Following the amendment to the Act on the National Labour Inspectorate, the scope for establishing the existence of an employment relationship has been significantly expanded by allowing a regional labour inspector to issue a decision to that effect, rather than, as was previously the case, bringing an action before a labour court to determine the existence or terms of the employment relationship.
In the event of any doubt as to the nature of a contract concluded with an employee, regional labour inspectors will decide independently whether to issue a decision establishing the existence of an employment relationship or to bring legal proceedings.
If a labour inspector issues a decision establishing an employment relationship, the means of challenging it will be to lodge an appeal with the court through the regional labour inspector within one month of the date of its service.
It should be noted that arguments and evidence not raised in the appeal may be invoked only if the party demonstrates that it was not previously possible to raise them or that the need to raise them arose subsequently.
At the same time, the Labour Code has significantly increased the level of fines for breaches of labour law, in some cases raising them to PLN 90.000,00.
What this means for our clients
-An audit of civil law contracts should be carried out to identify any provisions that could be misleading as to their civil law nature;
-An analysis of the actual functioning of civil law contracts should be carried out to determine their predominant characteristics;
-A new model civil law and B2B contract should be drafted and implemented depending on the results of the audit referred to in the preceding points.
The amendments to the Act on the National Labour Inspectorate come into force on 8 July 2026, but employers should use this time to prepare for the new powers of the supervisory authorities in order to reduce the risk of civil law contracts being reclassified within their organizations.
Employment law, B2B, National Labour Inspectorate, inspection,