The składka zdrowotna is an income tax under another name
This is the single most important thing to understand about a Polish payslip. Since the Polski Ład reform of 2022, the 9 % health contribution stopped being subtracted from the PIT bill. It is now deducted from nothing: not from the base, not from the tax.
In terms of what reaches your pocket, that makes it a second income tax. And not a small one: for someone on the average Polish salary it weighs MORE than PIT itself — about 8,667 zł a year against 7,596. A calculator that folds it into PIT, or that simply forgets it, is wrong by more than a full percentage point of gross.
Which is why it appears here as an item of its own in the breakdown, rather than hidden inside the tax.
The contribution ceiling splits the curve in two
The pension and disability contributions — emerytalne and rentowe — share an annual ceiling: 282,600 zł in 2026, thirty times the forecast average wage. Cross it and both stop at once, 11.26 percentage points of them.
Above it only chorobowa and zdrowotna continue. Counting the knock-on effect on the PIT base and on the health contribution's own base, the REAL marginal rate drops from 49.1 % to 42.4 %. Poland is one of the few places in Europe where złoty number 300,000 comes out cheaper than number 200,000.
This is the year's tax, not the sum of your payslips
And in Poland those two are not the same, which matters a great deal above the second bracket. Past the 120,000 zł threshold, several payers stop applying the 300 zł monthly kwota zmniejszająca to the withholding, while the annual return does deduct the full 3,600 zł.
The difference comes back when you file. On 30,000 zł a month that is about 2,100 zł: your end-of-year payslip will look thinner than this tool suggests, but the figure here is what you are left with once the return is done.
Where these figures come from
- Scale and kwota zmniejszająca: article 27 of the PIT act. Two rates, 12 % and 32 %, with the step at 120,000 zł and a 30,000 zł kwota wolna applied as a 3,600 zł reduction in tax due.
- Employee contributions: emerytalne 9.76 %, rentowe 1.5 %, chorobowe 2.45 %.
- Contribution ceiling: 282,600 zł, from the Labour Ministry announcement of 19 November 2025 (M.P. 2025 poz. 1206).
- Health: 9 % of gross minus social contributions, articles 79-81.
- Koszty uzyskania przychodu: 250 zł a month, 3,000 a year, article 22.
- Danina solidarnościowa: 4 % above 1,000,000 zł, article 30h.
Verification came in two forms. Against payroll calculators, item by item: on 9,300 zł a month the result is emerytalna 907.68, rentowa 139.50, chorobowa 227.85, zdrowotna 722.25 and PIT 633.00, leaving 6,669.72 zł net. And against a purpose-built simulator walking all twelve months accumulating bases, on a salary that crosses both the bracket AND the ceiling: the contributions match to the cent.
What this calculator does not include
- Ulga dla młodych: anyone under 26 pays no PIT on the first 85,528 zł. It depends on age, which this tool does not ask for.
- Ulga na dzieci when there is just ONE child. With two or more there is no income limit and it is modelled in full; with one, the law ties it to the couple's joint income, and only one salary is known here. It is left out, so the result falls short rather than over.
- PIT-0 dla rodzin 4+, which exempts 85,528 zł per parent from the fourth child on.
- Zwrot niewykorzystanej ulgi: the part of ulga na dzieci that does not fit inside the tax due is refunded. Here the tax simply stops at zero.
- The higher KUP for people commuting from another town, and the 50 % for copyright income.
- PPK, which is 2 % of gross by default but which a majority opt out of.
Last updated: October 8, 2026