A new JDG in Poland gets up to thirty months of relief on social contributions, in two stages, and then pays the full amount. The full amount for 2026 is 1,926.76 zł a month on figures published by Firmove and poradnikprzedsiebiorcy — and that total includes voluntary sickness cover and the Fundusz Pracy levy, which is exactly why other sources publish roughly 1,575 zł and roughly 1,600 zł for the same year without either of them being wrong.
The verdict on the relief itself: take it, with one exception. Ulga na start is not free cover — it is six months of not accruing anything. If you are planning a pregnancy, expect to need sick pay, or care about the pension record, the six months you skip are six months you do not get back, and paying voluntarily is a defensible decision rather than a foolish one.
Checked on 7 September 2026. All of these reset in January.
The ladder, in order
Three rungs, and a fourth that exists afterwards.
1. Ulga na start — the first six full months
No social contributions at all. Not pension, not disability, not accident, not sickness.
The health contribution is still payable. Every month, from the first. This is the single most misread thing about the relief: “no ZUS for six months” is a description of the social half only, and the health half is what stands between you and NFZ. It is why the declaration you file is ZUS ZZA, the health-only form, rather than ZUS ZUA.
Six full months. A business starting on the 12th gets the remainder of that month plus six whole ones. Start on the 1st and you get six. That is a real difference, and if the start date is genuinely yours to choose, it is worth a moment at the registration form.
The relief is optional. You can decline it and go straight to the next rung, and there are people who should.
2. Preferential contributions — the next 24 months
Social contributions calculated on a reduced base: 30% of the minimum wage, which for 2026 is at least 1,441.80 zł, producing 456.18 zł in social contributions on the figures published by Firmove and poradnikprzedsiebiorcy.
The health contribution sits on top and is calculated separately, under its own rules — on the ryczałt it is banded rather than proportional, and the three brackets have their own post.
You are accruing now. The pension record is thin, because the base is small, but it exists.
3. Full ZUS — after thirty months
1,926.76 zł a month, on the Firmove and poradnikprzedsiebiorcy figures for 2026, including voluntary sickness cover and Fundusz Pracy.
Say what is inside the number every single time you quote it. The components that move a published total for the same year:
- social contributions — pension, disability, accident
- voluntary sickness cover — elective, and the reason a total moves by a few dozen złoty
- Fundusz Pracy — the Labour Fund levy, not payable by everyone
- the health contribution — computed separately, and on the ryczałt not proportional at all
A number quoted without those is not a smaller number. It is a different quantity. This is the most common way an English-language comparison of employment against B2B in Poland ends up comparing the wrong things — and it is a big enough error to reverse the conclusion.
4. What comes after
There is a further revenue-tested relief for small businesses once the preferential period ends — contributions scaled to your actual revenue rather than a flat base. It has its own eligibility rules, its own time limit and its own annual figures, and I am not going to state them here because I do not have a dated source for the 2026 version. Ask your księgowa before you assume the cliff at month thirty-one is the full amount.
What the relief actually costs you
This is the part the calculators leave out, because a calculator computes what you pay, not what you stop having.
No sickness cover during ulga na start. Voluntary sickness insurance is a social contribution, so during the first stage you are not paying it and not covered by it. Sick pay from ZUS has a qualifying period after you join, so electing it later does not backdate you. A self-employed person with no employer sick pay and no ZUS sick pay is uninsured against their own illness, and that is a real exposure for anyone whose income is their own hours.
No maternity basis during ulga na start. Maternity benefit is calculated from your contribution base over a preceding period. Six months of nothing is six months of nothing in that calculation. If a pregnancy is plausible inside the next two years, this stops being an abstraction, and the arithmetic is worth doing properly before you take the relief rather than after.
A thin pension record for thirty months. Small in the scheme of a working life, real if you intend to stay.
And NFZ is unaffected by all of it, because the health contribution runs through every stage. Your access to the public system does not depend on which rung you are on.
Against an employment contract
For the same person at the same money, the comparison people want is take-home. The comparison that decides it is usually elsewhere:
| Umowa o pracę | JDG | |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays the contributions | Split, employer and employee | You |
| Amount | Proportional to salary | Flat, and the same at any income |
| NFZ registration | Automatic | Automatic, once you file ZZA or ZUA |
| Sick pay | Yes | Only with voluntary sickness cover, after its waiting period |
| Paid leave | Yes | No |
| Relief for the first 30 months | — | Yes |
| Effect of income rising | Contributions rise | Social contributions do not |
The last row is the reason the JDG wins at high income and loses at low income, and it is arithmetic rather than argument: a flat contribution is a smaller share of a bigger number. Below a certain income the flat amount is simply worse, relief or no relief. The contract decision has a longer version, and it does not start with the money.
Three deadlines worth writing down
- Seven days from your business start date to file the ZUS declaration — ZZA on ulga na start, ZUA otherwise. CEIDG does not do this for you, and its confirmation email reads like completion.
- The end of month six. Nothing prompts you. Moving from ulga na start to preferential contributions is a change of declaration, and missing it is the classic first-year error.
- The end of month thirty. The same, at a much larger step.
Put all three in a calendar on the day you register. This is the least interesting advice in this post and the one most likely to save you money.
Where this post is uncertain
The 2026 figures are dated and attributed to Firmove and poradnikprzedsiebiorcy for the ZUS totals, and they reset each January with the minimum wage they derive from — treat anything here after January 2027 as wrong rather than approximate. The revenue-tested relief in stage four is described in shape only, deliberately, because I do not have a 2026 figure I can source. Whether voluntary sickness cover is worth its cost, and how a specific contribution history feeds a specific maternity calculation, are questions for ZUS itself or for a księgowa with your file in front of them.