Can your B2B contract be turned into a job? Poland's 2026 PIP reform

Yes. Since 8 July 2026, a district labour inspector can decide on their own that your B2B contract (you invoice a client from your own business) is really a job. The decision turns it into an employment contract (umowa o pracę) with the client, something only a court could do before. The test itself has not changed: if you work like an employee, you are an employee, whatever the contract says.

What changed on 8 July 2026

The Act of 11 March 2026 changed the law on PIP, Państwowa Inspekcja Pracy (the National Labour Inspectorate). It was published on 7 April 2026 in Dziennik Ustaw, the official journal (Dz.U. 2026 poz. 473), and most of it applies from 8 July 2026. It also covers contracts signed before that date that are still running.

The main changes:

• The inspectorate may now check any business for which individuals work, or worked in the year before the inspection, including people who run their own business, such as a JDG (a sole proprietorship).
• If the relationship looks like employment, the inspector gives the client a written polecenie (order) to fix it, after hearing both sides.
• If the order is not carried out, the okręgowy inspektor pracy (district labour inspector) can issue a decision that an employment relationship exists, or take the case to court.
• PIP, ZUS (social insurance) and the tax office are to share data in one system, run by ZUS, to pick whom to inspect.
• Inspections can partly happen online or by post.

What makes a B2B contract look like a job

The test is article 22 of the Labour Code. You are an employee if you do work of an agreed kind for someone, under their direction, at a place and time they set, and they pay you for it.

The law says the name of the contract does not matter. An employment contract may not be replaced by a civil-law contract (a contract under the Civil Code, such as B2B or umowa zlecenie) while the work stays the same.

In practice, these signs point towards employment:

• Fixed hours set by the client, and you need permission to take a day off.
• A boss: a manager assigns your daily tasks, checks your work and can discipline you.
• The client’s place and equipment: their office, laptop, email address and access badge.
• No business risk: you are paid for your time whatever the result, and the client carries the liability for your work.
• You cannot send someone else to do the work.
• One client, for years, often the same company you used to be employed by.

No single sign decides it. The inspector looks at how you actually work, not only at the contract. The act also says the inspector must take into account what both sides want, unless that breaks labour law or is meant to get round it.

Tax law has a similar test. Under article 5b of the PIT Act (the personal income tax act), work is not treated as a business when all three are true: the client carries the liability for it, directs it at a time and place it sets, and you carry no business risk. For the wider trade-offs, see B2B or employment contract?.

What the decision says, and how to challenge it

The decision names the type of contract, the kind of work, the place, the hours and the pay. When the evidence does not show one of these, the law fills it in:

Either side can appeal to the labour court (the district court where the work is done) within one month of receiving the decision. You send the appeal through the district labour inspector, and you must put all your arguments and evidence in it. If the last day falls on a Saturday, a Sunday or a public holiday, the deadline moves to the next working day.

The decision is enforced only once the appeal time has passed or the court has ruled, unless it is made immediately enforceable.

The client may not treat you worse because of a decision, and cannot use it as a reason to dismiss you. Doing so is itself an offence. If the client ends your contract after the inspection has started and a decision follows, the employment is dated from the start of the inspection and you get the usual protection against dismissal.

Watch out: the fine is for the client, not for you. Since 8 July 2026, using a civil-law contract where an employment contract is required can cost the client, or the person who signs contracts for it, 2,000 to 60,000 PLN (it was 1,000 to 30,000 PLN). Treating you worse because of a decision carries the same fine.

What happens to taxes and ZUS

A decision takes effect from the day it is issued. From then on labour law, tax, social insurance and health insurance treat you as an employee. The client becomes your employer. It registers you with ZUS within 7 days of the decision becoming final (or of the court’s final ruling, after an appeal), and deducts your tax and contributions from your pay.

For the time between the decision and the end of any appeal, the ZUS contributions you already paid through your JDG are counted towards the ones due as an employee. You do not pay twice for those months.

Earlier years are different, and this is where the “5 years back” stories come from:

• The decision itself does not reach back. To establish employment for a period before the decision, the inspector can take the case to court.
• The tax office has its own rules. It can apply the article 5b test to past years until the tax is time-barred, which is normally 5 years from the end of the year the tax was due. While an appeal against a decision, or the inspector’s own court case, is before a court, that clock is suspended.
• Past ZUS contributions: how often ZUS will revisit earlier years alongside the new decisions is not yet clear. If this worries you, ask ZUS or a tax adviser about your own case.

If you keep a JDG for other clients, watch the former-employer rules. If you invoice your employer for the same work you do for them as an employee, you lose the 19% flat tax (podatek liniowy) for that whole year. On ryczałt (the lump-sum tax) the rule also counts work you did as their employee in the previous year. See how to choose a tax form for the details.

Staying on B2B, or asking to be employed

If you want to stay on B2B, the way you actually work has to match a business relationship, not only the wording.

1. Read your contract with fresh eyes. Look for fixed hours, a line manager, holiday “approval”, or rules copied from an employee handbook. Describe results and deliverables instead. Our guide to what a B2B contract should contain lists the usual clauses.
2. Work with your own tools where you can: your own laptop, software licences and email address, bought and invoiced to your business.
3. Have more than one client, if your work allows it. One client for years is one of the clearest signs of a hidden job.
4. Carry some business risk: a price per project or result, liability for your own mistakes, the freedom to send a replacement.
5. Keep your records in order. Invoices to several clients and receipts for your own equipment are the evidence an inspector sees. Komplet, our free Mac app, files each invoice and receipt into the right month in your own folders.
6. Talk to your client. The business can ask the Chief Labour Inspector for an interpretacja indywidualna (individual interpretation) of your arrangement. The request comes from the business using the contracts, not from you. It costs 40 PLN per case, the answer comes within 30 days of a complete request, and it can also cover a contract that is only planned. It binds the labour inspectorate (not ZUS or the tax office) as long as the real work matches the description.

If you would rather be employed, you can tell the labour inspectorate about your case. The district labour inspector can also go to court on your behalf.

Does it affect a residence permit based on a JDG?

The reform does not change the Foreigners Act, and nothing in it mentions residence permits for business. A temporary residence permit for business activity rests on your business meeting its conditions, such as enough income.

If a large client is reclassified as your employer, your income from it becomes a salary. Whether the permit still holds is then a question for your voivodeship office (urząd wojewódzki). Ask before you change anything.

One change is clear. If you work in Poland on a civil-law contract under a work permit or a registered work declaration, and that contract becomes an employment contract, by agreement or by decision, the employer does not need a new permit or declaration. For who can hold a JDG in the first place, see how a foreigner opens a JDG.

What to do next

• Check your contract and your daily work against the list of signs above.
• If several signs apply, talk to your client now: the 12-month window for switching without a fine runs until July 2027.
• Keep your invoices, receipts and client list organised month by month.
• If you are unsure about taxes or ZUS for past years, ask a tax adviser, ZUS or KIS, the national tax information line.