PIP 2026 and the IT industry, why developers are in the highest-risk zone

PIP 2026 and the IT industry, why developers are in the highest-risk zone

Why the IT industry specifically is in the highest-risk zone

IT carries more risk than other industries not because the law was written specifically for developers, but because the typical way IT work is organized almost perfectly matches all four criteria of an employment relationship under Article 22 § 1 of the Labor Code (Kodeks pracy, hereafter the Labor Code) at once⁵.

Compare this with other sectors. A bookkeeper on a JDG traditionally handles the books for several small companies at once, as shown by the Hanna example in the series article “Who risks losing B2B status after the PIP 2026 reform“. For a developer on a JDG, the typical picture is different: one product client for a year or several years, a fixed sprint, a daily standup, the same invoice amount every month regardless of how many tasks got closed. This is exactly the combination a PIP inspector is trained to spot first.

Risk for IT isn’t created by the industry’s name in the law, but by the fact that everyday IT practice reproduces all four criteria of an employment relationship, day after day, at the same time.

Below we break down five details specific to IT contractors that aren’t covered in the general seven-sign checklist from the series article “7 signs your B2B contract is disguised employment“: KSeF as a source of automatic profiling, scrum rituals as evidence of direction, remote work as a false defense argument, payment through foreign payment platforms, and an extra layer of risk for the residence card.

What KSeF sees in your invoices before PIP even shows up

KSeF sees the structure of your invoices automatically, and for most JDGs this kicks in before the new PIP law does. KSeF is Poland’s mandatory national system for issuing structured electronic invoices.

The obligation to issue invoices through KSeF is being phased in: from 1 February 2026 for companies with 2024 revenue above PLN 200 million, from 1 April 2026 for the rest of VAT payers, including the vast majority of JDGs in IT¹. The obligation to receive invoices through KSeF applies to everyone from 1 February 2026, with only micro-businesses earning up to PLN 10,000 a month getting a deferral until 1 January 2027¹. For a typical developer invoicing PLN 15,000 to 25,000 a month, mandatory KSeF applies from at least 1 April 2026, three months before PIP gets its new powers.

The practical consequence: KSeF automatically shows a contractor’s number of counterparties, the stability of amounts, how repetitive the service descriptions are, and what share of turnover comes from a single buyer. An expert Deloitte training session for B2B/PIP practitioners explicitly names KSeF as a new source of profiling for inspections: stable monthly invoices to a single buyer with an identical service description create a risk signal before an inspector has even seen the actual contract⁶. This isn’t a standalone basis for a PIP decision, that always rests on the actual working conditions under Article 22 § 1 of the Labor Code, not on KSeF data by itself, but it’s a source of the first signal for the ZUS-PIP-KAS system on who to check⁷.

Example. Roman has been invoicing PLN 18,000 a month for three years to the same client, and the service description on every invoice is identical: “Software development services under the agreement.” From April 2026, this invoice automatically passes through KSeF. Does that alone create grounds for an inspection?

Partly. Simply having an invoice in KSeF doesn’t decide anything by itself: a reclassification decision always rests on the actual working conditions. But the same amount, the same description, and one buyer month after month is exactly the data pattern the PIP-ZUS-KAS analytical system is trained to push up the inspection priority list.

Sprint review and daily stand-up, when a scrum ritual becomes evidence

Agile and scrum rituals, specifically the daily stand-up and sprint review, aren’t a neutral working methodology in a PIP inspector’s eyes: when they involve assessing an individual contractor’s personal contribution, that’s additional evidence of the client’s ongoing direction under Article 22 § 1 of the Labor Code.

The difference lies in exactly what happens during the meeting. An analysis of the Article 22 § 1 criteria explicitly names the daily stand-up and sprint review with individual-contribution assessment as a moderate-risk factor, separate from the question of a fixed schedule or office⁸. The reasoning is simple: a daily standup where a team lead asks “what did you do yesterday, what are you planning today, are there any blockers” is a form of ongoing, day-by-day supervision of how the work gets done, not a one-off project brief.

Example 1. Dmytro works under a scrum methodology with a fixed two-week sprint. Every day at 10:00 he reports his task status in Jira to the client’s team lead at the standup, and at sprint review the team lead assesses how many tasks Dmytro personally closed and whether he met the time estimate. Is this additional evidence of subordination?

