Poland
Min. wage
(x12 payments)
zł4,806 /mo
About the minimum wage
Employer tax
~20.48%
Understand employer tax
Annual leave
20 days
Learn about annual leave
Notice period
2 weeks-3 months (by tenure)
Termination and notice info
Updated
Sep 2026
The standard, open-ended employment contract (umowa o pracę na czas nieokreślony) with no fixed end date. It carries the strongest statutory protections: termination requires a written, justified reason, tenure-based notice periods apply, and dismissed employees can challenge termination before a labour court for reinstatement or compensation.
A single employer may use a maximum of 3 consecutive fixed-term contracts with the same employee, for a combined maximum duration of 33 months. A 4th contract, or exceeding 33 months, is automatically reclassified by law as an indefinite-term contract. Notice periods and termination rules mirror indefinite contracts. Limited exceptions exist (e.g., contracts to replace an absent employee, seasonal/casual work, or objective business reasons declared to the works council/state labour inspectorate).
Standard schedule is 8 hours/day, 40 hours/week (typically Monday-Friday) within a standard settlement period, with average weekly working time (including overtime) capped at 48 hours over the reference period. Overtime is limited to 150 hours/year by default (higher limits possible via a collective agreement or employment regulations, subject to an absolute statutory ceiling) and is paid at 150% of base pay on ordinary days and 200% for overtime on Sundays, public holidays, or at night.
A probationary contract (umowa na okres próbny) may run up to 1 month if the planned subsequent contract is under 6 months, up to 2 months if 6-12 months, and up to 3 months otherwise; it may be extended once by the length of certain leaves taken during probation. Notice during probation is short: 3 working days (probation up to 2 weeks), 1 week (probation over 2 weeks to 3 months), or 2 weeks (3-month probation), and no justification is required.
Poland has no statutory 13th or 14th month salary for private-sector employees. A mandatory annual bonus ('trzynastka') exists only for certain public-sector/budgetary-sphere employees (e.g., civil servants, teachers) under separate regulations. Any additional bonus for private employers is discretionary or set by contract/collective agreement.
There is no general government restriction on job titles for private-sector roles; the employment contract must state the agreed position/job title per Labour Code Art. 29. Certain regulated professions (e.g., legal counsel, chartered accountant, medical professions, some engineering roles) require specific licensed titles and qualifications to be used.
Employer-paid ZUS contributions on gross salary: pension (emerytalne) 9.76% + disability (rentowe) 6.50% + accident insurance (wypadkowe) ~1.67% average (statutory range 0.67%-3.33% depending on assessed industry risk; 1.67% is the default for small employers) + Labour Fund (Fundusz Pracy) 2.45% + FGŚP (Guaranteed Employee Benefits/Solidarity Fund) 0.10% = approximately 20.48% total. Pension and disability contributions stop once the employee's cumulative annual base reaches the 30x average-wage cap (PLN 282,600 for 2026).
Employee-paid ZUS/health contributions deducted from gross salary: pension 9.76% + disability 1.50% + sickness (chorobowe) 2.45% + health insurance (składka zdrowotna) 9.00% (calculated on the base after social contributions) = approximately 22.71% total. Personal income tax (PIT) is withheld separately at 17% up to PLN 120,000 of annual taxable income and 32% above that threshold.
In addition to statutory leave, employees are entitled to the following statutory benefits:
Poland's social insurance system is administered by ZUS (Zakład Ubezpieczeń Społecznych) and funded jointly by employers and employees as a percentage of gross salary.
Pension and disability contributions cease once an employee's cumulative annual contribution base reaches the 30x average national wage cap (PLN 282,600 for 2026).
Workplace injury and occupational disease protection is funded through the ZUS accident insurance (wypadkowe) contribution, paid entirely by the employer.
Statutory severance (odprawa) applies only to employers with at least 20 employees, when termination is for reasons not attributable to the employee (redundancy, restructuring, individual layoffs for business reasons).
Severance is statutorily capped at 15 times the applicable national minimum wage. Additional collective-redundancy consultation and notification requirements to the district labour office apply when dismissals exceed set thresholds (e.g., 10+ employees in firms under 100, 10% of workforce in firms of 100-300, or 30+ employees in firms over 300, within a 30-day period).
Poland has no statutory 13th or 14th month salary requirement for private-sector employers.
P.S. our team speaks multiple languages and we'd love to chat in your preferred language if requested.
Your employee's hours, time off, holidays, bonuses, and commissions are automatically calculated into payroll. RemoFirst will invoice you in either US Dollars (USD), Euros (EUR), British Pounds (GBP), Canadian Dollars (CAD), Australian Dollars (AUD), or Singapore Dollars (SGD) around the 15th of each month to make sure your employees are paid on time. To make it even easier, you can summarize your entire global team's salaries to aggregate them into one payment (instead of many individual payments).
Unlike full-time employees, contractors work on projects with multiple companies at a given time and are technically self-employed. Full-time employees are solely focused on their employer and usually receive benefits (such as health insurance, equity or stock options, and time off) as an additional form of compensation. While it can be cheaper to work with international contractors instead of paying benefits to a full-time employee, you run the risk of misclassification. It's recommended to work with an EOR for contractor onboarding and payments, so you can know that your international contractors are paid compliantly and on time.
Whenever the employee or employer has a question about, or anything else related to international employment, they can speak with our customer support team to get answers from our team of experts.
