Everything about IKE and IKZE transfers.

One of the most common questions in readers' emails is how to transfer IKE or IKZE to another institution that has lower fees or a richer investment offer. We also transfer IKE and IKZE accounts for pragmatic reasons, e.g. we want to keep all our accounts in one company or do it where our loved ones do. Transfers of funds or securities are only possible between IKE and IKE and between IKZE and IKZE and in the act they are called "transfer payment", which is a bit counterintuitive, because it has nothing to do with retirement payment from these accounts.

It is therefore not possible to transfer funds from IKE to IKZE and from IKZE to IKE. It is also not possible to maintain two IKE accounts or two IKZE accounts at the same time, because these are personal accounts with a limit of 1 IKE and 1 IKZE per person. For this very reason, for people who want to change the way of saving and investing on IKE or IKZE to another (e.g. from funds to a brokerage account), the only solution is to transfer funds or securities, i.e. a so-called transfer withdrawal, which I will describe today.

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In short

In this article you will learn:

  • How to transfer funds and securities from one IKE to another and from one IKZE to another.
  • How much does it cost to transfer funds and securities between IKE?
  • How much does it cost to transfer funds and securities between IKZE?
  • Between which third pillar accounts (IKE, IKZE, OIPE, PPE, PPK) can funds be transferred?

What third pillar account transfers are possible?

An important piece of information at the very beginning of the post is that the issue of transfers between Pillar III accounts is not trivial. Firstly: almost no transfers between different types of Pillar III accounts are allowed (e.g. you cannot transfer funds from IKE to IKZE) . Secondly: even transfers between the same types of Pillar III accounts are not always possible and easy to perform , so I will start with a few examples of what is possible and what is not.

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Transfers between the same third pillar accounts

  • If you already have an IKE or IKZE, you can transfer funds to any other type of the same account.
    • It is therefore possible to transfer funds from IKE to IKE and from IKZE to IKZE, which involves the sale of securities/investment fund units or the termination of deposits, or the redemption of bonds, and then transferring the funds to the same type of account in another financial institution.
    • If you run a brokerage IKE or brokerage IKZE and have purchased financial instruments there, it is also possible to transfer them to the same type of account in another brokerage institution , but only if it agrees to accept these specific financial instruments (more on this in the chapter on the transfer process).
  • Transferring funds from a PPE to another PPE is only possible after changing the employer , but I do not recommend this transfer, since in such a situation the funds can also be transferred to an IKE (see: the next subsection of this entry) , so instead of investing in (usually expensive) PPE, the funds can be invested in cheap ETFs on an IKE.
  • PPK has no such restrictions, because we can transfer funds between PPKs without any limits (if we have more than 1 active PPK, because, for example, we work in several places at once or we changed jobs and "have" PPK left over from our previous employer). Technically, it works like this: if we work for, for example, 3 employers at the same time and each of them has enrolled us in different PPKs, then the payments are directed to 3 different institutions, but we can transfer funds between PPKs at any time at our discretion.
  • For PEPPs, the only limitation on the transfer of funds is the "5-year rule", which in theory blocks the possibility of transferring funds between PEPPs within 5 years of their establishment, because in practice the PEPP provider may depart from this rule and allow more frequent changes of the institution maintaining the account.

Graphically it looks like this:

As usual, when it comes to the third pillar of the Polish pension system, nothing is easy, obvious or predictable, and movements between the same types of accounts are different depending on the type of account. Unfortunately, it is not any simpler in the case of transfers between different third pillar accounts, which are heavily restricted by law.

