Hire Employees in Poland From Germany

Germany and Poland both take employee protection seriously, so this isn’t a flexible-versus-rigid gap the way it is with some other countries. Where German employers get caught out is in the specific mechanics, several protections that work one way under German law work differently in Poland, even though the underlying principle looks similar.

Notice periods scale much further with tenure in Germany. Under German law, statutory notice runs from 4 weeks up to 7 months for employees with very long service, tied to a calendar-month cut-off. Poland uses fixed, shorter tiers instead, 2 weeks, 1 month or 3 months, based on tenure with that specific employer, capped at 3 months regardless of how long someone has worked there. A long-serving employee in Poland does not carry the extended notice a German contract would imply.

There’s no direct equivalent to Sozialauswahl. German redundancy law (KSchG) requires employers above a certain size to apply social selection criteria, age, tenure, maintenance obligations, disability, when deciding who to make redundant. Poland requires a valid, stated reason for terminating an indefinite contract, but doesn’t run the same formal social-selection process. The underlying protection is real in both countries, the mechanism isn’t the same.

Works councils don’t have a direct Polish equivalent at the same threshold. A German Betriebsrat has statutory codetermination rights over scheduling, overtime and dismissals in companies where one has been established. Poland has trade unions and works councils too, but the threshold for a mandatory, formal role in individual dismissal decisions is different, don’t assume the same consultation step applies automatically.

Public holidays aren’t nationally uniform the way they are in Poland. Germany’s public holidays vary by federal state, both in number and dates. Poland runs 13 public holidays nationwide, the same everywhere, on top of statutory annual leave rather than counted within it.

Sick pay works on a different timeline. German law requires the employer to continue full salary for the first 6 weeks of illness, with statutory health insurance taking over after that. In Poland, the employer pays sick leave, generally at 80% of average salary, for the first 33 days, before ZUS, the state social security body, takes over. Poland’s employer-paid window is shorter, and paid at a percentage rather than full salary.

Poland runs a mandatory pension auto-enrolment scheme with no direct German equivalent. PPK, Employee Capital Plans, automatically enrols employees into a co-funded pension scheme, with contributions from both employer and employee, unless the employee actively opts out. There’s no equivalent default enrolment mechanism in the German system.

IP transfer needs explicit handling, don’t assume it carries over automatically. Poland requires IP created by an employee to be assigned to the employer through a properly drafted clause under the Polish Copyright Act. Don’t assume the assignment mechanics you’re used to from German contracts apply identically, it needs to be built into the Polish contract correctly from the start.

If Scheinselbständigkeit is familiar, Poland’s version will make sense quickly. German employers already deal with false self-employment risk, Scheinselbständigkeit, and the Deutsche Rentenversicherung’s status determination process for contractors who function like employees. Poland has its own version of the same underlying problem, and since a 2026 reform, a Polish labour inspector can now make that reclassification decision administratively, with immediate effect. If you’re currently paying a Poland-based worker as a contractor rather than an employee, see our guide on B2B contract reclassification in Poland.