Table shows effective work cost in Poland including all taxes and insurance contribution, which decreases final net sallary ("on-hand"). Both actual and historical data for various employment forms (employment contract, B2B) are presented.

Beta version#

BETA TEST VERSION OF THIS ITEM
This online calculator is currently under heavy development. It may or it may NOT work correctly.
You CAN try to use it. You CAN even get the proper results.
However, please VERIFY all results on your own, as the level of completion of this item is NOT CONFIRMED.
Feel free to send any ideas and comments !

Real work cost in Poland (archive)#

Year	Employment contract			Self-employment (B2B)
Year	Minimum wage [%]	Average wage [%]	Twice average wages [%]	Minimum wage [%]	Average wage [%]	Twice average wages [%]
2021	38.89	40.19	40.82	45.01	30.86	29.68
2020	38.69	40.06	40.76	46.91	32.05	29.09
2019	39.73	41.05	41.61	49.06	32.06	29.27
2018	39.59	41.02	41.63	49.18	32.28	28.35
2017	39.5	40.95	41.58	49.44	32.72	27.5
2016	39.24	40.88	41.54	50.35	32.79	27.53
2015	39.13	40.89	41.58	51.73	32.98	27.62
2014	39.01	40.83	41.56	51.39	32.67	26.4
2013	38.85	40.77	41.53	53.16	33.06	26.59
2012	37.44	39.6	40.4	54.94	33.03	25.51
2011	37.13	39.53	40.37	54.21	32.01	25
2010	36.93	39.46	40.32	53.77	31.83	24.92
2009	36.9	39.45	40.36	55.38	32.54	25.27
2008	36.72	39.98	40.97	57.61	32.85	30.13
2007	40.17	44.15	45.2	69.47	34.69	30.19

Some facts#

Money earned by an employee is decreased by various types of taxes or contributions:
- Total employer cost:
  All money spent by the employer to pay salary for the worker is colloquially called total employer cost. In most tax jurisdictions, total employer cost is not the same as gross salary - it's bigger.
  The total employer cost includes wages, salaries, commisions, employer's part of taxes, social security, health and pension contributions, insurance premiums and other benefits.
- Gross pay (gross salary):
  The amount agreed between employer and employee is called "gross salary".
  It is the total amount of money an employee receives before taxes and deductions are taken out.
  It's less than total employer cost, as it doesn't include all taxes and benefits paid by employer (look above).
- Net pay (net salary):
  The amount after deducting all required taxes and contributions is called net sallary or on-hand salary.
The amount and the type of paid taxes and contributions depends on both achieved income and form of employment (employment contract, B2B etc.).

Total work cost in Poland consists of:
- personal income tax (PIT),
- social insurance contributions (polish: ZUS): health fund (partially deducted from PIT), retirement, disability insurance, sickness insurance, accident insurance, Labor Fund,
- from 2019, voluntary contributions to Employee Capital Plans (polish: PPK)^*.
*) The above table does not include contributions paid for PPK. If you want to see the cost of participation in the Employee Capital Program, you can check out our other calculator: Polish Employee Capital Plans (PPK).

Nowy Ład 2022 (en: New Deal)#

At the beginning of 2022 polish government introduced many changes in the tax system. The package of changes was politically promoted by the then ruling party Law and Justice party (polish: Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) under the name Nowy Ład (en: New Deal), Polish Ład (en: Polish Order) or sometimes Nowy Polski Ład (en: New Polish Order).
The changes introduced from January 1, 2022 include:
- increasing tax-free amount to 30 000 PLN,
- raising the tax threshold for persons using general rules to 120 000 PLN,
- the health insurance contribution for the self-employed is not constant anymore (polish: NFZ) - instead of the flat-fee paid by all entrepreneurs, new health contribution depends on the income earned/revenues and the selected taxation form,
- because social insurance contributions (polish: ZUS) for the self-employed may vary from month to month, entrepreneurs need to submit a ZUS DRA declaration every month beginning from 2022,
- persons who pay taxes according to the tax scale can no longer deduct the health insurance contribution from the tax,
- new lump-sum tax rates were introduced,
- new entrepreneurs can't use the tax card anymore (the simplest form of taxation),
- the introduction of the so-called middle class relief aimed to reduce extra cost of increased health insurance for selected social groups.
Government said that Nowy Ład simplifies the polish tax system, as well as reduces the effective tax on people earning less at the expense of people with higher income. Jarosław Kaczyński (leader of the then ruling Law and Justice party) in an interview for the Interia portal said in October 2021 that people living with cunning may lose on Nowy Ład. In January 2022, the television presenter Krzysztof Skowroński spoke about 14 million beneficiaries on the polish state-owned channel TVP INFO.
In practice, the Nowy Ład introduced many chaotic and unforeseen consequences. In January 2022, Cezary Kaźmierczak (then president of the Association of Private Employers) suggested that Poland may have the worst tax system in the world in terms of complexity from 2022.
At the first half of 2022, the government announced further changes, known in terms of marketing as Nowy Ład 2.0 (en: New Deal 2.0). The changes applied from July 1, 2022 include:
- reduction of the PIT rate to 12%,
- elimination of the middle class tax relief,
- persons who pay lump-sum tax, linear tax or tax card may deduct the health insurance contribution from the tax base.