Monday, 8:15. An HR manager at a logistics company near Poznań gets one sentence from the operations director: "Twelve workers from Nepal arrive next month. Sort it out." She already runs recruitment, contracts and payroll. She has heard of praca.gov.pl but has never filed anything there. So the question every HR team asks comes up: do it in-house or hand it over? In other words: what does outsourcing foreign worker legalization in Poland actually cost a company, and what does skipping it cost?
Below are the official numbers (as of October 2026), a split between what you pay the office and what a partner can take over, and a simple way to check whether outsourcing pays off for you.
What do you pay the office before you pay anyone else?
Start with the costs you cannot avoid, whether HR or an outside partner files the application. Since 1 June 2025 the Act of 20 March 2025 on the conditions for entrusting work to foreigners applies, and applications are filed only electronically through praca.gov.pl. Since 1 December 2025 new fees apply:
- work permit for up to 3 months – PLN 200;
- work permit for more than 3 months – PLN 400;
- entry of an oświadczenie (declaration of entrusting work) into the register – PLN 400 (previously PLN 100);
- posting a foreigner to Poland – PLN 800.
Source: the notice on zielonalinia.gov.pl and the Ordinance of the Minister of Family, Labour and Social Policy of 20 November 2025. The work permit fee is non-refundable, so a wrong or rejected application is a real loss, not just lost time.
The worker's own residence card is a separate matter. For a single permit for temporary residence and work, the state fees are PLN 440 when filing and PLN 100 for issuing the card. The foreigner normally pays them, but many companies agree with the employee who covers this – put it in writing.
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What really costs a company money: fees or mistakes?
The fees are countable and small next to what a mistake does. The Act sets fines for illegally entrusting work to a foreigner: PLN 3,000 to PLN 50,000. If you cause a foreigner to work illegally by deceiving them or exploiting their misunderstanding of the situation, the range is PLN 6,000 to PLN 50,000. A foreigner who works illegally can be fined from PLN 1,000.
Indirect costs count too: a worker who cannot legally start leaves a post empty, and recruitment and training start again. We covered this more broadly in Hiring Workers from India, Nepal, Philippines in Poland (2026).
The mistakes we see most often when companies do everything themselves:
- the wrong route (a declaration where a work permit is needed);
- an application with formal gaps that is returned or rejected – together with the non-refundable fee;
- a missed notice to the starosta after a declaration is registered: 7 days from the start of work if the person starts, 14 days from the start date in the register if they do not;
- a change of employer, position or conditions without updating the documents.
Who can use the simplified declaration and who needs a permit is a separate question – the list of nationalities covered by the declaration is narrow and has changed in recent months, so always check the current status at gov.pl/web/cudzoziemcy. We explain the Pakistani case in Oświadczenie vs Work Permit for Pakistani Workers.
Practical tip: before filing the first application, write down three things for every worker – citizenship, planned period of work and position. These three facts decide which route is even possible and how much you will pay.
What can an outside partner take over, and what stays with you?
Outsourcing does not mean you stop being the employer. It means someone who does this every day prepares and monitors the formalities, and you make the decisions. In practice a partner can take over:
- choosing the right route for each worker (declaration, work permit, single permit for residence and work);
- preparing and filing the application through praca.gov.pl and assembling the attachments;
- communicating with the office and answering requests to fix deficiencies;
- a deadline calendar – notices to the starosta, document validity, repeat applications;
- supporting the worker with the residence card and with a change of employer.
What stays with you: the hiring decision, the contract, pay that meets the rules, and the employer's signature. Responsibility for the legality of employment also stays with the company. Legal Solutions is not a law firm of advocates – we help, prepare documents and accompany you through the procedure, but we do not represent anyone in court.
How do you work out whether outsourcing pays off?
We do not publish a price list on the blog – the price depends on the number of people, their nationalities and the route, so an honest quote needs a short conversation. You can still test it yourself. Answer four questions:
- How many people do you legalize per year, and is it a one-off wave or a steady flow?
- How many workers are on different routes (some on a declaration, some on a permit)? More variants mean more room for error.
- How many hours does one set of documents take HR, including corrections? Multiply by the hourly cost of that person.
- What does one week of delay in a worker's start cost you?
If you hire one foreigner and have an experienced HR specialist, you can do it yourself. If you bring in a dozen workers from several countries and also handle turnover, outsourcing usually stops being an extra expense and becomes insurance against errors.
An illustrative example (a composite, not a real client): a manufacturer in Wielkopolska, 12 workers from Nepal and India. There were twelve applications but three routes, because some people already held valid permits from a previous employer. A first check showed two of them needed a different permit than first assumed – a correction before filing instead of a rejection weeks later.
Workers who switch companies need their own deadline tracking – see Foreigner Changing Employer in Poland: what the company must do.
Hiring foreign workers and want every deadline covered? Legal Solutions — 98% approval rate. See our employer page at legalsol.pl/b2b or drop us a WhatsApp on +48 735 248 525 — we read every message.