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Guide · Business

Employment contract or B2B for your hire in Poland?

Portrait of Mikołaj BadziągBy Mikołaj Badziąg, Advocate

Polish law does not read the heading of your contract. It reads how the work is actually done, and since July 8, 2026 a labour inspector can act on that reading with a decision of their own rather than a lawsuit.

Reading time about 8 minutesLast reviewed September 2026Applies to people working in Poland for a U.S. company

Key points

  • Employment under the conditions set out in the Labour Code is employment under an employment relationship regardless of what the parties called their contract, and a contract of employment may not be replaced by a civil-law contract while those conditions remain (Labour Code, Article 22 § 1(1) and § 1(2)).
  • Since July 8, 2026 a labour inspector may establish the existence of an employment relationship by administrative decision, where a prior order to remove the irregularity was not complied with (Act on the National Labour Inspectorate, Article 11(1)(7a) and (2), as amended by the Act of March 11, 2026).
  • Inspections now reach entrepreneurs who are not employers, for whom work was performed in the year before the inspection, including by people running their own business (Article 13(1)).
  • The fine for concluding a civil-law contract where an employment contract was required rose on the same day from 1,000 to 30,000 zł to 2,000 to 60,000 zł (Labour Code, Article 281 § 1).
  • Both the social-insurance and the tax clocks stop while such a case runs: the limitation period for contribution arrears and for tax liabilities is suspended (Social Insurance System Act, Article 24(5h); Tax Ordinance, Article 70 § 6).

There is no general answer, and any adviser who gives you one without looking at the work is guessing. Polish law treats the question as factual: if the work is done in the conditions that define an employment relationship, it is employment, whatever the parties signed. What changed this summer is not the test but the enforcement - the inspector no longer has to go to court to act on it. Below is the test, the new procedure, what it costs to be on the wrong side of it, and what each route means for a company with no office in Poland.

What decides it - the label or the facts?

The facts. An employment relationship arises where an employee undertakes to perform work of a specified kind for an employer and under the employer's direction, at a place and time designated by the employer, and the employer undertakes to employ them for remuneration (Labour Code, Article 22 § 1). Employment in those conditions is employment under an employment relationship regardless of the name of the contract concluded by the parties (Article 22 § 1(1)), and replacing a contract of employment with a civil-law contract while those working conditions are kept is not permitted (Article 22 § 1(2)).

Stosunek pracy - the employment relationship

The legal relationship defined by three features: work of a specified kind performed for the employer, subordination to the employer's direction, and a place and time set by the employer, against remuneration. Polish authorities look for these features in what actually happens - the daily stand-up, the fixed hours, the company laptop - not in the wording of the contract.

For a U.S. company this cuts against the instinct that a contract signed by two businesses is a business contract. A developer in Krakow who invoices monthly, works the hours your team works, takes tasks from your manager and uses your systems looks, to a Polish inspector, like an employee with an invoice.

What changed on July 8, 2026?

The Act of March 11, 2026 amending the Act on the National Labour Inspectorate came into force on that day and moved the decision from the courtroom to the inspectorate. Two steps now run in sequence. First, after letting both sides state their position, the inspectorate may issue an order to remove the irregularity, either in how the civil-law contract operates or in the failure to conclude a contract of employment, where the features of an employment relationship dominate in the relationship between the parties (Article 11(2)). Second, if that order is not complied with, the inspector may establish the existence of the employment relationship by decision (Article 11(1)(7a)).

The party may appeal, and may also challenge an order giving the decision immediate enforceability, on the terms set out in the Code of Civil Procedure; such appeals are now listed among labour-law cases (Code of Civil Procedure, Article 476 § 1(12)). Because the decision can be made immediately enforceable, the time to react is counted in days, not months, and that is the first thing we check when a client forwards one.

The reach of an inspection changed too. It now covers not only employers but also entrepreneurs and other organizational units that are not employers, for whom work is performed, or was performed in the year preceding the start of the inspection, by natural persons - including people conducting their own business activity - regardless of the basis on which the work is performed (Article 13(1)).

What does it cost to get it wrong?

Three separate bills, and they do not cancel each other out.

The fine. Concluding a civil-law contract in conditions where, under Article 22 § 1, a contract of employment should have been concluded is an offense punishable by a fine, and on July 8, 2026 the range rose from 1,000 to 30,000 zł to 2,000 to 60,000 zł (Labour Code, Article 281 § 1). For the aggravated cases in § 2 the range is now 3,000 to 90,000 zł.

