Poland UoP vs B2B Comparison Calculator

Umowa o pracę (UoP) is standard payroll employment under the Kodeks pracy: your employer withholds PIT and your employee-side ZUS/NFZ, and separately pays employer-side ZUS (about 20.48% of your gross) on top of your salary as a real cost that never appears on your payslip. B2B (jednoosobowa działalność gospodarcza) means you invoice as a sole proprietor and choose your own taxation mode (skala, liniowy, or ryczałt), paying your own ZUS and NFZ directly. UoP includes paid leave, sick pay, and severance protections; B2B typically doesn't, but usually nets more at the same headline figure.

Mainly because B2B contractors can choose ryczałt (a flat 12% on revenue for IT/software work with a capped NFZ contribution) or liniowy (flat 19% with no bands), while UoP is locked into the progressive 12%/32% PIT bands plus a mandatory 13.71% employee ZUS rate that includes sickness insurance. At 18.000 PLN gross, UoP nets about 11.544 PLN/month against B2B ryczałt's 13.083 PLN/month, a gap of roughly 1.539 PLN. B2B's ZUS is also a fixed monthly amount rather than a percentage of revenue, so its relative cost shrinks as your invoiced amount grows. Published market data puts the typical B2B premium at 13% to 26% more net income than an equivalent UoP salary, though this compresses at lower income levels and expands at higher ones.

Yes. Employer-side ZUS for UoP (retirement, disability, accident insurance, Labour Fund, and the Employee Guaranteed Benefits Fund) adds roughly 20.48% on top of gross salary, a cost the employer pays but the employee never sees on their payslip. At 18.000 PLN gross, that's a real employer cost of about 21.686 PLN/month. This calculator surfaces it separately so you can see the full picture: what you take home, and what it actually costs an employer to pay you that amount under UoP versus B2B, where the client only pays your invoiced rate.

Paid annual leave (20 to 26 days under the Kodeks pracy), paid sick leave, a notice period and severance protections on termination, maternity/paternity leave, and continuous ZUS-backed pension accrual regardless of gaps between clients. B2B contractors get none of these by default: no work, no invoice, no income, and any sick leave or holiday comes directly out of billable time. These non-cash benefits aren't reflected in the net-income comparison above, so a lower net UoP figure isn't necessarily a worse deal once you price in the protections.

It automatically picks whichever of the three B2B modes (skala podatkowa, podatek liniowy, or ryczałt) nets the most at your entered gross figure, the same logic as the standalone Poland B2B Calculator. Ryczałt (12% on revenue for software development) usually wins above roughly PLN 13,500 to 14,000 a month; skala tends to win below that. See the full three-way breakdown on the Poland B2B Calculator if you want to compare all three modes individually.

Not always, and not just for the benefits reasons above. B2B income can be lumpy (no client, no invoice), you're responsible for your own accounting and quarterly tax filings, and switching B2B taxation modes mid-year isn't allowed, so a bad mode choice locks in for a full tax year. At lower gross figures the net gap between UoP and B2B is often small enough that the added stability and benefits of UoP outweigh it. Run your own numbers above rather than assuming B2B automatically wins.