Yes. A personal assessment of contribution at sprint review, plus daily reporting on task status, is ongoing supervision of how the work gets done, characteristic of an employment relationship, not an assessment of the project’s overall outcome.

Example 2. Olena also works on a team using scrum, takes part in sprint planning and in a demo of results to the client every two weeks, but only the team’s result is assessed, whether the team closed the committed scope, with no personal ranking of team members and no mandatory daily report addressed to her specifically. Does Olena carry risk from this feature?

No. Participating in team Agile ceremonies by itself doesn’t create subordination when the team’s result is assessed rather than personal control over a specific individual’s actions day by day.

The line isn’t between “works with scrum” and “doesn’t work with scrum,” it’s between team coordination of a result and personal control of a process. The same standup that looks neutral for a team made up of full-time employees and a freelancer contractor with five clients becomes one more brick in the picture of an employment relationship for a single-client contractor with a personal assessment at sprint review.

Does remote work protect against reclassification

No, remote work by itself doesn’t exempt you from reclassification risk. This is one of the most common false arguments we hear from clients, which is exactly why it’s worth addressing directly.

The third criterion under Article 22 § 1 of the Labor Code is “a place designated by the client.” A developer’s home office is legally just as much a place designated by the client if the attendance schedule stays fixed and the work is tied to specific hours every day³. An analysis of a typical IT case with a foreign client explicitly calls working from home a “neutral” factor: it doesn’t automatically add risk the way working at the client’s office does, but it also doesn’t remove the risk from the other three criteria when they’re present³. The formula “I work remotely, so I’m definitely not an employee” simply doesn’t hold up legally.

Example. Ostap has worked from home in Kraków for one company based in Warsaw for two years. He has no access to the client’s office and no company laptop, he works on his own equipment. But every day at 9:00 he has to be online on Slack, at 9:15 there’s a mandatory video standup, until 18:00 he has to stay available for messages from the team lead, and he has to arrange time off in advance through the client’s HR system. Does remote work protect Ostap from reclassification risk?

No. Physical absence from an office doesn’t matter when there are fixed hours of online presence, mandatory daily contact with a manager, and a leave-approval procedure that mirrors the one used for full-time employees.

What actually lowers risk isn’t the physical work location, it’s the freedom to choose your hours and reporting format. When a contractor decides for themselves when during the day to complete a task, and reports only the finished result rather than online presence at a set time, the risk from this criterion is substantially lower regardless of whether they work from home or a coworking space.

Does paying through Deel or a similar hub change PIP’s jurisdiction

No, being paid through Deel, Remote, Wise, or any other payment hub, invoicing in EUR or USD, and even the client being registered in Cyprus, the UK, or the US, don’t rule out the jurisdiction of a Polish PIP inspector if the work is physically performed on Polish territory.

This is the most common model among Ukrainian IT specialists in Poland: a developer with a residence card and a JDG in Poland, and a client that’s an employment platform like Deel or the client’s own foreign company. Two independent legal mechanisms are at work here at the same time.

First, a foundational principle of European conflict-of-laws rules: Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 “Rome I” provides that for an employment contract, the mandatory protective rules of the country where the employee actually and habitually performs the work apply regardless of what law the parties chose in the contract⁴. This rule works at the level of the actual substance of the relationship, not the name of the contract: a court or inspector independently assesses whether the relationship is, in substance, employment, in the same way Article 22 § 1 of the Labor Code does. So even if a Deel contract is written under English or Cypriot law, and is formally a “services agreement,” Polish labor law applies to the actual working conditions if the contractor physically performs the work in Poland.

Second, the expanded Article 13 of the PIP Act lets an inspector check a JDG regardless of where the client is registered⁷. If a foreign client has no Polish office, PIP checks the contractor directly, and requests legal assistance from a foreign authority if needed.

Example. Mariana is registered as a JDG in Poland, works from Gdańsk, and her client, an American product company, pays her a fixed monthly amount in USD through Deel. The Deel contract is governed by Delaware law. Mariana has fixed working hours from 14:00 to 22:00 (to overlap with the US team’s working day), reports to a manager daily, and has no other clients. Does the Polish PIP have jurisdiction here despite the foreign client, the foreign governing law, and payment in dollars?

Yes. Mariana’s work is physically performed in Poland, which is the decisive factor under the Rome I principle. Invoice currency, the payment intermediary, and the law chosen in the contract don’t change the applicability of Polish labor law to the actual working conditions.

