The Polish Labour Code gives employees real protection: indefinite contracts require a stated, genuine reason for termination (since a 2023 reform, this now also applies to fixed-term contracts), consultation with any trade union, and notice of up to three months. Unjustified termination attracts reinstatement or compensation. Employees get 20 or 26 days’ paid holiday (26 after ten years of qualifying service, including education), employer-paid sick leave for the first 33 days, and generous parental leave. But roughly half of senior IT professionals work on B2B contracts and have none of this — a two-tier labour market that is the defining feature of Polish professional life.
Poland has two labour markets running side by side, and which one you are in is decided by a checkbox on your contract. Employees under the Labour Code have among the stronger protections in Central Europe: a reason must be given for dismissal, unions must be consulted, notice runs to three months, and courts order reinstatement. B2B contractors — roughly half the senior technology workforce — have essentially none of it: their contract can end on whatever notice it specifies, they have no paid leave, no sick pay, and no dismissal claim. The financial upside of B2B, set out in our Poland tax guide, is real; this chapter is about what you are trading away for it, and about the rights you have if you are an employee.
Do I need a reason to be dismissed?
If you are an employee, yes — the employer must state a genuine, specific, real reason in the termination notice, and since the April 2023 reform this applies to fixed-term contracts too. An unjustified or improperly stated reason makes the termination challengeable, with reinstatement or compensation as remedies.
How much notice do I get?
Under an employment contract: two weeks (under six months’ service), one month (six months to three years), or three months (three years or more). Notice periods run from the end of the week or month, which extends them in practice. B2B contracts carry only whatever notice they specify — often 30 days, sometimes none.
How much holiday?
20 days a year, rising to 26 days after ten years of qualifying service — and crucially, a university degree counts as eight years toward that threshold, meaning most graduates reach 26 days after only two years of work. B2B contractors get none.
What contracts exist, and what is the B2B divide?
The employment contract (umowa o pracę) is the Labour Code contract: indefinite or fixed-term, with a probation period of up to three months. It carries the full suite of protections in this chapter. The mandate contract (umowa zlecenie) is a civil-law contract with partial ZUS coverage but no Labour Code protection, and it is common for students and part-time work. The contract for specific work (umowa o dzieło) covers defined deliverables with minimal contributions, and is narrowly policed.
And then there is B2B: you register as a sole trader and invoice the company. It is not an employment relationship at all — it is a commercial contract between two businesses. You have no Labour Code rights: no minimum notice beyond the contract’s terms, no paid holiday, no employer-paid sick leave, no protection against termination, no severance, no working-time limits.
The market has settled into a clear pattern: junior and mid-level roles, and most non-technical functions, are employment; senior technology roles are frequently B2B, and many employers offer a choice with a substantially higher B2B rate. Understand what the higher rate is compensating you for, and price it: paid leave alone is worth roughly 10% of salary, and sick pay and notice protection are worth more than most people assume until they need them.
What did the 2023 reforms change?
The April 2023 implementation of the EU Work-Life Balance and Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions directives was the most significant change to the Polish Labour Code in years. It required employers to give reasons for terminating fixed-term contracts and to consult unions on them — previously, fixed-term contracts could be terminated without any reason, which had made them a favoured tool for avoiding protection.
It introduced additional parental leave (nine non-transferable weeks per parent under the EU directive, part of a substantially extended parental leave system), carer’s leave (five days a year, unpaid), force majeure leave (two days a year at half pay, for urgent family matters), and the right to request flexible working for parents of children under eight.
It also created a right for employees to request a more predictable form of employment after six months, with the employer obliged to respond in writing — and it prohibited employers from banning employees from working simultaneously for another employer, except in defined circumstances. Alongside, the remote work provisions were codified into the Labour Code (replacing the pandemic-era ad hoc rules), including an employer obligation to cover the costs of remote work — electricity, internet — through a lump sum or reimbursement. That last point is a genuine, enforceable entitlement that a great many Polish employees have never claimed.
How does termination actually work?
Terminating an employment contract with notice requires: a written notice, a stated reason that is genuine, specific and real (a vague ‘loss of confidence’ or ‘restructuring’ without particulars is routinely struck down), consultation with the trade union representing the employee (where one exists — the employer must notify the union, which has five days to object), and an instruction on the right of appeal. Notice is two weeks, one month, or three months by service — and runs from the end of the calendar week or month, so a three-month notice given on 2 March runs to 30 June.
Termination without notice (disciplinary dismissal, zwolnienie dyscyplinarne) requires a serious breach of basic employee duties, a criminal offence preventing continued employment, or culpable loss of a required licence — and it must be delivered within one month of the employer learning of the circumstances. It is genuinely hard to sustain, and employers who use it as a shortcut lose.
