Official correspondence in Poland is moving to an electronic system. The biggest risk is not setting up the mailbox itself, but the fact that once it is set up, nobody checks it.
What it actually is
e-Doręczenia is the Polish state's electronic equivalent of registered mail with proof of delivery. A letter from a public office arrives at your electronic delivery address, and the system records when it was sent and when it was received.
From a legal point of view the effect is the same as with registered mail. In practice the difference is huge: the postman used to knock on the door, while an electronic mailbox does not knock anywhere.
Why it is risky
The key rule is this: after a set period, a letter is deemed delivered, even if nobody has opened it. The deadline for an appeal or a payment starts to run just as if the letter had been collected in person.
In practice this means that a mailbox nobody checks is worse than having no mailbox at all. The company finds out about the letter when the deadline has already passed.
Where to start
- Find out whether the company already has an e-Doręczenia address and who has access to it. Surprisingly often it turns out that the address was set up by someone who no longer works there.
- Route notifications to an address that someone reads every day. This is the one thing that decides everything.
- Appoint a person responsible and someone to stand in for them during holidays.
- Decide where received letters go, so that they can be found later.
What not to do
- Do not set up a mailbox "just in case" and then forget about it. This is the most common scenario and the most expensive one.
- Do not route notifications to an address used only for signing up to online services. They will get lost there.
- Do not leave access with a single person without a stand-in.
Setting up and configuring an e-Doręczenia mailbox
See how we do it