On-Call Coverage Under Polish Mandate Contracts: When an IT Service Arrangement Starts to Look Like Employment

On-Call Coverage Under Polish Mandate Contracts: When an IT Service Arrangement Starts to Look Like Employment

“We encourage it, but we do not force anyone. Nevertheless, anyone who opts out will receive a lower performance rating.”

That sentence in an internal email can expose a company to five years of backdated Polish social insurance contributions. Under Article 22 of Poland’s Labour Code, it looks like a managerial instruction backed by a sanction, even if nobody calls it one.

If you manage an IT systems maintenance team in Poland and are considering adding on-call coverage to mandate contracts (umowy zlecenia), pause before drafting the clause. The first question is whether requiring someone to remain available by phone still fits a civil-law contract—or whether the arrangement, as performed, has become employment.

Since July 8, 2026, Poland’s National Labour Inspectorate (Państwowa Inspekcja Pracy, or PIP) has had new tools, including a two-stage procedure and higher fines. In the first month after the reform took effect, PIP received 690 complaints about the improper use of civil-law contracts (PIP figures). A poorly designed on-call arrangement can give an inspector three indicators of employment at once.

The practical decision comes before the drafting: determine how coverage will actually work, then choose the appropriate form of engagement. A well-worded clause cannot cure a schedule imposed by a manager, a refusal that harms someone’s prospects, or a ban on substitutes.

The Polish legal concepts behind on-call coverage

Polish employment-law on-call duty and paid availability under a civil-law contract sound similar, but they are different arrangements.

The distinction is not a prohibition on paid availability under a mandate contract. The parties can agree to that service. The risk lies in organizing it so that, in practice, the contractor works under the principal’s direction like an employee.

Why adding on-call hours changes the classification risk

Telephone availability is not always a neutral addition to a scope of services. It can introduce three features associated with employment under Article 22 § 1 of the Labour Code:

1. Designated hours. The contractor must be available during specified windows—for example, 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m. on working days and throughout non-working days.
2. A schedule controlled by someone else. Someone decides who covers each window. If the principal imposes that decision, it points toward managerial control.
3. A continuing duty to remain available. The contractor cannot use the time freely because they must respond to incidents.

The Polish Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that classification depends on the actual substance and performance of the arrangement, not the contract’s title, including in judgments I PK 182/07 and I PK 189/18. Article 22 § 1¹ of the Labour Code likewise makes the label irrelevant where the conditions amount to employment.

Six questions to answer before drafting

If most answers show the principal controlling the arrangement, do not treat drafting as the solution. Where the principal imposes the schedule, coverage is effectively compulsory and substitutes are excluded, changing the contract text will not change the practices an inspector examines.

Four clauses that can become evidence against the company

1. An open-ended scope of work

Problem wording: “Assigned programming and technology work and other activities assigned by the Principal.”

The wording may be intended to preserve flexibility. It also lets the principal decide unilaterally what further work belongs within the contractor’s duties, supporting an argument that the person performs a defined type of work under direction.

Better approach: Specify the systems, ticket categories, response times and activities covered. Provide for any expansion through an amendment or a separate assignment.

2. A schedule imposed by a coordinator

Problem practice: A team coordinator or project manager sets the on-call rota.

Unilaterally determining when services must be provided is an indicator of subordination under Article 22 § 1 of the Labour Code.

Better approach: Have the team prepare the schedule and submit it to the principal for formal approval. Keep evidence of the process, such as emails, messages or a version-controlled schedule. The process must be real, not merely described that way in the contract.

3. “Voluntary” coverage with consequences for refusal

Problem wording and practice: “We encourage it, but we do not force anyone”—while refusing a slot leads to a lower performance rating or non-renewal.

Voluntariness must be verifiable. If nobody can identify a person who refused without adverse consequences, the clause offers little protection. The arrangement resembles an instruction backed by a sanction.

Better approach: Separate refusal of a proposed on-call slot from personnel consequences. For a ticket already accepted, the source recommends a contractual penalty under Article 483 of the Civil Code for failure to respond. That is a civil-law mechanism for protecting the agreed service level agreement (SLA), rather than a penalty for declining to participate in the first place.

4. Employment-style premiums and terminology

Problem wording: A “150% allowance” for night hours or public holidays, framed like an overtime supplement.

Overtime terminology does not apply to a mandate contract. Using it may suggest that the parties themselves conceived of the arrangement in employment-law terms.

Better approach: State an “increased rate” justified by the inconvenience of providing services at night or on non-working days, without invoking overtime rules or copying Labour Code multipliers.

If you already have a draft, contact us for a review of the on-call clause and the practices behind it.

Pricing availability: the unresolved minimum-rate question

A common pricing mistake is to pay only a small fraction of the minimum hourly rate for availability because no ticket may arrive. The 2026 minimum hourly rate is PLN 31.40 gross (Council of Ministers regulation).

