The whole truth about pensions from ZUS. Half of seniors live for 3.5 thousand PLN gross per month
The Social Insurance Institution has published the latest data on the structure of pensions after valorisation in March 2025. This best reflects the financial situation of millions of Polish seniors.
And according to ZUS, there are over 8 million. Of this, 6.34 million are pensioners, less than 500 thousand. He charges a pension for incapacity for work, and over 1.1 million – a survivor's pension.
At first glance, the situation does not look very alarming. The average pension increased above the limit of 4,000 PLN and amounts to 4 thousand. PLN 45 20 gr. It is less than PLN 300 more than a year ago.
At the same time, these numbers differ very much depending on gender. In men it is over 4.9 thousand. PLN, and women less than 3.5 thousand zloty. Basically, in this study, we will often see how much lower benefits women have.
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The deeper, the sadder
Average pension at the level slightly above 4,000 PLN gross is about 3.4 thousand PLN on hand, which is slightly less than the minimum wage. Although the latter is 4,000. PLN 666 gross, but from it you have to deduct a few more contributions that pensioners do not pay. As a result, it comes out quite similarly, maybe PLN 100-150 more.
The thing is that the vast majority of seniors can only dream about average retirement. This can be seen perfectly in other places in the ZUS report.
Let's look at the so -called Quarters, i.e. measures that show a more accurate retirement distribution in the population of seniors. This analysis shows, that 50 percent of them must deal with 3,000 544 PLN 38 groszy or less. This is the so -called median.
Among men, the median is just over 4.5 thousand. PLN gross per month, a Among women, only 3,000 PLN 11 This is about one third of the average national salary.
Little? Every fourth pensioner must be enough for the first 2,000. 269 PLN or less, and a pensioner – 3,000 PLN 363.
The number of penny pensions is growing
In Poland, from 2025, the minimum pension is 1 thousand. 878 PLN 91 gross gross per month. However, not everyone has the right to her. The condition, however, is an appropriate work experience, which is 20 years for women and 25 years for men.
Whoever does not work through so many years (or overwork, but for example “in black” or a civil law contract), has no right to a minimum pension and usually gets much less. The number of receiving so -called Penny benefits are growing from year to year. This can be seen in the ZUS data.
“Analyzing the height structure, we can also notice that the number of people receiving a pension is systematically lower than the lowest statutory amount of pension. In March 2024 there were 403.8 thousand and in March 2025 – 437.9 thousand (i.e. increase by 8.4 percent).” – we read in the report.
Specifics? 27.7 thousand Seniors receive transfers from ZUS at PLN 500 per month or even less. In the case of nearly 8,000 people do not exceed PLN 100. Usually these are people who worked very short, and therefore did not manage to accumulate capital in ZUS.
Retirement Krezus is coming quickly
There is also the other side of the coin. In recent years, the number of seniors with relatively high benefits has been growing rapidly.
In 2019, the number of pensioners, which ZUS poured 7,000 every month. PLN or more was 0.4 percent. This is one in 250 seniors. Today it is 9.8 percent, which is practically every tenth pensioner.
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Let's go on. In 2019, only 11 (eleven) people throughout Poland could boast of a pension of at least 15,000. PLN per month. A year ago it was already 3.7 thousand, and now as many as 7 thousand. pensioners. This means that during the year the number of such seniors has doubled.
15 thousand PLN is already an amount that many 30- or 40-year-olds would like to see on his employment contract. We wrote about it at Business Insider Polska many times.
The rest of the article is under video material
Structure of the amount of pensions by sex.
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ZUS
It will not be a surprise if we write that men dominate in this group. This can be seen in the graph above. In groups with low benefits, more or less to the level of average retirement, women dominate. This is particularly vividly visible in the range up to PLN 500 (the blue post is women).
In turn, from 4,000 Men are already dominating per month. Particularly clearly in the range from 7,000 PLN up
The reason for this is very simple. Women finish their work earlier and live in retirement much longer. So not only that they have less time (five years) to postpone money from contributions to ZUS, they also charge it longer.
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Arithmetic here is inexorable and in our system of benefits simply must be lower. That is why it is so important to work longer than to the statutory retirement age. We wrote about it at Business Insider Polska many times.
Author: Jakub Ceglarz, Business Insider Polska journalist
