In Poland, from July, control over labor relations and B2B contracts will be strengthened – what will change

From July 8, 2026, new rules for checking civil law contracts will come into force in Poland. The National Labor Inspectorate (PIP) will receive additional control tools that will allow assessing not only the content of concluded agreements but also how the cooperation is carried out in practice.

Which contracts will be subject to enhanced control

The changes will affect a wide range of contracts, including mandate contracts, contracts for specific work, as well as popular B2B contracts between entrepreneurs. The main purpose of the inspections will be to determine whether such relations correspond to the actual features of an employment contract.

Two-stage inspection system

The new control system provides for two stages. If a labor inspector detects violations, the employer will first be issued an order to eliminate them during the inspection. Only if these requirements are not met can further proceedings be initiated, which may end with an administrative decision to convert the civil law contract into an employment contract or the transfer of the case to a labor dispute court.

The National Labor Inspectorate notes that the purpose of the new rules is not to punish employers but to bring labor relations into compliance with the law.

Criteria for determining labor relations

During inspections, inspectors will evaluate three main criteria that may indicate the presence of labor relations:

• personal performance of duties by the employee;
• work performed under the direction or supervision of the entrepreneur;
• the place and time of work determined by the employer.

To recognize the relations as labor relations, all the above features must be present simultaneously. The decisive factor will be the actual nature of the work, not the name of the concluded contract.

Digitalization and data exchange between agencies

The reform also provides for broader use of digital tools and data exchange between government institutions. Data from the Social Insurance Institution (ZUS), the National Tax Administration, and invoicing systems will be used for inspections.

This will allow automatic detection of potential violations, including cases where one person issues invoices to only one client for a long time or when regular positions are massively replaced by B2B contracts.

From order to administrative decision

If the entrepreneur does not comply with the inspector's order, the case may move to the next stage – the adoption of an administrative decision by the district labor inspector or consideration in the labor dispute court. Such a decision can be appealed, but in some cases, it will be subject to immediate execution.

Additionally, entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to receive mandatory clarifications to help avoid contradictions when concluding contracts.

The new rules aim to regulate relations between employers and employees but at the same time represent significant changes for the labor market. Primarily, this concerns B2B cooperation models, which have become widespread in many industries.

For companies, the innovations will mean the need to more carefully analyze work organization and adapt contracts to the actual conditions of cooperation. For some employers, this may lead to greater formalization of labor relations, and for others – to a revision of existing employment models.

At the same time, the final assessment of cooperation will depend primarily on the real conditions of work performance, not on the formulations stated in the contract.

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