For quite a few months and with many controversies flaring, we’ve been witnessing the legislative process for the reform of State Labour Inspection (PIP) powers. Ultimately, the Polish legislator had adopted new regulations and the president signed the bill. Yet, he decided to refer the act to the Constitutional Tribunal for follow-up control. This, however, does not suspend the entry into force of the new provisions, which will take effect three months after their publication, i.e. on 8 July 2026. The new regulations are based on an earlier draft proposal discussed in our February Labour Law Update. This LLU edition focuses on recommendations for enterprises that use non-employment models, in particular engage staff under B2B, and should be useful when auditing their employment structures.
The main aspect of the reform boils down to strengthening the PIP role in enforcing employment regulations. The key change is granting labour inspectors the authority to issue a decision that asserts the existence of an employment relationship where co-operation performed under a civil law contract (including a B2B contract) in fact has the characteristics of an employment relationship as defined in the Polish Labour Code. The inspector’s procedure is sequenced: first, the inspector issues an order to remedy the violation (e.g. to conclude an employment agreement), and only if this order is not complied with does the inspector initiate proceedings leading to a decision reclassifying the B2B contract into an employment agreement.
It should be emphasized that the criteria for an employment relationship set out in the Labour Code remain unchanged. Under the Code, an employment relationship exists where an employee undertakes to perform work of a specified type for the employer, under the employer’s direction and at a place and time designated by the employer, while the employer undertakes to hire the employee for remuneration. Therefore, the key features of employment are subordination (the employer’s direction) and doing the work at a place and time designated by the employer. These are the main elements distinguishing employment from B2B cooperation, in which the contractor should retain organizational independence, bear economic risk and decide on the manner, place and time of performing services. However, only one of these elements, i.e. employer’s direction, is unique to the employment relationship. The others may also occur in non-employment arrangements, which highlights that even at the level of basic assessment criteria for an employment relationship, individual circumstances related to the performance of specific work or services may be decisive.
When assessing the risk of a given relationship being reclassified as employment, an organization engaging contractors under the B2B model should consider a number of factors related to structuring such cooperation so that it does not resemble an employment relationship:
- ensuring contractors have a genuine level of independence (no detailed instructions regarding service provision, and freedom to choose the method of performing services);
- avoiding fixed working hours and designated places of service provision, especially on terms analogous to those applied to employees;
- introducing elements of economic risk on the contractor’s side, including responsibility for the outcome;
- defining the scope of services in a project-based or task-based manner to distinguish it from ongoing employee duties;
- refraining from granting contractors benefits and perks on the same footing as employees.
In our view, the PIP reform does substantially raise the threshold for the legal legitimacy of the B2B employment model: it may effectively put an end to the previously liberal treatment. The supervisory authorities will now give the boundary between flexible work and labour-law circumvention tighter scrutiny and stricter enforcement. The widespread B2B use in certain industries means that the practical impact of these changes may not only be long term but also significant and highly consequential. That said, it appears that only a genuine, widely deployed and well-structured distinction between B2B cooperation and employment can effectively reduce the risk that a B2B arrangement gets reclassified into an employment agreement.
Dariusz Zimnicki, Partner at ZL LEGAL Legal Advisors, contributed to this review.