Remedies: an employee challenging a termination in the labour court may seek reinstatement with pay for the period of unemployment (capped), or compensation (generally up to three months’ salary). The claim must be filed within 21 days of receiving the notice — a very short window, and the single most common reason Polish employees lose claims they would otherwise have won. Twenty-one days. Diarise it the moment you are handed a letter.
What are the working-time and leave entitlements?
Working time: 8 hours a day, 40 a week on average, with overtime limited to 150 hours a year (extendable by agreement to an annual cap) and paid at 50% or 100% premiums, or compensated with time off. Employees are entitled to 11 hours of uninterrupted daily rest and 35 hours of weekly rest.
Annual leave: 20 days, rising to 26 days after ten years of qualifying service — and here is the detail that matters enormously and that almost nobody tells foreign employees: education counts toward that ten years. A university degree counts as eight years. So a graduate reaches 26 days of holiday after just two years of actual work. If your Polish employer has you on 20 days and you have a degree and two years’ experience, you are being short-changed, and it is worth raising. Leave is a statutory right and cannot be waived or bought out except on termination.
Sick leave: paid at 80% (100% for pregnancy, accidents at work, and some other cases), funded by the employer for the first 33 days of a calendar year (14 days for employees over 50) and by ZUS thereafter. Parental leave is extensive: 20 weeks’ maternity leave, followed by parental leave (now 41 weeks, including nine non-transferable weeks per parent under the 2023 reform), paid at 70% or 81.5% depending on the election — among the more generous systems in this series.
Collective rights, redundancy, and unions
Trade unions have a meaningful role: an employer must consult the union on individual terminations of union-represented employees, and unions negotiate company collective agreements. Union density is low in the private sector, particularly in the technology and shared-services companies where most expats work — but where a union exists, its rights are real.
Collective redundancies (thresholds by company size: 10 employees in companies of 20–99, 10% in companies of 100–299, 30 in companies of 300+, over 30 days) trigger the Act on Collective Redundancies: consultation with unions or employee representatives, notification to the labour office, agreed selection criteria, and — the significant part — statutory severance pay of one, two or three months’ salary depending on length of service (capped at 15 times the minimum wage). Note that this severance applies only in collective redundancies and in individual redundancies in companies with 20 or more employees for reasons not attributable to the employee. There is no general statutory severance in Poland.
Disputes go to the labour courts, which are free for employees to access (no court fees below a threshold) and reasonably efficient by Central European standards. The 21-day deadline to challenge a termination is the critical constraint. The National Labour Inspectorate (PIP) enforces working time, contract types, safety, and — increasingly — the boundary between employment and B2B.
Where is the line between B2B and disguised employment?
The Labour Code provides that work performed under conditions characteristic of employment — performed personally, under the employer’s direction, at a place and time designated by the employer, for remuneration — is employment, regardless of what the parties call the contract. It is not permissible to replace an employment contract with a civil-law contract while preserving those conditions.
So a B2B contractor who works fixed hours, in the client’s office, using the client’s equipment, under the client’s daily direction, exclusively for that client, with no business risk and no other customers, is — in substance — an employee. The PIP and ZUS both pursue this, and reclassification brings retroactive contributions, penalties, and the conversion of the relationship into employment with all its protections.
What makes a B2B arrangement genuinely defensible: real autonomy over how and when the work is done, the contractor bearing business risk (fixed-price or deliverable-based elements, liability for defects), own equipment, the ability to work for other clients, and no integration into the client’s disciplinary and management hierarchy. Many Polish B2B arrangements in the technology sector are, frankly, closer to the line than their participants pretend — and the sensible response for both sides is to make the substance match the form, not to hope nobody looks.
Frequently Asked Questions
Am I really entitled to 26 days of holiday after two years?
If you hold a university degree, yes — a Master’s counts as eight years of ‘qualifying period’ toward the ten-year threshold for 26 days, so two years of actual employment gets you there. This is a real statutory entitlement, and foreign employees on 20 days who have degrees and a couple of years’ service should simply ask HR to correct it.
Can my employer force me onto B2B?
They can offer it, and they can decline to offer employment. What they cannot do is have you work under employment conditions — their hours, their office, their direction, exclusively for them — while calling it B2B. That is disguised employment, and both PIP and ZUS pursue it. If you are pushed onto B2B while nothing about the work changes, that is precisely the situation the law prohibits.
What happens if I miss the 21-day deadline?
Your claim is generally lost. Courts may restore the deadline in exceptional circumstances where the failure was not your fault, but this is discretionary and unreliable. Twenty-one days from receiving the notice. There is no more important number in Polish employment law, and it is the one nobody tells new arrivals.
Is there statutory severance pay in Poland?
Only in redundancy situations — collective redundancies, and individual redundancies for reasons not attributable to the employee in companies with 20 or more employees. Then it is one, two, or three months’ salary by length of service, capped. There is no general severance entitlement on ordinary dismissal, and none at all for B2B contractors.
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