Starting June 1, 2025, the provisions of several laws will come into force, including: the Act of March 20, 2025, on the conditions for permitting foreigners to work in the territory of the Republic of Poland; the Act of March 20, 2025, on the labor market and employment services; the Act of April 4, 2025, amending certain laws to eliminate irregularities in Poland’s visa system; and the Act of April 24, 2025, amending the Act on Foreigners and some other laws. These laws comprehensively regulate the employment of foreigners, consolidating previously scattered regulations found, among others, in the Act on Employment Promotion and the Act on Foreigners.
The changes aim to simplify and digitize the procedures for employing foreigners, increase controls over legal employment, and better align the number and profile of employed foreigners with the needs of the local labor market. This should improve foreigners’ access to legal employment in Poland and reduce abuses. Besides full digitization, which will speed up and streamline procedures, the changes also reflect a strategic approach to labor migration: Poland will primarily allow foreigners to enter the labor market in shortage occupations, emphasizing employment quality and qualifications in line with the Migration Strategy for 2025–2030.
Agencies lacking technical infrastructure, administrative structures, and regulatory knowledge will struggle—and rightly so. The state and clients should cooperate with entities that guarantee transparency and predictability. Under the new rules, a foreign employee must be employed for at least one-quarter of a full-time position, and their salary cannot be lower than the minimum wage, even for part-time work. Employers must also provide working conditions no worse than those offered to Polish employees in the same position.
“In my opinion, this is a kind of revolution in the labor market: something that should have been standard a decade ago will finally be enforced as a requirement, especially targeting “shadow” companies and pseudo-agencies that have harmed the market by trading visas. This is a clear signal: the market will keep those who actually create jobs. The era of agencies operating on trust and paper notes is over. Only those who treat recruitment as an organized business, not private relationships, will remain and develop. This is a natural and healthy stage of industry maturation,” comments Tomasz Bogdevic, General Director of Gremi Personal.
The new regulations also impose on employers the obligation to have employment contracts concluded with foreigners translated into Polish by a sworn translator. Moreover, employers must have their obligations to the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) settled in order to obtain a permit to employ a foreigner.
Moving bureaucracy online is expected to facilitate unannounced controls of foreign employment legality, which may be conducted by the Border Guard and the State Labour Inspectorate, even simultaneously by both institutions. Penalties for illegal employment of foreigners will increase, ranging from PLN 3,000 to PLN 50,000, aiming to discourage violations.
Source: ManagerPlus.pl