Article 8a(1) of the Minimum Wage Act requires at least the minimum rate for each hour of performing a mandate or providing services. The Act does not expressly say whether passively waiting for a request counts as such an hour. The approved source identifies no Supreme Court judgment or PIP position conclusively resolving that point.

The case for applying the minimum is stronger when the contractor must be available during fixed hours and remain at the principal’s ongoing disposal—the typical on-call arrangement. The safer interpretation is therefore to treat each hour of availability as an hour of service and pay at least PLN 31.40 gross for it. Under that interpretation, a higher rate for responding to incidents does not make up for an underpaid availability hour: the minimum is assessed hour by hour, not against the contract-wide average.

The contract should address three separate billing questions:

A Jira or ServiceNow log can form part of that method, but the contract should describe it expressly and the records should cover both on-call blocks and individual incident work.

The fine for paying below the minimum hourly rate is PLN 1,000–30,000 under Article 8e of the Minimum Wage Act (PIP explanation). It may arise alongside a fine for using a civil-law contract where an employment contract should have been used.

PIP inspections after the July 2026 reform

Since July 8, 2026, an inspector need not begin by bringing a claim before a labor court. The procedure described in the approved source has two stages:

1. The inspector issues a written instruction to remedy the breach, calling for an employment contract.
2. If it is not followed, the inspector can apply to the district labor inspector for an administrative decision confirming an employment relationship, or bring a claim before the labor court.

An administrative decision can be appealed to the labor court (government explanation).

In 2025, PIP inspected 48,677 civil-law contracts and challenged 2,119 of them—approximately 4.35%. Inspectors brought 18 claims to establish employment relationships for 35 people (PIP’s 2025 report). Between July 8 and August 6, 2026, PIP also recorded 201 cases in which contracts were voluntarily changed before an inspection ended (PIP figures).

The reform can also affect B2B arrangements that, in substance, meet the employment test. PIP has said that changing civil-law contracts will not be a “routine measure”, but it now has the procedure to pursue a change.

Retroactive exposure: what to include in the calculation

Reclassification can create liabilities for past periods, not only change the arrangement going forward. The source identifies these principal time horizons:

Sources: Social Insurance System Act and Labour Code.

Students under 26: a particular contribution risk

The social insurance exemption for a student under 26 is tied to engagement under a mandate contract, under Article 6(4) of the Social Insurance System Act. Employment is subject to compulsory insurance regardless of student status (ZUS guide to civil-law contracts).

If a student’s mandate contract is reclassified as employment, the source identifies four consequences:

1. The contribution exemption ceases to apply.
2. Pension and disability contributions must be calculated for the relevant engagement period, with interest from each payment deadline.
3. The contribution payer is liable to ZUS for the full contributions.
4. ZUS registrations and declarations must be corrected for the period concerned.

A first-pass exposure model is number of people × monthly contract value × duration of the arrangement, followed by a calculation of the applicable contributions and interest. For example, with 10 students each paid PLN 5,000 per month for two years, the source estimates that contribution exposure alone, before interest, could reach hundreds of thousands of zlotys.

Corporate groups: who contracts, directs and receives the work?

Under Article 8(2a) of the Social Insurance System Act, a person performing a mandate for the benefit of their own employer is treated as an employee for contribution purposes. The issue becomes particularly important when a person is employed by one group company, has a mandate contract with another, and receives actual on-call instructions from an entity that is not party to that mandate contract.

A mismatch between the contracting entity and the entity receiving the service is a separate employment-law and transfer-pricing risk. The source cites a PLN 2,000,000 transaction-value threshold in a tax year for transfer-pricing documentation under Article 11k(2)(3) of the Corporate Income Tax Act.

Why one contract model rarely fits the whole maintenance team

An IT maintenance team may include students on mandate contracts, independent B2B specialists and employees. Applying the same on-call template to everyone ignores material differences in how they work.

One cost result can be counterintuitive: an employment contract with home on-call duty can cost less than a mandate contract requiring paid availability. Under the home on-call rule in Article 151⁵ of the Labour Code, no separate pay or time off is due for availability alone when no work is performed; actual work must be compensated. Under a mandate contract, availability is a service that must be priced—and the safer interpretation discussed above applies the minimum hourly rate to it.

Compare both the ongoing cost of each workable model and the past-period exposure if an existing civil-law arrangement is reclassified. The least expensive clause on paper is not necessarily the least expensive arrangement.

Digital oversight and the platform-work directive

Directive (EU) 2024/2831 of October 23, 2024 introduces a rebuttable presumption of an employment relationship for people working through digital labor platforms. In August 2026, Poland’s Ministry of Family and Social Policy reported that a draft implementing act was being prepared for public consultation.

