Deductible employment costs in Poland, 2026

A flat allowance, not an expense claim

If you come from a country where employees itemise work expenses, Poland will feel simpler. Nobody asks for fuel receipts or train tickets. Article 22(2) of the PIT Act sets four fixed amounts. One employment contract: PLN 250 a month and PLN 3,000 a year. Several at the same time: PLN 4,500 a year in total. Commuting from another locality: PLN 300 a month and PLN 3,600 a year. Several jobs plus commuting: PLN 5,400.

The same figures apply to civil service, cooperative employment and outwork. They ignore your salary, age and seniority, so a board member on a contract of employment and an intern get the same allowance. They also ignore working hours, which matters on small part-time salaries. The only monthly constraint is that costs cannot turn the taxable base negative.

On your payslip (pasek wypłaty) the costs usually have their own line, koszty uzyskania przychodu, or appear in the breakdown of the taxable base. If it says PLN 250 and you have been commuting from another municipality for years, payroll probably never received your statement.

Where the costs enter the tax calculation

Costs never reduce your salary; they reduce the base your tax is charged on. On PLN 7,000 gross, payroll first takes off your social contributions, PLN 960, then the costs, PLN 250, and charges 12 % on what is left, rounded to whole złoty: PLN 5,790. It then subtracts PLN 300 if you filed PIT-2. The tax advance in this example is PLN 395.

The practical rule follows: each złoty of costs is worth your tax rate, 12 % of it in the first bracket and 32 % in the second. Costs do not change ZUS contributions or, except on very low pay, the health contribution. Switching from PLN 250 to PLN 300 therefore moves only two lines on your payslip, the tax advance and the net amount.

The commuter rate of PLN 300 and who qualifies

Article 22(2)(3) has two conditions. Your permanent or temporary place of residence must be outside the locality where the workplace (zakład pracy) is located, and you must not receive a separation allowance (dodatek za rozłąkę). It does not say you must travel daily, sets no minimum distance and is silent on how you get there. Someone living just past the city boundary meets it; someone crossing the same large city from end to end does not.

Payroll will not work this out for you. Under article 32(7), the payer applies the higher costs only after you declare that the condition is met. If you later move into the town where you work, the statement stops being true and should be corrected, because under-withheld tax is your problem, not the employer's.

The higher rate lowers your taxable base by PLN 50, and your tax by that amount times your rate: PLN 6 a month while you stay in the first bracket. At PLN 15,000 gross part of the year falls into the second bracket, where the same step is worth PLN 16 a month, so the yearly gain grows to PLN 192. Not a fortune, but it costs one signature.

Two jobs at once: the PLN 4,500 and PLN 5,400 limits

Each employer sees only its own contract and deducts the full PLN 250 every month. With two jobs for the whole year they deduct PLN 6,000 between them, while article 22(2)(2) caps you at PLN 4,500. The PLN 1,500 excess gets corrected in your annual return, which means roughly PLN 180 of tax to pay in the first bracket. If both employers apply the commuter rate, the excess is PLN 1,800 and the bill about PLN 216.

Small sums, but unwelcome when you were expecting a refund. To avoid the surprise you can ask one employer, in writing, to withhold tax without monthly costs (article 32(6)). That employer's advances go up and your return claims costs up to the limit. The tax-reducing amount works on the same logic across payers and is split through the PIT-2 statement.

The combined limit covers contracts that run at the same time. If you change jobs mid-year and one ends before the next begins, you worked for successive payers rather than simultaneous ones, and each month carries its own PLN 250.

Mandate and specific-work contracts: 20 % of the fee

Civil-law contracts have no flat amount. Article 22(9)(4) gives 20 % of the income instead, and on a mandate contract (umowa zlecenie) it is calculated after the social contributions the client withholds. On PLN 5,000 gross the contributions are PLN 563 and the costs PLN 887. A specific-work contract (umowa o dzieło) normally carries no contributions, so the percentage applies to the full PLN 5,000: costs of PLN 1,000.

A percentage cuts both ways. On large contracts it far exceeds an employee's PLN 250; on small ones it is less. Contracts worth up to PLN 200, signed with someone who is not the payer's employee, are the exception: they are taxed at a flat rate with no costs at all. Our guide to mandate versus specific-work contracts sets the two side by side with ZUS and net pay.

Creative work and the 50 % costs

When your job, mandate or specific-work contract involves creating a work and transferring the copyright to the payer, the pay for that part uses costs of 50 % instead of the flat allowance or 20 %. The annual ceiling is PLN 120,000, the upper edge of the first tax bracket. On a salary it applies only to the share that pays for the transferred rights; the rest keeps the ordinary PLN 250.

It is a topic of its own, with its own traps: who can use it, how the salary is split and what happens once the cap is reached. Our guide to creative work costs covers it, and the calculator below shows the effect on your pay.

Costs under the youth relief and in your annual return

If you are under 26 and your income falls under the youth relief, the exempt part carries no tax, so there is nothing for costs to reduce. Article 22(3b) says so directly: with the exemption, employee and mandate contract costs apply only up to the part of the income that is taxable. Costs start to matter in the month you use up the exemption limit, which our guide to the youth tax relief explains.

In your annual return you claim the employee costs at their statutory level, whatever payroll applied during the year. If you had a commuter statement for part of the year only, the costs follow month by month. For net pay with standard or commuter costs, use the salary calculator.