Minimum wage in Poland 2026: gross, net and hourly

The 2026 figures: PLN 4,806 a month, PLN 31.40 an hour

Both numbers come from one legal act, the Council of Ministers regulation of 11 September 2025 on the minimum wage for 2026 (Journal of Laws 2025, item 1242). Its first paragraph fixes the monthly minimum at PLN 4,806; the second sets the minimum hourly rate at PLN 31.40. Both took effect on 1 January. There is no second date in the regulation, so unlike some earlier years Poland has no July increase in 2026. ZUS, the social insurance institution, says the same on its contribution page: the minimum wage is PLN 4,806 from January to December.

Polish salaries are quoted gross (brutto), before contributions and tax, and the minimum is no exception. On an employment contract (umowa o pracę) it refers to a full-time post. The hourly rate is a separate safeguard that mainly protects people on mandate contracts, where pay depends on hours rather than on the calendar month.

Take-home pay on a full-time minimum wage

From PLN 4,806 gross, the employee first pays 13.71 % in three social contributions: pension 9.76 %, disability 1.5 % and sickness 2.45 %, PLN 658.91 in all. The health contribution of 9 % is then charged on what remains, PLN 373.24. Finally the employer withholds the tax advance (zaliczka): 12 % of the taxable base after the PLN 250 standard work-related costs, less PLN 300 thanks to PIT-2. That gives a PLN 168 advance and PLN 3,606 net.

Without PIT-2 on file, the advance is PLN 300 higher and the payout falls to PLN 3,306. The money is not lost, it comes back as a refund when you file your annual return, but on the lowest salary the monthly gap matters. Our page on the PIT-2 form explains how to file it and with whom. For any other salary or contract type, the salary calculator runs the full gross-to-net calculation.

Per hour, the picture looks like this. In a month with 168 working hours (21 days of 8 hours), the minimum wage works out at PLN 28.61 gross and PLN 21.46 net per hour. In a shorter month the hourly equivalent rises and in a longer one it falls, since the monthly salary stays the same.

Part-time work: gross and net pro rata

The calculator above and the table below scale the gross amount to your working time. As pay falls, the mix of deductions changes. Contributions remain a fixed percentage of gross, but the tax advance soon reaches zero because the PLN 300 reduction absorbs all the tax on a small base. That is why net pay is a larger share of gross on a half-time contract than on a full one.

At a quarter of full time, gross is only PLN 1,202, and a further rule comes into play: the health contribution is capped at the tax advance as it would have been calculated under the rules in force at the end of 2021. It only bites on very small salaries; the health contribution guide covers the details.

Who is covered: the monthly minimum and the hourly rate

The monthly PLN 4,806 protects employees on an employment contract. If your payslip (pasek wypłaty) shows less for a full-time month, ask HR (the kadry department) what your pay is made of. This page does not settle which allowances may count towards the minimum, since that depends on the Minimum Wage Act, which we do not analyse here. In a dispute, the National Labour Inspectorate (Państwowa Inspekcja Pracy, PIP) is the body to contact.

For mandate contracts the regulation sets PLN 31.40 gross per hour. Compare that with employment: over 168 hours an employee earns PLN 28.61 gross per hour, while a contractor gets at least PLN 31.40. The gap reflects what the employee also receives, paid holiday and sick pay, which a contractor does not.

What does a contractor keep? At 160 hours on the minimum rate, gross is PLN 5,024 and net PLN 3,629 (pension and disability contributions, health, a tax advance without PIT-2, no voluntary sickness cover). At 100 hours, gross is PLN 3,140 and net PLN 2,269. Students under 26 on a mandate contract pay no ZUS and keep almost the full amount; our page on students on zlecenie runs those numbers.

What a minimum-wage employee costs the employer

Gross pay is not the last line of the employer's budget. The company adds its share of the pension and disability contributions, the accident contribution and payments to several funds. The table shows the monthly cost of a full-time job at an accident rate of 1.67 %, the figure ZUS uses in its own example. The real rate depends on the business and ranges from 0.4 % to 8.12 %.

In total the employer pays PLN 5,790.28 a month. Of that, PLN 3,606 reaches the worker's bank account, so each złoty of take-home pay costs the company PLN 1.61. If the worker is enrolled in PPK, the employee capital plan, the employer adds a further 1.5 % of gross. The employer cost calculator handles any salary.

Minimum wage versus the average wage

The forecast average wage for 2026 is PLN 9,420. The minimum wage is 51 % of that figure in gross terms. After deductions the gap narrows: the average salary leaves PLN 6,752 net, so the minimum is 53 % of average take-home pay. The reason is the tax-reducing amount, a fixed sum in złoty that makes up a larger part of the tax bill on a low salary.

The average wage is an official index rather than what a typical worker earns. Where it comes from and what it is used for is covered in our guide to the average salary in Poland.

Where else the minimum wage matters

The same PLN 4,806 turns up elsewhere in the system. For sole traders taxed on the progressive scale or the flat tax, it is the base of the minimum health contribution: for the contribution year from February 2026 to January of the following year, the contribution cannot be lower than PLN 432.54 a month. The preferential ZUS available to new businesses is calculated on 30 % of the minimum wage, which is PLN 1,441.80. And the low-income threshold in PPK, below which an employee may pay less than 2 %, is 1.2 times the minimum: PLN 5,767.20.

So a change in the minimum wage moves more than the lowest salaries; it also moves the fixed costs of one-person businesses. In 2026 that change happened once, on 1 January, and the figures above stay put until the end of the year.

Checking a minimum-wage payslip

On the payslip for a full month, the first line is basic pay, which for full-time work should match PLN 4,806. Below it come the three employee contributions, PLN 658.91 together, then the health contribution of PLN 373.24 and the tax advance of PLN 168. If the advance is PLN 300 higher, your employer is not applying PIT-2. If there is no advance at all and you are not on the youth relief or another PIT exemption, ask HR why, because the missing tax will surface in your annual return. The last line, the amount paid out, should match the calculator to within a few grosz; a month with absence or overtime will differ.

When a job is advertised by the hour

Some employment offers quote an hourly rate. To check it against the minimum, multiply it by the hours in the month and compare the result with PLN 4,806. The second calculator does this and shows net pay per hour.

The result is for an employment contract. On a mandate contract, only the rate itself matters: it must be at least PLN 31.40, whatever the number of hours in the month.