The directive concerns platform work, not every IT B2B contract. Its implementation may nevertheless increase attention to algorithmic control and digital monitoring as evidence in classification disputes. A ticketing system that automatically assigns incidents, measures response times and generates performance reports can provide evidence about who actually controls the work.

Separately from that directive, Article 22 § 1, § 1¹ and § 1² of the Labour Code already require an assessment of the real conditions of engagement rather than its contractual name.

A 12-step implementation checklist

Follow the sequence: assess the actual arrangement before changing the contract.

1. Run the six-question decision test. Decide whether paid availability can realistically remain within a mandate arrangement.
2. Map contribution exposure. Identify students, people concurrently employed within the group, and differences between the contracting party and the actual recipient of services.
3. Remove open-ended instructions. Delete wording such as “other activities assigned by the Principal.”
4. Define the coverage precisely. List systems, ticket classes, response times and whether the scope covers incidents, maintenance windows or both.
5. Move schedule preparation to the team. Document how the team prepares it and submits it for approval.
6. Make refusal genuinely neutral. Do not connect declining a proposed slot to ratings or renewal decisions.
7. Address accepted work contractually. Instead of personnel sanctions for refusal, consider the source’s proposed Article 483 Civil Code penalty for failing to respond to an accepted ticket.
8. Price availability conservatively. Apply at least PLN 31.40 gross per hour in 2026 if following the safer interpretation of Article 8a.
9. Separate availability from incident work. Specify both rates and what happens when the hours overlap.
10. Describe the hours-confirmation method. Ensure the ticketing records capture availability blocks and reactive work, as contemplated by Article 8b.
11. Provide for genuine substitution. Address the contractor’s ability to arrange a competent substitute under Article 738 of the Civil Code.
12. Remove employment-style rate labels. Use an “increased rate,” where justified, rather than an overtime-style “150% allowance.”

How we can help

A revised clause is insufficient if the team continues to work in the same way. An inspection examines who sets the schedule, who gives instructions and what actually happens when someone declines coverage.

We work with IT and SaaS companies at three levels:

1. Clause and template review: assess the proposed on-call wording against the checklist, identify problematic provisions and revise the template.
2. Practice audit and separate templates: review schedules, communications and refusals; estimate retroactive exposure; and prepare appropriate mandate, employment and B2B documents with a scheduling procedure.
3. Maintenance-team engagement model: separate the appropriate engagement paths, compare ongoing costs, prepare supporting records and train team leaders and HR teams on how on-call arrangements are communicated and managed.

We combine Polish employment-law analysis with the operational realities of on-call IT coverage, ticketing systems and SRE teams. Contact us to review which parts of your model need a better clause—and which require a different basis of engagement.

Frequently asked questions

Is paid on-call availability under a mandate contract prohibited?

No. The parties may agree to paid availability under freedom of contract in Article 353¹ of the Civil Code. But if the principal imposes the schedule, refusal carries adverse consequences and substitutes are excluded, the arrangement may have the characteristics of employment under Article 22 § 1 of the Labour Code. A clause alone will not remove that risk.

How much should we pay for an hour of waiting by the phone?

The safer interpretation in the source is at least PLN 31.40 gross per hour in 2026. Article 8a of the Minimum Wage Act does not expressly resolve whether passive waiting counts as an hour of providing services. The argument for applying the minimum is stronger when availability is required during fixed hours. On that interpretation, the minimum applies to each hour separately, not to an average across availability and incident work.

Is home on-call duty under an employment contract necessarily more expensive?

Not necessarily. Under Article 151⁵ § 3 of the Labour Code, home on-call time without actual work carries no separate payment or time off under the statutory rule; work actually performed must be compensated. Compare the full current cost of employment and mandate options, as well as the potential cost of reclassifying an existing arrangement.

What can happen if PIP challenges the contracts?

Since July 8, 2026, the fine for using a civil-law contract instead of an employment contract is PLN 2,000–60,000 under Article 281 § 1(1) of the Labour Code. Paying below the minimum hourly rate can trigger a separate PLN 1,000–30,000 fine under Article 8e of the Minimum Wage Act. Depending on the circumstances, the company may also face overdue ZUS contributions with interest and employee claims for past periods.

Will a Jira or ServiceNow ticket log suffice to confirm hours?

It can, if the contract expressly specifies the method for confirming hours under Article 8b of the Minimum Wage Act and the records cover both scheduled availability and time spent responding to individual tickets.

What should we do about students under 26 who provide coverage under mandate contracts?

Check whether their ability to decline coverage and arrange substitutes is genuine. The student social insurance exemption applies to mandate engagement, not employment. If an arrangement is reclassified, contributions and interest may be due for the relevant past period, and ZUS filings will need correction. Where the actual work is subordinate, change the engagement model before the exposure grows.