Alcohol in Poland will become more expensive. An important message of the Ministry of Finance

The Ministry of Finance presented two draft public health laws. The first proposes to update the excise duty rates for all alcoholic beverages, which aims to reduce the consumption of alcoholic beverages and, as a consequence, reduce the negative effects of its abuse.

Alcohol excise duty will increase from 2026.

– From January 1, 2026, the excise duty rates for ethyl alcohol, beer, wine, fermented drinks and indirect products by 15% in relation to rates from 2025 from January 1, 2027 will increase. – informs the ministry in a message.

The ministry refers to the Eurostat data, which indicates that consumer prices of alcoholic beverages in Poland are at a much lower level than in most European Union countries. Cheaper alcohol can only be bought in Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.

The sugar fee also upwards

The second project applies to the increase in sugar fee for five years. It is a tax on sweetened drinks, whose adjustment rests with producers and importers, and for consumers it is associated with a increase in the prices of these drinks.

– The applicable amount of sugar fee was adopted in 2020 and significantly differs from current drink prices. Thus, the amount of the fee is insufficient to affect consumers’ behavior. At the same time, more and more drinks are not charged with sugar fees at all, due to the addition of juice used to avoid the fee – emphasizes the Ministry of Finance.

Updating the amount of sugar fee, including caffeine or taurine fees, which occur, among others in energy drinks, provides for an increase in the amount of the fee:

• constant for the sugar content of up to 5 GW 100 ml of the drink, or for the content of the sweetener (so -called sweeteners): from PLN 0.50 to PLN 0.70,

• variable for each gram of sugars above 5 GW 100 ml drink: from PLN 0.05 to PLN 0.10,

• for caffeine or taurine content: from PLN 0.10 to PLN 1.00,

• maximum: from PLN 1.20 to PLN 1.80

– per 1 liter of drink.