The Employee Pension Plan (Pracowniczy Plan Kapitałowy, PPK) in Poland is a form of professional pension plan with automatic subscription. These are retirement savings in which the employee, the employer and the state participate. Occupational pension insurance for an employee is additional to the mandatory form to increase the size of the future pension. The main conditions of the pension plan are below.

Employee pension plans are universal and voluntary savings for retirement purposes organized by every employer that employs at least one employee subject to mandatory pension and disability insurance.

Conditions for the participation of employees and companies

Employed persons based on an employment contract, agency contract and other contract for the provision of services are automatically enrolled in a professional pension plan.

The program enrolls every employed person aged 18 to 55 with 90 days of work experience. To opt out of the program, you must apply to your employer. Employees over 55 and under 70 years old are enrolled in the program at will, and over 70 years old cannot join this program.

The obligation of pension plans does not apply to micro-entrepreneurs (if all employees submit a waiver to the employer), nor to an individual who employs another individual without connection to their economic activity.

Choosing a Professional Pension Plan

The employer, together with the employees (trade union organization or in agreement with the representative of the employees), selects a financial institution, which then opens an individual account for the pension plan for each employee.

The contract for the management of professional pension savings is selected considering the interests of employees on the basis of an assessment of the conditions for managing pension savings offered by financial institutions: efficiency, experience, and others.

Financing Pension Plan contributions

The pension plan is filled by monthly contributions from the employee and the employer. The base fees are:

• at least 3.5% of wage: 2% from the employee and 1.5% from the employer,
• maximum contributions up to 8% of wages, up to 4% from employee and employer.

A member of the pension plan receives from the state a one-time welcome fee of PLN 250 and an annual fee of PLN 240.

The annual contribution is credited if the contributions of the employee and the employer are at least 25% of the amount equal to 6 times the minimum wage.

If the salary of an employee does not exceed the amount corresponding to 1.2 times the minimum wage, then the employee's contribution may be less than 2% of the salary, but not less than 0.5%.

Conditions for leaving and returning to the Pension Plan

The participant of the pension plan may, in the form of an application, change the number of contributions or refuse to make contributions.

The employee has the right to always return to the pension plan, for which an application is also submitted to the employer.

Using Pension Plan Savings

The funds accumulated in the pension plan are the private property of the member and are inherited.

Retirement plan funds are available when you turn 60 or you retire and turn 55.

Until the age of 60, it is possible to withdraw funds from the pension capital account in case of serious illness or to finance one's own contribution in the case of a mortgage (the latter solution is available up to the age of less than 45 years).

Link to the Pension Plan Programme website

The Employee Retirement Plan is one of the additional savings options along with Individual Retirement Account (IKE), Individual Retirement Insurance (IKZE) and Employee Pension progamme (PPE) savings.

Detailed information about pension plans for employees can be found on the official website mojeppk.pl.