Your business is growing and you can no longer keep up on your own? Hiring your first employee is a major step in developing your company — but it is also the moment you become an employer and a contribution payer. New formalities, deadlines and costs appear, and it is worth knowing them before you sign the contract. In this article we walk through the entire process step by step.

Step 1: choose the form of employment

Before you start recruiting, decide on what basis you want to cooperate:

  • Employment contract (umowa o pracę) — full Labour Code protection, paid leave, notice periods, ZUS contributions on the full salary. Mandatory when work is performed under your supervision, at a designated place and time.
  • Contract of mandate (umowa zlecenia) — more flexibility; ZUS contributions depend on the contractor's situation (for example, a student under 26 is exempt from contributions).
  • Contract for specific work (umowa o dzieło) — only for concrete deliverables (e.g. a graphic design), with no ZUS contributions, but closely scrutinised during audits — not suitable for ongoing cooperation.
  • B2B contract — cooperation with another business, not an employee. We describe the differences in detail in Employment contract vs B2B.

Remember: the nature of the work, not the name of the document, determines the type of contract. Replacing an employment contract with a mandate contract while keeping subordination and fixed working hours risks reclassification by the labour inspectorate (PIP) or ZUS.

Step 2: formalities before the first day of work

With an employment contract, the order matters — some obligations must be completed before the employee starts working:

  1. Referral for initial medical examinations — the employee must have a certificate confirming no contraindications for work in the given position. Without it, they cannot be allowed to work.
  2. Signing the employment contract — in writing, at the latest before admission to work, specifying the position, working time, remuneration and place of work.
  3. Health and safety (BHP) training — general and workstation instruction on the first day, before any tasks are performed.
  4. Information about employment conditions — within 7 days of admission to work you provide details on working time standards, leave and notice periods, among others.
  5. Setting up personnel files — employee documentation is kept in parts A–E, on paper or electronically, and stored for 10 years after employment ends.

Step 3: ZUS registration

You register a new employee with ZUS on the ZUS ZUA form within 7 days from the date the insurance obligation arises (i.e. from the start of work). Registration is done electronically via PUE ZUS or the Płatnik application.

From the moment you employ your first person, every month you:

  • file the ZUS DRA settlement declaration with individual reports (RCA/RSA),
  • pay contributions for yourself and the employee by the 20th day of the following month,
  • withhold and remit the employee's PIT advance to the tax office by the 20th day of the following month.

After the end of the year you issue the employee a PIT-11 (electronically to the tax office by the end of January, to the employee by the end of February) and file the collective PIT-4R declaration. You will find all these deadlines in our entrepreneur's calendar of obligations.

Step 4: PPK — even with a single employee

Employee Capital Plans (PPK) cover every employer with at least one person subject to mandatory pension and disability insurance. Your obligations:

  • concluding a PPK management agreement with a chosen financial institution,
  • enrolling the employee (people aged 18–55 are enrolled automatically unless they submit an opt-out declaration),
  • financing the basic contribution of 1.5% of salary (the employee adds 2% from their own pay).

If the employee opts out, you do not make payments — but remember the auto-enrolment every 4 years (the next one in 2027), when opt-outs must be renewed.

How much does an employee really cost in 2026?

Gross salary is not everything — as an employer you add contributions on your side:

| Component | Rate on gross salary | |---|---| | Pension contribution | 9.76% | | Disability contribution | 6.50% | | Accident contribution | approx. 1.67% | | Labour Fund | 2.45% | | FGŚP | 0.10% | | Total employer surcharges | approx. 20.5% |

The minimum wage from 1 January 2026 is PLN 4,806 gross (hourly rate PLN 31.40). This means the minimum total employer cost is around PLN 5,790 per month — and even more once you add the PPK contribution. The entire salary with surcharges is of course a tax-deductible cost — read more in What can you count as business expenses.

The most common mistakes of first-time employers

  • Allowing work without medical checks and BHP training — a violation subject to a fine during a PIP inspection and a serious problem if the employee has an accident.
  • Late ZUS ZUA registration — the 7-day deadline passes quickly, and retroactive corrections can be troublesome.
  • No working time records — you must keep them for every employee, including part-timers.
  • Skipping PPK — the obligation also applies to micro-companies with a single person on an employment contract.
  • Understating leave entitlement — an employee is entitled to 20 or 26 days of leave depending on seniority (which includes, among others, periods of education).

Is it worth outsourcing HR and payroll?

Payroll calculation, ZUS declarations, PIT advances, PPK, records and personnel files — with your first employee you gain a dozen or so new monthly obligations with hard deadlines. Most small companies hand this area over to an accounting office as an HR and payroll service. We explain what to look for in How to choose an accounting office.

Planning your first hire and want to be sure everything is done in line with the regulations? Contact LinTax — we will run your company's HR and payroll from day one.