Contributions. Where an inspector's decision establishes an employment relationship, the Social Insurance System Act now fixes the contribution base for the period from the decision until it becomes final - or, if an appeal is filed, until the court judgment becomes final - at the amounts reported under the civil-law title (Article 18(1b)). The limitation period for contribution arrears is suspended from the day the appeal is filed (Article 24(5h)).

Tax. The Tax Ordinance now suspends the running of the limitation period for tax liabilities when such an appeal is referred to the court and when the judgment becomes final (Article 70 § 6 and § 7), and the regional labour inspector informs the tax authorities of both events. In other words, a reclassification does not quietly expire while the case is pending.

What does employment mean for a company with no office in Poland?

Three obligations surprise U.S. employers most often, and all three are worth pricing before the offer is made.

  • Remote work is regulated, not informal. Work performed wholly or partly at a place agreed with the employer, including the employee's home, is remote work under the Labour Code (Article 67(18)). The employer must provide the materials and tools needed for it, and must cover the costs of their installation, service and maintenance, together with the cost of electricity and telecommunications services needed for the work (Article 67(24) § 1).
  • Someone has to remit the tax. Where there is no payer in Poland, the employee pays their own monthly income-tax advances on employment income from abroad (Personal Income Tax Act, Article 44(1a)(1)). That is lawful, but it shifts an administrative burden onto the person you hired, and it is better agreed in the contract than discovered in April.
  • Social insurance follows its own rules. Which country's system covers a person working in Poland for a U.S. employer is decided by the social security agreement between Poland and the United States, the same agreement our guide on the Poland-U.S. totalization agreement describes. Where the Polish system applies, the registration and payment obligations have to be arranged before the first payday, not after.
Praca zdalna - remote work

Work performed wholly or partly at a place agreed each time with the employer, including the employee's home address, typically using means of direct remote communication. Polish law attaches concrete duties to it, above all the employer's duty to supply the tools and to cover the electricity and telecommunications costs of the work.

When does B2B still make sense?

When the relationship genuinely lacks the features in Article 22 § 1. A contractor who decides when and where to work, uses their own equipment, serves other clients, bears the economic risk of the work and is not slotted into your reporting line is running a business, and a B2B contract describes that correctly. The test is not whether the contractor prefers it or whether their invoice is convenient for you; it is whether subordination, a designated place and a designated time are absent in practice.

Two habits undo an otherwise sound B2B arrangement: writing the contract as if it were an employment contract - notice periods, paid leave, fixed working hours - and then running the relationship exactly as you run your employees. The contract and the practice have to point the same way, because an inspector reads both.

Which law governs the contract?

Not automatically the one named in it. Polish private international law leaves the law applicable to contractual obligations to be determined by the Rome I Regulation (Private International Law Act, Article 28), and that Regulation limits what a choice of law can do to an employee's protection. Separately from the contract, Polish labour-law obligations attach to work performed in Poland, which is why the inspectorate's powers described above apply to the arrangement whatever its governing-law clause says.

Płatnik - the withholding agent

An entity obliged by Polish law to calculate tax or social-insurance contributions, collect them from the person entitled to the payment and remit them to the authority. A Polish employer is normally the payer for its staff. A foreign company without that status in Poland does not stop the obligations - it moves them, and the rules decide where.

The practical order is therefore the reverse of what most founders expect: first decide how the work will really be done, then choose the contract that matches it, and only then talk about which law the document names.

This article is general information about Polish law, not legal advice about your situation, and it does not cover U.S. employment or tax law. Legal basis: the Labour Code (consolidated text, Journal of Laws 2025 item 277), Articles 22, 67(18), 67(24) and 281; the Act on the National Labour Inspectorate (consolidated text, Journal of Laws 2024 item 1712), Articles 11, 13 and 34, in the wording given by the Act of March 11, 2026 amending the Act on the National Labour Inspectorate and certain other acts (Journal of Laws 2026 item 473), in force since July 8, 2026; the Social Insurance System Act (consolidated text, Journal of Laws 2026 item 199), Articles 18 and 24; the Tax Ordinance (consolidated text, Journal of Laws 2026 item 622), Article 70; the Personal Income Tax Act (consolidated text, Journal of Laws 2026 item 592), Article 44; the Private International Law Act (consolidated text, Journal of Laws 2023 item 503), Article 28; the Code of Civil Procedure (consolidated text, Journal of Laws 2026 item 468), Article 476. Provisions checked in September 2026.

Sources

This article is based on the acts listed below. Each link opens the text published by the Polish government, checked on September 20, 2026. Acts in force open as a consolidated text; historical acts are marked as such, with the date they stopped applying.

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