Transfers between different third pillar accounts

While many people (including me) would like to make any type of transfer possible between different Pillar 3 accounts, unfortunately most of them are either impossible or limited by inheritance/divorce or some other exceptional event that I wouldn't wish on anyone. Here are all the possibilities for transferring funds between different Pillar 3 accounts:

  • PPE -> IKE in the event of a change of employer (i.e. no longer working for the company offering this specific PPE) by submitting an instruction to the company managing the PPE,
  • IKE -> PPE without limits, but I don't understand this transfer at all and I absolutely do not recommend it, because it is a change of a potentially cheap service into an expensive one. I would also like to remind you that PPE has strange conditions for payment (I described them in this fragment of the entry this fragment of the entry Your pension "(4/5) - How to increase your pension?" ),
  • IKE -> OIPE without limits, but this is another transfer that is, in my opinion, pointless, because we will not return from OIPE to IKE (under normal conditions), and OIPE is a more expensive account than IKE (at least with the current market offer),
  • PEI -> IKE only in the event of inheritance or divorce,
  • PPK -> IKE only in case of inheritance,
  • PPK -> PPE only in the case of inheritance, but in my opinion the PPK -> IKE variant is much better for the reasons I mentioned earlier.

Interestingly, no transfer to or from IKZE is possible, which can be explained by tax benefits different from the rest of the accounts (current instead of deferred). Here is a system of partially connected vessels for transferring between Pillar III accounts:

Probably the main conclusion from reading this fragment will be that if your current employer offers PPE and if you do not plan to work for them for the rest of your life, then by all means deposit funds there with the thought that they will end up in your IKE someday ;). And under no circumstances transfer funds from IKE to PPE or OIPE, because for me this is a waste of the potential of the IKE account, which can currently be run in the cheapest (brokerage) form of these 3 types of accounts. If you do not know which IKE to open, I refer you to the entry " Ranking of IKE and IKZE accounts. The best IKE and IKZE for you ".

How to transfer IKE to another institution?

The basis is the fact that you cannot have more than 1 active IKE or IKZE at the same time, but this does not mean that you cannot temporarily open a second IKE or IKZE account in order to transfer your funds collected in this form of investment. The legislator allows 30 days as a time for the so-called transfer payment of funds and (possibly) securities to another IKE or IKZE and I will describe this process in this subsection of the entry. Let's distinguish 2 types of transfers between IKE and IKE and IKZE and IKZE:

  • Transfer of funds (cash) from one IKE to another IKE or from one IKZE to another IKZE, which is possible between any types of accounts, but after prior sale of financial instruments/fund units/bonds or termination of deposits,
  • Transfer of funds (cash) or financial instruments from one IKE to another IKE or from one IKZE to another IKZE , which is possible only between two brokerage IKEs or two brokerage IKZEs and only if the receiving institution (target, the one where we opened a new IKE or new IKZE) agrees to accept the selected financial instruments.

Graphically it looks like this:

Currently, only transfers from IKE to IKE and from IKZE to IKZE are possible, and it is worth mentioning that if the institution accepting the funds has the given securities in its offer (the ISIN code counts, so you can usually exchange one currency version of the same ETF for another [they are worth the same, after currency conversion]), the transfer can take place in the form of securities (without having to sell them and then buy them from a new institution). Otherwise, you must first sell the instruments you have, then transfer the funds to a new IKE or IKZE, and then purchase the same or different instruments/fund units on a newly opened IKE or IKZE account.

What information is transferred with an IKE transfer?

You may be wondering what information is transferred with a transfer between two IKE accounts or between two IKZE accounts. According to Article 21 of the Act on IKE and IKZE, in addition to the obvious information (such as personal data), the institution to which you are transferring the account will receive the following information:

  • date of first deposit or date of receipt of first transfer withdrawal (whichever is earlier),
  • total payments in each calendar year,
  • the amount and dates of transfer payments accepted on IKE or IKZE,
  • the type, quantity and purchase dates of securities, if transferred,
  • the amount and dates of partial refunds (only from IKE),
  • current value of funds from payments,
  • the sum of basic contributions paid if a transfer from PPE was accepted to IKE.

All of the above information is necessary for, for example, correct calculation of the tax due in the event of a partial or full withdrawal from IKE (I described it in the entry " How to withdraw money from IKE and IKZE? Withdrawal, refund and partial refund "), therefore, they must be transferred without question together with the funds or securities in the account. It is time to describe the process of transferring IKE and IKZE accounts to other institutions. I will start with the simpler procedure, i.e. the one in which we assume the sale of securities and the transfer of cash from IKE to IKE or from IKZE to IKZE.

