🇵🇱 Hiring in Poland

💡 Everything you need to know to hire and manage employees in Poland through Toku. Toku handles payroll processing, tax withholding, social contributions, and statutory compliance. This guide covers what you need to plan costs and manage your team.

At a Glance

Onboarding a New Hire

Plan for 5-7 business days between submitting a new hire and their start date. Before day one, your new hire must complete a pre-employment medical examination and obtain the medical certificate, and Toku pre-registers them for the mandatory health and safety training that takes place on day one.

Submit the new hire through the Toku platform for the employment agreement, statutory registrations and payroll setup. See Onboard Contributors as a Client Admin in Toku for the steps. Toku will confirm the expected onboarding timing for your hire.

Employer Costs

On top of gross salary, employers in Poland pay the following:

As a rule of thumb, total cost of employment is roughly 120-124% of gross salary. There is no 13th or 14th month salary requirement in Poland.

Employees pay their own social contributions totaling 22.71% (pension, disability, sickness, and health insurance), a 2% PPK contribution unless they opt out, and progressive income tax of 12% or 32% (with a PLN 30,000 annual tax-free amount, and an exemption for most employees under 26). These are withheld from gross salary, not charged on top. Toku calculates and remits all of the above.

Compensation & Payroll

Toku runs one payroll per month in Poland, paid no later than the 10th of the following month, and employees receive a payslip each cycle. The statutory minimum gross wage is PLN 4,806 per month from January 1, 2026, and from 2026 the minimum must be met through base salary alone, without counting bonuses or allowances. There is no mandatory 13th month payment. Salaries are paid in PLN by bank transfer.

Employment Contracts & Probation

• Toku issues a compliant local employment agreement for every hire, in Polish (bilingual versions are used for foreign employees, with the Polish text prevailing).
• Contract types are indefinite, fixed-term, and probationary. Indefinite is the default.
• Fixed-term contracts are limited to 3 contracts and 33 months total between the same parties; beyond that, the contract automatically becomes indefinite.
• Probation runs under a separate probationary contract of up to 3 months (the statutory maximum), which can be used only once with the same employer for the same type of work.

Working Hours

The standard week is 40 hours over five days (8 hours per day), with a hard cap of 48 hours per week including overtime. Employees are entitled to 11 hours of daily rest, 35 hours of weekly rest, and a paid 15-minute break after 6 hours of work. Overtime is only allowed in exceptional circumstances, cannot be scheduled in advance, and is capped at 150 hours per year; it is paid with a 50% premium (100% at night, on Sundays, or on public holidays) or compensated with time off. Remote workers are entitled to a cost allowance for electricity and internet, which Poland's remote work rules require employers to cover.

Leave Entitlements

Most long-leave costs (maternity, paternity, parental, and sickness beyond the employer-paid period) are funded by the state, not by you. Unused annual leave carries over but must be used by September 30 of the following year, and at least one block of leave must be 14 consecutive calendar days.

Public Holidays (2026)

Poland observes 14 statutory public holidays in 2026, all paid non-working days. If a holiday falls on a Saturday, employees receive an additional day off on another working day.

Benefits

Polish employees are covered by the ZUS state pension, disability and accident insurance, sickness benefits, public healthcare through the National Health Fund, and the PPK supplementary pension plan, all funded through the payroll contributions shown in Employer Costs above. On top of this, Toku provides fully employer-sponsored private healthcare through Medicover, Poland's leading private provider. Private medical cover is a strong market-norm expectation for professional hires in Poland.

Benefits at a Glance

Statutory Benefits

Employees are covered by Poland's public healthcare system and social insurance through mandatory payroll contributions that Toku administers (see Employer Costs above). Employees are also auto-enrolled in the PPK supplementary pension plan (1.5% employer, 2% employee) unless they opt out.

