Poland Minimum Wage 2027: PLN 4,950 Guide

By ExpatMoneyEU Research Team · Reviewed November 2026 · Published 14 November 2026 · Updated 14 November 2026

If you work in Poland — or you are thinking of moving there — the 2027 minimum wage is the floor under every payslip and every mandate contract in the country. It matters most to people in their first Polish job, to contractors paid by the hour, and to employers who have to set January payrolls. This guide explains the new rates in plain language: the law behind them, the 2026 comparison, who the monthly rate and the hourly rate each cover, what counts towards the minimum, and what it means for expats. Every rate below comes from the regulation itself or from the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy, checked on 14 November 2026.

Poland minimum wage 2027 at a glance

The headline is simple, but the two rates do different jobs. The monthly rate covers employees on employment contracts. The hourly rate covers people working under civil-law contracts, mainly mandate contracts. The table below shows both, against 2026.

Increases are arithmetic on the published figures (PLN 4,950 − PLN 4,806 = PLN 144; PLN 32.30 − PLN 31.40 = PLN 0.90). The 2027 figures are law (Dz.U. 2026 poz. 1213); the 2026 figures are law (Dz.U. 2025 poz. 1242).

For a full-time employee, PLN 4,950 a month is PLN 59,400 a year in gross pay before tax and contributions — arithmetic, not an official annual figure. On the hourly rate, a contractor working 168 hours in a month (a standard 40-hour week) earns a minimum of PLN 5,426.40 gross for that month — again arithmetic on the published rate. The real take-home figure depends on tax and social-security parameters, and — as the box below explains — no official 2027 net-pay figure has been published yet.

→ Poland net salary calculator — turn any Polish gross salary into estimated take-home pay

Why the Council of Ministers set the rates itself

Poland’s minimum wage is normally negotiated: the Council of Ministers proposes amounts to the Social Dialogue Council, which has 30 days to reach agreement. For 2027, no agreement was reached within the statutory term, so the Council of Ministers was obliged to set the amounts by regulation itself — and had to do so by 15 September. It adopted the regulation on 14 September 2026 (in circulation procedure), published it in Dziennik Ustaw on 15 September 2026, and signed by the Prime Minister. The legal basis is Article 2(5) of the Act of 10 October 2002 on the minimum wage for work.

That history matters for one reason: it explains why the increase is modest. At 3.0%, the 2027 rise is the smallest in several years — the 2026 rise was PLN 366 (from PLN 4,424 to PLN 4,806, about 8.3%), and 2024 saw two increases in a single year. The government’s proposal and the social partners’ positions did not converge, and the Council’s own figure is what became law. Employers should budget on PLN 4,950, and workers should expect exactly that as the floor — not a higher figure from the negotiation.

→ Poland B2B freelancer net income calculator — what a contractor keeps after tax

What the monthly rate covers — and what does not count

The monthly minimum is a nationwide category. It is not differentiated by region, industry, economic sector, occupational group or qualifications: the same PLN 4,950 applies in Warsaw and in a small town, in IT and in hospitality. It is a monthly rate that may be converted to an hourly rate, and it is valorised annually.

What counts towards it is broader than the base salary. The minimum covers the employee’s total pay for nominal working time in the month, including bonuses and prizes. So if your base pay is PLN 4,700 and you receive a PLN 300 monthly bonus, your employer has met the minimum — the comparison is on total pay, not on base pay alone.

Several payments are excluded from the comparison, and they do not help an employer reach the minimum:

• Jubilee award — the long-service award
• Retirement and disability severance
• Overtime pay
• Night-work allowance
• Seniority allowance
• Special-conditions allowance

If your payslip shows a total below PLN 4,950 for a full month of nominal working time, after stripping out those excluded items, your employer is paying below the legal minimum. Keep your payslips: they are your evidence. The Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy publishes the scope and the exclusions on gov.pl, and the National Labour Inspectorate (PIP) is the body that enforces the rules.