Contrast this with Taras, also on a JDG in Poland, who’s also paid through Deel, but by three different product teams at once, paid for completed project milestones, and none of the teams impose fixed presence hours on him. Here the risk is substantially lower regardless of the payment intermediary: it’s having multiple clients and being paid for results, not the payout platform, that shape the picture.

Invoice currency, the payment platform, and the law chosen in the contract don’t change the Polish inspector’s jurisdiction: what matters is the physical place where the work is performed.

Residence card on a JDG adds an extra layer of risk typical for IT specifically

Ukrainian IT specialists hold a residence card (karta pobytu, the document granting the right to stay in Poland) based on running a JDG more often than other professions do, because this scheme has historically been the simplest way to get legalized for a solo developer with a foreign client, without needing to find a Polish employer for a work permit.

This creates an extra layer of risk, discussed in detail in the series article “Who risks losing B2B status after the PIP 2026 reform“: if the residence card was issued on the basis of running a business, and a PIP inspector finds an actual employment relationship, what’s called into question is the very basis for legal stay, not just the money. Formal JDG registration in CEIDG (the Polish register of entrepreneurs) survives a PIP decision, but the voivode checks, when renewing the card, whether the JDG actually functions as an independent business⁹.

For an IT specialist with a single foreign client through a payment platform like Deel, these two risks stack up at the same time: the client’s foreign registration and payment in a foreign currency protect neither against reclassification of the contract itself under Polish labor law, nor against the consequences for a residence card based on a JDG. We’re preparing a full, step-by-step breakdown of exactly what happens to the residence card at each stage of the PIP procedure in a separate series article, “JDG-based residence card and PIP 2026: what happens to your stay.”

Does a PIP decision automatically trigger back-payments for past years

No, and this is where it’s easiest to get confused: a PIP decision and ZUS arrears for past years are two separate mechanisms with different timing logic.

An administrative decision by a district labor inspector establishing an employment relationship (Article 33a of the PIP Act) takes effect on its own from the date of the decision or the date the inspection started, not automatically from the date the contract was signed years earlier¹⁰. But ZUS arrears aren’t limited to that same period: the statute of limitations for ZUS claims is 5 years and runs separately, under the rules of the Social Insurance System Act, regardless of when PIP issued its decision¹¹. And if, alongside the decision, PIP files a lawsuit to establish an employment relationship for a specific period (Article 33a(6) of the PIP Act), that lawsuit can reach further back than the date the inspection started¹².

The practical takeaway: even if the administrative decision technically “doesn’t apply retroactively,” ZUS arrears for earlier periods can still arise within the five-year statute of limitations through a separate assessment mechanism. This is exactly the nuance that most often gets oversimplified into “a PIP decision has no retroactive effect, so nothing threatens the past,” when in reality it does, just through a different channel.

What an IT contractor on a JDG should do this week

1. Calculate what share of your income has come from a single client over the last 12 months. If it’s above 80%, that’s already a risk signal regardless of how the client is registered or what currency they pay in⁵.
2. Check whether your presence at the daily stand-up and sprint review involves a personal assessment of contribution, or just a team result. If there’s a personal ranking or a daily report addressed to you specifically, note it as a risk factor.
3. Check who actually determines your working hours, not just what the contract says. Mandatory online presence at set hours, even from home, counts as a sign of subordination.
4. If your client is foreign and pays through Deel or a similar platform, don’t treat that as protection. Check the contract against the same four criteria under Article 22 § 1 of the Labor Code as you would for a Polish client.
5. Check whether your invoice already goes through KSeF from April 2026, and whether the same amount and service description repeat month after month. If so, consider whether payment can be tied to milestones or results instead of a fixed monthly amount.
6. If your residence card was issued on the basis of your JDG, check this risk separately from the financial one, with a lawyer who knows both labor law and foreigners’ law at once.
7. Consider applying for an individual interpretation from the Chief Labour Inspector (GIP) after 8 July 2026, if after the audit your cooperation model looks properly structured: describing your actual work situation, a PLN 40 fee, a response within 30 days, and it protects you from sanctions if you followed the interpretation you received¹³.

Frequently asked questions

Do the new PIP rules only apply to contracts with Polish clients?

No. If the work is physically performed in Poland, Polish labor law applies regardless of where the client is registered, what law governs the contract, or what currency the payment is made in⁴.

Is working remotely enough to avoid reclassification risk?