How to transfer funds to a new IKE or IKZE?

This operation involves selling what is on your current IKE/IKZE and ordering a transfer of the funds obtained in this way to another institution. It is performed in 5 steps, which I have presented in the diagram below:

Regardless of the type of IKE you have and the IKE you want to transfer funds to (or the IKZE you have and the IKZE you are transferring funds to), the process should be very similar.

  1. Sign an agreement with a new company managing IKE or IKZE,
    1. (Important) indicate that you are opening an account with the option of "transfer withdrawal from another institution",
    2. This can usually be done online/by mail,
  2. Receive a document confirming the opening of a new IKE or IKZE,
    1. Such a document is usually received physically (by traditional mail), but sometimes it can be received electronically,
    2. Make sure it's signed,
  3. Find and fill out the transfer withdrawal application in the institution managing the current IKE or IKZE. Attach a document confirming the opening of a new IKE or IKZE, sign both documents and send them to the company managing the current IKE or IKZE,
  4. Wait for the funds to be transferred between IKE accounts or between IKZE accounts (takes up to 14 days),
  5. After receiving the transfer, the new IKE or IKZE will be activated and the old one will be closed.

The process consists of receiving confirmation, finding and filling out the application and forwarding them (signed) to the company maintaining the current third pillar account. Depending on the institution, this can often be done 100% remotely/online, i.e. without the need to visit a branch, but if there are any ambiguities in the transfer process, we will probably not avoid this visit or phone call. If you want to transfer not only money, but also financial instruments, then continue reading.

How to transfer financial instruments to new IKE or IKZE?

The matter is a bit more complicated if you are transferring between two brokerage IKEs or two brokerage IKZEs and on the current IKE or IKZE you have purchased financial instruments that you do not want to sell. In such a case, there is 1 point in the instructions and step 4 is slightly changed. Here is how to transfer securities between two IKEs or between two IKZEs by transfer withdrawal:

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to transfer securities between IKE and IKE or between IKZE and IKZE:

  1. Ask the target institution (e.g. by email) whether it will accept your financial instruments, providing their ISIN codes / names / tickers (to make the work of the person checking as easy as possible),
    1. The brokerage firm may accept or reject the transfer of any financial instrument at its discretion (usually it only does this if it is not available on offer),
    2. If the company accepting the transfer from IKE or IKZE rejects the selected financial instrument, you can either move somewhere else or simply sell this particular security and transfer the remaining instruments + free cash to this brokerage institution,
  2. Sign an agreement with a new company managing IKE or IKZE,
    1. (Important) indicate that you are opening an account with the option of "transfer withdrawal from another institution",
    2. This can usually be done online/by mail,
  3. Receive a document confirming the opening of a new IKE or IKZE,
    1. Such a document is usually received physically (by traditional mail), but sometimes it can be received electronically,
    2. Make sure it's signed,
  4. Find and fill out the application for a transfer withdrawal with the transfer of financial instruments (important, because it may be a different application than in the previous instruction) in the institution maintaining the current IKE or IKZE. Attach a document confirming the opening of a new IKE or IKZE, sign both (or three) documents and send to the company maintaining the current IKE or IKZE,
  5. Wait for the transfer of funds and financial instruments between IKE accounts or between IKZE accounts (takes up to 14 days),
    1. in practice, this type of transfer may take slightly longer than the transfer of funds alone,
  6. After receiving the transfer, the new IKE or IKZE will be activated and the old one will be closed.

Note that thanks to this you have 2 IKEs only temporarily and only one of them is active (meaning there are funds/financial instruments on it).

Do the deposit limits disappear after transferring IKE or IKZE?

