Notification of an employee to ZUS - when and how to do it

An entrepreneur not only reports employees for mandatory insurance – there is a whole list detailing who the employer should think about and in what situation. This is because it has to report other people for pension and disability insurance, and others for sickness or accident insurance.

Mandatory notification of pension insurance applies:

the entrepreneur himself – as long as he runs a sole proprietorship or is listed in the registers as a partner in a partnership;
the entrepreneur himself – if he is a partner in a general partnership, partnership or limited partnership, as well as a one-person limited liability company;
employees – employed on a contract of employment;
persons performing contract labor;
Contractors – this group includes people who provide work on the basis of commission agreements, work contracts, as well as contract workers;
Cooperating persons – this set includes the spouse or spouse, own children, children of the spouse or spouse and adopted children, parents, stepmother, stepfather and other adoptees, but only if they meet both conditions at the same time:
- live with the entrepreneur in a joint household;
- Cooperate with the entrepreneur in conducting business.

Important!

All persons that an entrepreneur is required to cover with pension and disability insurance must also be covered with accident insurance.

Mandatory notification of sickness insurance

The obligation to cover sickness insurance applies only to employees who have an employment relationship with the entrepreneur. In other cases, application for sickness insurance is at the discretion of the employer: he can apply for insurance for himself, persons performing contract labor, cooperators or contract workers, but he does not have to do so.

Important!

Registering an employee, cooperator, contractor, etc. for social insurance is the same as registering them for health insurance.

Health insurance

The last type of insurance we will discuss in this chapter is health insurance. According to the table available on the business.gov.pl website, the employer must enroll in health insurance all those it is required to enroll in disability and pension insurance, and therefore:

himself, if he runs a sole proprietorship registered with CEIDG, is a partner in a civil partnership, general partnership, limited partnership, or sole proprietorship of a limited liability company;
persons performing contract work;
Employees;
contractors;
cooperating persons;
family members cooperating in the operation of the business.

Important!

However, in the case of health insurance, one more item must be added to the list: the entrepreneur is also required to cover family members of employees who have no other titles to insurance.

In Polish law, secondary school students and students who have not completed 26. years of age are not subject to social security – this means that if an employer employs such people, he does not have to report them to social security, although of course no law prohibits this.

Depending on which insurance an entrepreneur wants to report an employee for, he or she must choose the appropriate form:

Fill out the ZUS ZUA form if you want to report an employee for full insurance (social and health);
You will need the ZUS ZZA form if you want to cover an employee only with health insurance.

In special cases, when the person you want to report for insurance is on parental leave or receiving maternity benefits, you can show him in the ZUS RCA registered monthly report. The indication of a person in a named report is the same as an application for insurance.

Notification of employees to ZUS online

You can also file ZUA, ZZA forms and RCA report online in two ways:

in the CEIDG portal – however, this option is not available to payers insured through KRUS;
in the Płatnik program or ePłatnik application in the ZUS PUE – ZUS Electronic Services Platform and the Płatnik program make it possible to send the mentioned forms and report an employee to ZUS without visiting offices and standing in lines.

Important!

In 2021, a change was introduced, according to which the ZUS ZUA and ZUS ZZA forms were enriched with an additional field to fill in – the entrepreneur must include in the form the occupation code of the person reported for insurance. You can find a list and search engine of available codes on the Public Employment Service Vortal.

If you’re unsure whether the code you’ve searched for corresponds to an employee’s position, the CPSZ search engine also includes detailed job descriptions and a list of job tasks, which should make it easier for employers to choose the right code.

Insurance code

Another important element of reporting employees to Social Security, are the insurance codes. Each application document should contain such.

List of insurance title codes for employees and associates:

01 10 XX – employees who are subject to the full set of insurance (social and health);
01 20 XX – juvenile workers (who have not reached the age of 18);
02 00 XX – persons performing contract work;
03 10 XX – members of agricultural production cooperatives, cooperative agricultural circles or other cooperatives engaged in agricultural production;
04 11 XX – persons working on the basis of agency, commission or service contracts;
05 11 XX – persons cooperating with persons engaged in non-agricultural economic activity who are covered by health insurance;
05 45 XX – persons cooperating with persons engaged in non-agricultural economic activity who are not covered by health insurance;
05 81 XX – persons cooperating with persons engaged in non-agricultural economic activity, if her maternity benefit does not exceed the amount of parental benefit;
12 11 XX – persons on parental leave;
12 40 XX – people receiving maternity benefits.

Important!

Entrepreneurs and partners in companies have a separate pool of codes at their disposal – these are used when the employer wants to report himself for social and/or health insurance.

The last digits of the codes (denoted by XX) are used to denote entitlement to pension, pension and degree of disability:

information about having the right to a pension is in the fifth digit of the code:
- No right to a person’s pension is denoted by the number 0;
- Pension entitlement – figure 1;
- The right to an annuity – number 2;
information about having a disability certificate is hidden in the sixth digit of the code:
- No ruling – the number 0;
- light degree of disability – the number 1;
- Moderate degree of disability – number 2;
- A significant degree of disability – the number 3.

How much time does an employer have to report an employee to Social Security? As a rule, the obligation to report an employee to the Social Security Administration assumes a maximum deadline of 7 days from the moment the obligation to insure arises, i.e. from the date of commencement of work (not from the date of signing the contract!).

Since it is mandatory to report an employee to the Social Security Administration for insurance, this should be done within the established timeframe. However, it happens that the notification is made after the deadline, and the consequences can hit the employer directly.

If an entrepreneur has failed to report an employee to Social Security on time, he is obliged to correct his mistake as soon as possible and promptly pay the contributions, along with any interest due. Moreover, he faces a fine of up to PLN 5,000.

The rationale for the application of such penalties is that failure to report an employee to insurance is an offense against Art. 98 of the Social Security Law.

However, if the situation is repeated or prolonged, failure to notify the employee may be treated as a crime, for which – in addition to a fine – the dishonest employer faces a penalty of restriction of liberty or even imprisonment for up to 2 years.

When and how to report an employee to Social Security

Mandatory notification of pension insurance applies: