Poland seasonal work permit (type S): the employer procedure

The type S permit covers seasonal employment in agriculture, horticulture and tourism for up to nine months in a calendar year, according to the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy. It is issued by the starosta through the district employment office, the powiatowy urzad pracy, and not by the voivode who issues the type A permit. The employer files, not the worker.

Who issues it, and why that distinction matters

Polish work authorisation is split between two authorities. The voivode issues the type A permit, the ordinary permit for work with a Polish employer, and the starosta issues the type S seasonal permit through the district employment office for the county where the employer is seated. The two run on different queues, different registers and different deadlines, so an employer who has filed type A permits for years cannot assume the seasonal file behaves the same way.

The scope of type S is set by sector rather than by job title. The Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy defines the covered activities as agriculture, horticulture and tourism, listed by classification code in a ministerial regulation. A packing role inside a fruit business normally sits inside the list; the same manual work in a metal shop does not, and needs the type A route instead. Where a role cannot be placed in the seasonal classification, the seasonal basis is closed, however genuinely short the season is.

The nine month allowance is counted per calendar year, per worker, and not per permit or per employer. Two successive seasonal permits with two different Polish employers draw on the same annual allowance. An employer planning a June to November season for a worker who already spent four months picking in the spring is planning against months that no longer exist. Track the allowance per worker and ask for the previous season's dates before drafting the contract.

Filing under the 2025 Act, and what it costs

The 2025 Act on the conditions of admissibility of entrusting work to foreigners replaced the rules previously carried in the 2004 Employment Promotion Act, and, as published in the Journal of Laws, moved applications fully electronic. Since that Act, the seasonal application is submitted through praca.gov.pl with a qualified electronic signature or a trusted profile, and the paper counter is no longer the route. Employers whose signature credentials are held by a single person tend to discover this in the week they intended to file.

A statutory application fee applies per worker. It has sat in the PLN 30 class under the fee regulation, and the current figure should be taken from the regulation in force on the filing date rather than from last season's receipt. The fee is paid per application, so a twenty worker season is twenty fees, and a refiling after a withdrawal is charged again.

A labour market test, the informacja starosty, may be required before the permit is granted. According to gov.pl, the test is waived where the occupation appears on the exempt list set by ministerial regulation, and for certain nationalities and categories the seasonal procedure is simplified further. Where the test does apply, the employment office advertises the vacancy and issues its information on the local labour market, and that step sits ahead of the permit decision in the calendar.

The employer duties that outlast the decision

The permit is not the end of the file. The employer must register the worker's actual start of work with the district employment office, and must report changes, including an early end of the employment, within the deadline set by the Act. The registration of the actual start matters twice over: it is the step that converts an entry granted on the strength of the permit into lawful employment on the record, and it is the first thing an inspection asks to see.

The failure mode is mundane and expensive. A horticultural employer receives the permit in April, the worker arrives on 12 May rather than the 2 May named in the application, and nobody notifies the office. The season runs, the National Labour Inspectorate visits in July, and the file shows a worker whose recorded start does not match the payroll. The permit was valid throughout; the breach is in the notification duty, and it is charged to the employer, not to the worker.

The second common error is treating the seasonal permit as convertible. It is not a step towards a longer basis. When the nine months are spent, the worker leaves or moves onto a separate permit obtained on its own terms, with its own decision period. Employers who intend a worker to stay beyond one season should be filing the type A route from the outset, and the mechanics of that route are set out in the Polish type A work permit.

Poland's design is close to its neighbours in shape and different in detail, and the Croatian seasonal permit is the nearest comparison for an employer weighing two corridors for the same harvest. Timelines across destinations are collected in work permit timelines by country.

Type S is a narrow instrument used well by employers who plan the season backwards from the starosta's decision and the informacja starosty rather than forwards from the arrival date. Employer obligations on the seasonal routes are collected on the employers page.