No. Remote work removes only one of the four criteria of an employment relationship, the workplace, and only when the schedule is genuinely flexible. Fixed hours of online presence and mandatory daily reporting remain signs of subordination regardless of where the contractor physically sits.

Is scrum or the Agile methodology by itself evidence of an employment relationship?

No. The risk isn’t created by the methodology itself, but by a personal, rather than team-based, assessment of a specific contractor’s contribution at regular ceremonies like sprint review, combined with other signs of subordination.

Does KSeF directly influence a PIP decision on reclassification?

There’s no direct link: KSeF doesn’t make legal decisions, and a decision on an employment relationship always rests on the actual working conditions under Article 22 § 1 of the Labor Code. But KSeF data on stable invoices to a single buyer is a practical signal that the PIP-ZUS-KAS analytical system uses to decide who to check first⁶.

I have a foreign client through Deel and a residence card based on a JDG. Where should I start checking?

Start with a self-assessment against the four criteria under Article 22 § 1 of the Labor Code, regardless of the client being foreign: a single client, subordination, fixed time and place, and pay for the mere fact of working. If you recognize yourself in the high-risk profile from the series article “Who risks losing B2B status after the PIP 2026 reform,” check the impact on your residence card separately, because financial and immigration risk are counted differently here.

How much time do I have to fix the situation without a penalty?

The one-year window for voluntarily switching to an employment contract without a penalty for the sheer fact of past misclassification runs until 8 July 2027. This window doesn’t cover ZUS arrears for earlier periods, so checking your situation earlier always pays off, more in the series’ pillar article.

What to do with this information

The specifics of IT, a single foreign client through a payment platform, scrum reporting, a residence card based on a JDG, mean the general seven-sign checklist is worth checking with these details in mind, not in the abstract. MojaFirma offers two formats depending on your situation.

If you work through your own JDG as a developer or IT specialist. The basic format is the online B2B audit: you fill out a questionnaire that accounts for IT specifics (client, payment platform, scrum reporting format, basis of your residence card), and within 48 hours you receive a report with a risk category and three priority recommendations.

If you own or run HR at an IT company or software house with several B2B contractors. Systemic risk requires a bigger format, the B2B operating model audit, which reviews contracts, invoices and KSeF, internal communication on Slack and Jira, HR processes, and the structure of scrum teams all at once, rather than a single contract in isolation.

Sources

1. Act of 11 March 2025 amending the Act on Tax on Goods and Services and certain other acts, Journal of Laws 2025 item 1203 (mandatory KSeF deadlines); Ministry of Finance, National Revenue Administration, announcement “Mandatory KSeF”; National e-Invoicing System, KSeF 2.0 Handbook
2. Kodeks pracy (Polish Labor Code), Art. 22 § 1 (employer’s direction, ongoing supervision of work performance)
3. Kodeks pracy (Polish Labor Code), Art. 22 § 1 (place designated by the employer, remote work as a neutral factor when other subordination features are present)
4. Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 June 2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I), Art. 8
5. Kodeks pracy (Polish Labor Code), Art. 22 § 1
6. Deloitte, expert-practitioner training “How to cooperate on a B2B basis in light of the PIP reform and the introduction of KSeF,” 12 May 2026 (practical source material, not a legal act)
7. Act of 11 March 2026 amending the Act on the National Labour Inspectorate and certain other acts, Journal of Laws 2026 item 473, Art. 1 (expanded Art. 13 of the PIP Act)
8. Kodeks pracy (Polish Labor Code), Art. 22 § 1 (substantive and organizational subordination, regular monitoring of work progress)
9. Journal of Laws 2026 item 473, Art. 8 (amendment to the act on the conditions for permitting foreigners to work)
10. Journal of Laws 2026 item 473, Art. 1 pt 2 (new Art. 33a and Art. 34 of the PIP Act)
11. Act on the social insurance system, Journal of Laws 2026 item 199, Art. 24(4) and (5h) (added by Journal of Laws 2026 item 473, Art. 5)
12. Journal of Laws 2026 item 473, Art. 1 pt 2 (new Art. 33a(6) of the PIP Act)
13. Journal of Laws 2026 item 473, Art. 1 pt 2 (new Art. 14b of the PIP Act, individual interpretations by the Chief Labour Inspector)

This article is not legal advice. Every situation is individual and depends on the specific contract and circumstances. Author: Valerii Kushnirskyi, in-house legal practitioner at MojaFirma.