Will ZUS no longer question contributions from years ago? New rules of limitation and returns

The Ministry of Labor and Social Policy is working on a change that will regulate the issue of forfeiture of citizens' contributions to ZUS. In a letter to the Ombudsman, the ministry noticed a problem related to the social impact of cases in which ZUS questions the right to insurance of people who reported to them many years earlier.

At the beginning of December 2025, Ombudsman Marcin Wiącek asked the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy to take a position on media reports regarding the forfeiture of citizens' contributions to ZUS. This is a case raised in October by “Gazeta Wyborcza”, which described the case of a woman who had been paying contributions from her company's salary for 19 years. ZUS decided that she should never have paid them, and the Institution seized PLN 350,000 from her individual account. zloty.

The Ombudsman pointed out that the Act on the social security system provides for a five-year limit on the possibility of submitting corrections to the settlement declaration and the personal monthly report by the contribution payer.

“According to ZUS, if someone has a majority stake in a company and at the same time works there full-time, it is difficult to talk about a classic employment relationship. It assumes that the employment contract is fictitious and a citizen should not be subject to social insurance under it,” we read in the spokesman's letter.

According to the Commissioner for Human Rights, ZUS decisions excluding people from social insurance even several dozen years ago – without ensuring a real possibility of recovering unduly collected contributions – violate the constitutional standards of protection of individual rights.

Deputy Minister of Family, Labor and Social Policy Sebastian Gajewski, in a response published by the Ombudsman, informed that work on changes in this area is ongoing. As he said, the ministry wants the limitation period for the payer's claim against ZUS regarding the refund of unduly paid contributions to start running only from the date on which ZUS notifies the payer about the overpayment.

Protection of the payer's constitutional property rights

The purpose of this change – as the deputy minister added – is to provide a fuller guarantee of protection of the constitutional property rights of the contribution payer. He announced that the project also provides for the transfer of contributions to social security on the basis of a final decision of the Social Insurance Institution.

Gajewski emphasized that the introduction of regulations regarding the ex officio transfer of contributions by ZUS is intended to eliminate the risk of a negative impact of verification of the social security entitlement by ZUS on future rights and the amount of pension and disability benefits.

“Additionally, in the regulations being prepared, in addition to the ex officio transfer of contributions, paid short-term benefits (sickness benefits, care benefits, maternity benefits and rehabilitation benefits) that were granted on the basis of a title that ZUS questioned in a decision would be recognized by operation of law as paid under a second title that ZUS defined as applicable to a given insured person,” explained the deputy head of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy.

In a letter to the Ombudsman, Gajewski emphasized that this solution would reduce the risk of the impact of the verification of the social security entitlement by ZUS on the insured person's obligation to return the unduly received benefit and the need to re-submit applications for this benefit for a different reason. (PAP)

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