→ Best bank accounts in Poland for expats — where your Polish salary should land

The hourly rate: who it protects

The PLN 32.30 hourly rate is the floor for people who are not employees but work under civil-law contracts: mandate contracts (umowa zlecenia, Article 734 of the Civil Code) and service contracts to which mandate rules apply (Article 750). It has applied to these contracts since 1 January 2017, and like the monthly rate it is nationwide and undifferentiated.

This is the rate that matters most to expats who start out on a mandate contract — common in hospitality, logistics, customer service and gig work, and common for newcomers whose employer has not yet put them on an employment contract. If you are paid by the hour under a mandate contract, every hour must be paid at PLN 32.30 or more from 1 January 2027. A contract that promises PLN 30 an hour in 2027 is below the legal floor, whatever else it says.

Three exclusions apply: the hourly rate does not cover contracts between private individuals not running a business; commission-only contracts where the contractor decides the time and place of performance (all three conditions jointly); or specified contracts for continuous round-the-clock personal care. If your arrangement falls in one of those, the floor does not apply — but those are narrow exceptions, and an employer cannot re-label an ordinary job to escape them.

What about take-home pay? An honest gap

Gross pay is not what lands in your account. The honest position for November 2026 is that no official 2027 net-pay figure has been published: the 2027 tax and contribution parameters were still in draft form in autumn 2026 (a government tax-change package was reported as adopted on 29 September 2026 and still needing Parliament), and no 2027 PIT rate, tax-free amount, ZUS contribution rate, health-contribution rule or PPK figure should be quoted as fact.

Secondary sources converge on roughly PLN 3,703.93 net a month for a full-time employee aged 26 or over with PIT-2 filed, and an employer cost of roughly PLN 5,963.77 — but those are calculations under assumed parameters, not official figures. Treat them as an illustration of the method, not as a promise: your real January 2027 payslip depends on the parameters Parliament actually enacts. Check your payslip against the gross floor (PLN 4,950) first — that figure is law — and verify the deductions with your employer or payroll provider once the 2027 rules are final.

→ Open a bank account in Poland as an expat — documents, banks and timelines

What the 2027 rate means for expats in Poland

For expats, the minimum wage is both a protection and a planning number. It protects you: the floor applies regardless of nationality, so a work-permit holder and a Polish citizen on the same contract have the same minimum. It also shapes three practical decisions.

First, your first job. If you arrive on a work permit, your first Polish employer will often offer a salary close to the minimum — PLN 4,950 gross a month is the floor they cannot go below for full-time work. Knowing the figure lets you check the offer before you sign, and lets you compare it with the cost of living in your city through our cost of living guide for expats in Europe.

Second, mandate contracts. Many newcomers start on umowa zlecenia. The PLN 32.30 hourly floor is your protection there — and because mandate contracts do not carry the same paid-leave and notice rights as employment contracts, the hourly floor is often the only hard number in the arrangement. Count your hours, keep your invoices, and check the rate every month.

Third, B2B contracting. If you work through your own company (B2B), the minimum wage does not apply to you directly — you are a business, not an employee — but it still anchors the market: clients compare your day rate with the cost of an employee, and the minimum wage is the bottom of that comparison. Our Poland B2B freelancer calculator turns a B2B rate into estimated take-home pay.

What changes in 2027

One change, on one date: from 1 January 2027 the floor is PLN 4,950 a month and PLN 32.30 an hour, and it stays there for the whole year unless a new regulation changes it. There is no second step in the published regulation. The annual rhythm is otherwise familiar: the social partners negotiate in the summer, the Council of Ministers decides by mid-September, and the new rate takes effect the following January.

What to watch in 2027 is the tax side, not the wage itself. The 2027 PIT and ZUS parameters will decide what PLN 4,950 actually leaves in your account, and they were still moving through Parliament when this guide was written. This page will be updated when the 2027 tax rules are final and an official net-pay figure can be quoted.

How we compared: the methodology