I'm adding a short paragraph about this because many people ask me this question. Let's say that the IKE deposit limit in year X is PLN 25,000, and you've already used 50% of this limit by depositing PLN 12,500 into IKE in institution A. In July, you notice that company B has a much better offer and decide to order a transfer payment from IKE in company A to IKE in company B. What happens in this case to the used and unused IKE deposit limit in year X? It should be transferred to the new institution as one of the pieces of information (this was mentioned earlier) in the transfer process, so company B should allow you to pay another PLN 12,500 in year X, i.e. the entire unused IKE deposit limit.

If the company accepting funds or securities on your new IKE or IKZE refuses to allow you to make payments in a given year, remind them that, together with the transfer, they were obliged to accept information about the amount and date of payments to this account in the previous company and are now obliged to allow you to make an additional payment (until the annual limit is exhausted).

How much does a transfer payment order from IKE or IKZE cost?

The IKE and IKZE Act allows for the collection of up to PLN 150 if the client orders a transfer withdrawal within 12 months of the date of opening the account. My analysis shows that most institutions actually collect it, but some of them have waived it (for example: BM mBank). Currently (2024) these fees are as follows:

Some institutions (e.g. DM BOŚ or BM PKO BP) charge the statutory PLN 150 just for "slamming the door", i.e. not only for a full refund from IKE or IKZE, i.e. their liquidation, but also for a transfer payment to an account of the same type in another institution.

Apart from this fee, the withdrawal of funds (cash) itself usually costs nothing, but I cannot write the same about the transfer of financial instruments between brokerage IKEs or between brokerage IKZEs.

How much does it cost to transfer financial instruments to another IKE?

If you would like to transfer financial instruments held in a regular brokerage account (not IKE or IKZE) to another company, then in 90% of cases your brokerage house will charge a fee for this (the accepting brokerage house will probably charge a fee as well). In the case of brokerage IKE and IKZE, it is a bit better, because most companies have waived the "exit" fee, i.e. the fee for transferring instruments (Polish and foreign) from IKE or from IKZE to another company. For example, in 2024, neither BM mBank nor DM BOŚ will charge this fee if you decide to launch a transfer of foreign securities from IKE or from IKZE in these companies elsewhere:

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about the "entrance fee", i.e. the fee for accepting a transfer of foreign financial instruments, for which DM BOŚ charges PLN 65 / EUR 15 / USD 15 / GBP 13 for 1 ISIN (depending on the currency of the instrument's listing). This fee applies only to foreign instruments, because DM BOŚ does not charge such a fee for accepting instruments listed on the WSE on IKE or IKZE.

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Is it possible to transfer retail bonds from IKE Bonds to SUPERIKE?

Yes, there is such a possibility (because both accounts are kept within the same institution – BM PKO BP).

Following the source (BM PKO BP website) :

If you already have an IKE-Bonds account open and you are interested in having a SUPER IKE account, visit the nearest Customer Service Point and complete and sign: "Annex to the Agreement on maintaining the Individual Retirement Account IKE-Bonds transforming the IKE-Bonds account into a SUPER IKE account".

Many people are also concerned about the costs of such relocations.

When transferring from IKE Bonds, SUPERIKE or IKZE Bonds, do we pay a penalty for early redemption of bonds?

When making a transfer withdrawal from an IKE Bonds, SUPERIKE or IKZE Bonds account, there is no fee for early redemption of bonds (which used to be, for example, PLN 2, and currently [for new issues] PLN 3 for 1 EDO bond). This may be an additional argument "for" transferring an account from an IKE Bonds to a brokerage IKE or from an IKZE Bonds to a brokerage IKZE, which I suggest in the post " Why do stocks fit IKE better than bonds? ".

Since you already know how to transfer IKE or IKZE to another institution and how much it may cost, let's check now how you can make the most of the third pension pillar (more as a curiosity than anything else).

Tricks related to IKE and IKZE

If you've been reading my posts for a long time, you probably know that I'm against our Polish national "scheming" and "slying", so I'm far from recommending abusing the nuances of the Polish pension system. If you've been reading my posts for a long time, you know, however, that I really like to analyze laws in depth and that certain things "scream" in the context of the possibility of optimizing your future pension. I'll add that both tricks are completely legal, but in my opinion they involve a certain amount of scheming (which I generally don't recommend in life, because it ends differently, and simple long-term investing shouldn't necessarily involve scheming).

