In the first half of this year, business owners in Lower Silesia submitted 3,378 applications to repay their debt in installments. ZUS has already signed agreements with the owners of 2,216 businesses. During the same period, 36,500 applications for installment agreements allowing ZUS debt to be repaid in installments were submitted throughout Poland. During that time, ZUS concluded 24,000 installment agreements worth nearly PLN 1.6 billion. The average debt owed to the institution is approximately PLN 60,000.

“Signing an installment agreement with ZUS allows an entrepreneur to organize their affairs with us and, even though they remain in debt to us, if they pay subsequent debt installments on time, they can obtain a certificate from us confirming that there are no outstanding contribution payments,” says Iwona Kowalska, ZUS spokesperson in Lower Silesia. “This enables them to participate in tenders and apply for public assistance.”

Since the beginning of this year, ZUS has been informing business owners about the status of their accounts and their debt to ZUS. By mid-August, letters had been sent to more than half a million businesses in Poland.

“The letters contained information not only about the amount of the debt, but also about the options for obtaining assistance with its repayment,” the ZUS spokesperson explains.

Entrepreneurs are encouraged to apply for installment agreements by regulations that allow their entire debt to be divided into installments, including overdue contributions for employees. Previously applicable regulations allowed an installment agreement to be concluded only for the entrepreneur’s own debt, and only after the arrears owed by the entrepreneur to employees had first been repaid.

The basic condition for being granted an installment agreement is submitting an application to ZUS and providing the documents necessary to assess the payer’s financial situation. In order to encourage business owners to repay their dues voluntarily, ZUS has reduced the scope of the required documentation.

What must be attached to the application?

  • a statement on family and property status and financial circumstances (forms are available at ZUS offices and on www.zus.pl)
  • documents illustrating the financial condition and payment capacity (e.g. the annual PIT tax return for the most recent year)
  • documents concerning public assistance, if the business is still being operated.

Important: The scope of the documents that should be attached to the application is determined individually, depending on the type of business conducted and the form of taxation.

These are not the only facilities available. To help entrepreneurs repay their dues voluntarily and to streamline the processing of applications for relief or debt cancellation, a catalog and service cards have been made available to contribution payers, including those concerning assistance with repaying dues.

Additionally, since August 1 this year, applications for debt cancellation have been processed by dedicated Debt Cancellation Centers operating in Łódź, Rzeszów and Bielsko-Biała. There are also plans to establish relief centers and centralize the processing of applications there, including applications to repay debt in installments.