all services.

A shop does not deliver to an EU customer's country: must it allow collection?

Yes, if the shop offers collection. Under the EU rules described by Your Europe, it must then allow customers from EU countries to which it does not deliver goods to order products on its website. Customers must be able to arrange delivery or collection themselves.

Collection does not mean extending delivery coverage

Sellers may set general conditions of sale, including delivery restrictions. However, EU-resident customers must have the same access to goods as local customers. Allowing buyers to arrange transport themselves therefore does not oblige the shop to deliver to their country.

Who do these rules cover?

Equal-treatment rules apply to online and offline transactions, provided the sale is to an end user. This may be an individual or a business buying goods or services without intending subsequently to resell, transform, process, rent them out or subcontract them.

Complaints: information and a contact email address

According to the EU’s Your Europe guide, an online shop’s website should include two elements relating to handling questions and complaints:

Clear information about complaint handling: an explanation of how your business handles customer complaints.
A contact email address: Your Europe identifies this as the essential minimum. It must be an address where customers can send questions or submit complaints.

An email address alone therefore does not replace clear information about how complaints are handled.

Delivery complaints: can an online shop refer customers to the courier?

Not as a way to avoid its own responsibility. The EU’s Your Europe guide states that sellers bear direct responsibility for customer complaints, including those concerning the delivery of goods.

Responsibility towards the customer versus a complaint with the delivery provider

These are two separate matters. The seller is responsible towards the customer. A delivery complaint, meanwhile, is usually handled with the delivery provider with whom the seller has a contract. The aim is to find a satisfactory solution for the customer.

This does not change regardless of how many subcontractors the delivery provider uses. Simply referring the customer to the courier therefore does not replace the seller’s responsibility for the complaint.

Sources

This guide describes the guidance published on the EU's Your Europe portal. It is not a complete list of an online shop's obligations or of GDPR requirements, it does not compare platforms, and it does not describe Polish procedures, complaint deadlines or tax rates.