Paying more into PPE knowing that we will change employer

Most of us (especially if you belong to the millennial generation or one of the later/younger ones) will change jobs at some point in the future. Since this entry concerned only transfers between Pillar III accounts, I did not add information about the employee's possible additional payment to PPE, which in 2024 amounts to as much as 4.5 times the forecasted average salary in the national economy, i.e. PLN 35,208. This means that each employed PPE participant can independently pay 50% more to PPE during the year than the IKE contribution limit (let me remind you that in 2024 it is PLN 23,472 (3 times the forecasted average salary in the national economy)), and then (after changing employers) easily transfer these funds to their IKE.

If you are tired of working for your current employer and have a PPE with them or you know that they have one, then set up this account, make the maximum additional (employee) payments to this account for 1-2 years, and when you find a new job, order a transfer payment to your IKE account in your PPE. This is the best way to "cheat the system" in terms of paying much larger amounts to IKE than the statutory limit allows. Especially since the transfer of funds from PPE to IKE is usually free of charge and takes a maximum of a few weeks, so it is simply worth doing.

There is one "but" here - after making a transfer withdrawal from PPE to IKE, the institution running IKE may refuse the possibility of making a so-called partial return (pre-retirement) from this account. So be careful with this transfer if you are not sure whether you will not need some of the funds from your IKE at some point, but you do not intend to liquidate it (return it completely).

Contribution and tax relief of IKZE in order to withdraw it in a year without income

I often (including in the post " Is an IKZE account worth it? IKZE depending on the PIT rate ") mention that you should not save and invest in an IKZE if you are not sure that you will survive until retirement with this account. This is because an early (pre-retirement) return from an IKZE can be very costly from a tax perspective:

  • investing "inside" IKZE - similarly to investing on IKE - allows you to save on Belka tax and stock exchange tax (on capital gains),
  • However, when we make a refund from IKZE, the entire refunded amount increases our income earned in a given year (it is settled in PIT-36), which means that we can, for example, fall into a higher tax bracket and if the payments to IKZE saved us 12% of tax, the refund from IKZE can cost us up to 32% of tax!

So what would the trick be regarding the (pre-retirement) IKZE refund? To order a refund from IKZE in a year in which we do not earn any other income, so that it is "catched" to the tax-free amount in whole (or in part).

This means that if we have not accumulated too much money in IKZE, we lose our job and do not show any other income during the year, the return from IKZE can "save our skin", and is completely exempt from taxation. This is just a digression, because it does not concern the subject of transfers, but since IKZE does not allow any transfer to another account of the third pillar, it is worth knowing about this tax-favorable possibility of emergency use of the funds accumulated in this account. Especially since by making a return from IKZE, we do not pay the outstanding Belka tax or stock exchange tax.

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Summary

In this shorter than usual post, I discussed the process of transferring funds or financial instruments from IKE to another IKE or from IKZE to another IKZE. I wanted the post to be complete, so I also mentioned the fees associated with such transfers and the possibilities of transfers between different and the same third pillar accounts, including PPK, PPE and OIPE. I hope you liked the post and if you find it useful, pass it on to a friend who may be interested in transferring their IKE/IKZE. If you have any questions or suggestions for further topics, simply leave a comment under the post, which I will try to answer as soon as possible.

If you like my work and want to support me, remember to follow me on Facebook and Twitter (X) and subscribe to my YouTube channel . Thanks in advance and see you next time!

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Reservation

The information presented on this website is the author's private opinions and does not constitute investment recommendations within the meaning of the Regulation of the Minister of Finance of 19 October 2005 on information constituting recommendations concerning financial instruments, their issuers or exhibitors (Journal of Laws of 2005, No. 206, item 1715). The reader makes investment decisions at their own risk. The author of the blog is not responsible for the content of advertisements placed on the blog.