Supplemental Health: Medicover Zdrowie Premium

Coverage includes:

• Primary care: internists, family doctors, pediatricians, 24/7 hotline, annual preventive check-up, and vaccinations.
• Unlimited specialist consultations: cardiology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, dermatology, gynecology & obstetrics, neurology, oncology, orthopedics, psychiatry & psychology, pulmonology (some require GP referral).
• Hospital care: inpatient and surgical care at Medicover hospitals and partner facilities; maternity including childbirth; emergency treatment and ambulance transport.
• Dental (Start Smile): check-ups, scaling, fluoridation, fillings, extractions, orthodontic consultations, root canals, and partial prosthetic coverage.
• Vision: screening and ophthalmology, plus discounted eyewear via Medicover Optics. Employees access care at Medicover clinics and partner facilities nationwide, booking via the mobile app, patient portal, or hotline.

Costs & Who Pays

Monthly premiums are 100% employer-sponsored and billed to you; employees contribute nothing toward the premium. In Poland, employer-funded healthcare is taxable to the employee as a benefit-in-kind, reported through payroll monthly, so employees will see it reflected on their payslips. Dependent coverage can be requested; contact benefits@toku.com to confirm options and cost responsibility for family members.

What You Need to Know About Benefits

• Eligible employees are enrolled in Medicover automatically, with coverage starting in line with onboarding timelines, so no action is needed from you.
• Employees can request dependent coverage where applicable.
• Factor the Medicover premium into your cost of employment, and let your employees know the benefit-in-kind will appear on their payslip. For the full employee-facing detail, see the Poland Supplemental Healthcare Overview for plan details and enrollment.

Common Extras

Common extras in the Polish market include sport and recreation cards (such as MultiSport, nearly universal among office employers), group life insurance, meal subsidies, PPK employer contributions above the 1.5% minimum, training budgets, and remote work equipment allowances. Most benefits in kind are taxable to the employee; Toku can advise on the cost impact of any benefits you want to add.

Ending Employment

Dismissals in Poland require a specific, real, written reason, which employees can challenge in the Labour Court within 21 days, so documentation and process matter. Involve Toku early, before any conversation with the employee. For the process, see How to Terminate an Employee or Contractor.

Severance is mandatory when termination is for reasons not attributable to the employee (such as redundancy or restructuring) at employers with 20 or more staff: 1 month's salary for under 2 years of service, 2 months for 2-8 years, and 3 months for over 8 years, capped at 15 times the national minimum monthly wage (PLN 72,090 in 2026). Certain groups, including pregnant employees, employees on parental leaves, and those within 4 years of retirement age, have special protection from dismissal.

Annual Leave at Termination

This section describes statutory annual leave. Any additional contractual or company-provided leave above the statutory minimum may follow different carryover, expiry, or payout rules under the employee's agreement or applicable policy, subject to local law.

Statutory leave termination payout: Required. Unused annual leave that cannot be taken because employment ends is generally paid as a cash equivalent.

Statutory carryover / look-back: Unused annual leave carries forward and should normally be used by September 30 of the following year. Outstanding leave does not simply disappear because that date passes; employer duties to grant overdue leave remain relevant.

Admin responsibility: Track current-year and overdue leave separately and actively schedule overdue balances before they become historic.

Important exceptions: Protected absences can affect when leave can be taken. Toku should review any older balance before treating it as expired or excluding it from final pay.

See the Annual Leave / PTO Carryover & Termination Payout Guide for the cross-country framework.

Hiring Someone from Overseas?

EU, EEA, and Swiss nationals can work in Poland without a permit. Other nationals generally need a Type A work permit, which involves a labor market test and typically takes 1-3 months, though simplified declaration routes exist for citizens of certain countries (including Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova) and Poland participates in the EU Blue Card scheme for highly qualified workers. Talk to Toku before extending an offer to a candidate who needs sponsorship.

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Last updated November 5, 2026 (onboarding link only). Last verified October 2026. This guide is for general information and doesn't constitute legal or tax advice. Your Toku account manager can confirm specifics for your situation.