Premiums and benefits in the public sector (2026) - specifics and rules of granting

In many units of public administration, the same picture has been repeated for years: desks in cadres are drowning under piles of paper applications for holidays under a pear tree, and telephones are cut off with questions about the timing of payment of funds from the social fund. For decades bonuses and benefits in the public sector was treated almost as a necessary evil, basing the entire incentive system on rigid statutory allowances and physical holiday vouchers. However, the year is 2026. The expectations of officials, teachers or employees of the uniformed services have gone far ahead. The archaic methods of social management today are only a burden - both operational and image. Entities that continue to base their personnel policy on paper and equal distribution not only risk violating the rules at the next inspection, but also systematically lose the best specialists to the private sector.

Here is a comprehensive guide on how to effectively and legally manage the topic that they are bonuses and benefits in the public sector how to optimise resources and why digitisation of the Company's Social Benefits Fund (ZFŚS) is no longer an option but a legal and organisational requirement.

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Money is not everything, but the foundation: The specifics of salaries in the public sector

Benefits in public institutions include mandatory financial allowances established by law (e.g. internship allowances) and a non-salary system financed mainly from the Company Social Benefits Fund (ZFŚS).

The management of wages in state units is governed by a complex network of laws, laws and ministerial regulations. While the private market can raise the salary base for selected talent overnight, offices and schools rely on rigid tariffers, multipliers and so-called base amounts.

Macroeconomic data for 2025-2026 show that inflationary pressures have forced wage appreciation, but these increases rarely meet the expectations of highly qualified specialists (e.g. engineers, lawyers, IT specialists working in municipal offices). For example, the base amount for teachers set for 2025 was PLN 5,434.82, which was the basis for calculating all deductions and derivatives.

City Office Case Study:

Imagine a situation where you recruit a chief accountant to a local government unit. Your base salary budget is only 80% of what a medium-sized LLC in the same city offers. How do you make up for this lack? You do this by communicating to the candidate Total Rewards, that is, the total offer of benefits: internship allowance, awards, job security and - most importantly - a heavily subsidized system of social benefits from a well-managed ZFŚS.

Hint: Ask your HR team to prepare a “Total Rewards Statement” for each position in your office. Show candidates in black and white how much they actually earn on a yearly basis, adding up all bonuses, “thirties” and grants.

Tools: Payroll reports and analytical modules in modern HRIS systems.

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Thirteenth Salary and Jubilee Awards: Mathematics Without Margin of Error

The thirteenth salary is an additional annual salary of 8.5% of the total salary, which is due to employees of the public sector after working at least six months in a given calendar year with one employer.

The additional annual salary (“thirteen”) is not a discretionary award. This is a claim benefit under the Act on Additional Annual Remuneration for Employees of Budget Units. The problem is that payroll departments regularly make mistakes when calculating it, relying on incomplete data on absenteeism.

The principle is simple: thirteen is 8.5% of the sum of labor wages received during the year. But this is where the stairs come in. How to include special additives? What about disposable complementary foods?

Scenario from the life of the HR department:

The employee was on sick leave for 4 months. An inexperienced payroll specialist took thirteen sick pay and allowance as a basis. This is a mistake that affects the finances of the institution. The basis must necessarily be reduced by periods of non-performance of work (with exceptions specified in the law, e.g. vacation leave).

Similarly, strict regulations apply Jubilee Awards.

Table 1: Standard thresholds of jubilee awards (Local Government Employees)

Hint: Do an audit of the definition of payroll components in the ERP system. Configure the algorithms to automatically discard thirteen periods of receipt of care or sickness benefits from the base.

Tools: Personnel and payroll software (e.g. Enova365, Optima) combined with digital employee records.

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Company Social Benefits Fund (ZFŚS)

ZFŚS in public institutions is a compulsory fund, collected from the employer's annual write-offs, aimed at social assistance, leisure surcharges and financial benefits for employees.

The state and local government sector, as opposed to smaller private companies, can not abandon the creation of ZFŚS. This is a statutory duty. The mathematics of the fund for 2025-2026 requires iron discipline in accounting.

The basic depreciation is determined on the basis of the average monthly salary in the national economy in the second half of the previous year. For the budget for 2025, the base amount (for employees under normal conditions) was PLN 7262.39, which gave a write-off at the level of 37.5%, i.e. PLN2723.40 on time.

In the case of educational units (teachers), the Teacher's Charter applies, and the indicator is as much as 110% of the base amount. These are huge sums, for the legal distribution of which the employer and the established social commissions are responsible. The law mandates that the first installment (75%) be transferred to a segregated account by May 31, and the rest by September 30.

Table 2: Amount of write-offs to ZFŚS (reference data 2025)

Case from the audit:

Managing requests for so-called “pear holidays” in a school employing 100 people is a pure operational nightmare. The social commission collects statements for two weeks, divides them into income thresholds and manually allocates amounts of PLN 800-1200. Often there are mathematical mistakes here, and funds go to accounts with a delay of several weeks.

Hint: Calculate depreciation rates at the turn of the year immediately after the publication of the data by the GUS. Enter clear income thresholds (for example, three net ranges per family member) that determine the amount of the surcharge in advance.

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Benefit Cafes in Public Institutions: Fiction or Necessity?

The cafeteria system in the public sector is a dedicated online platform allowing employees to freely choose non-salary benefits (e.g. cinema tickets, sports cards) within the funds allocated from the ZFŚS budget.

It repents the myth that Benefit Platforms and cafeteria systems are toys for programmers in corporations. Nothing more wrong. The times when all officials in December received the same basket of sweets and coffee have passed irrevocably. Administration employees today expect freedom of choice, and from the perspective of public finances, mass purchases of identical packages are a waste of capital.

Cafeteria shifts the burden of decision from employer to employee. Instead of negotiating contracts with sports card providers, the employer transfers anonymized funds (with the observance of social criteria) to virtual accounts.

Why are the offices switching to Nais?

The Nais app perfectly illustrates this mechanism. The office replenishes the employee's wallet with a certain number of points. The user logs in from the mobile and has more than 30, 000 offers at their disposal: from Netflix, Spotify, to visits to specialists in private medical care, to vouchers to your favorite clothing stores.

Most public institutions do this poorly because they are tied to long-term contracts with a single provider of medical or sports services. If an employee prefers another gym or prefers to spend funds on books, the benefit becomes completely useless for him.

Hint: Eliminate plastic vouchers and physical packages this Christmas. Replace them with digital points on the cafeteria platform. You will use the same funds from ZFŚS, but the level of satisfaction of the team will increase twice.

Tools: Nais platform, which does not require the signing of additional contracts with final suppliers.

Digitalization of social commissions: How to eliminate paper in 30 days?

Digitalization of social processes means the complete transfer of the flow of applications, property declarations and decisions to allocate funds to a secure, automated IT ecosystem.

Processing documentation in the paper version in 2026 is not only inefficiency, but even a legal risk. GDPR rules are ruthless when it comes to protecting sensitive data. Statements about the income of spouses, birth certificates of children, and sometimes even alimony judgments, circulating in paper folders on the desks of members of the social commission, are a guaranteed punishment during the inspection of the Office for Personal Data Protection.

Platforms such as Wishes have an integrated system for managing the social budget from A to Z.

What do you gain from the full digitalization of ZFŚS?

• Confidentiality: The employee files the income statement through an encrypted application on the phone. No one except authorized administrators has access to them.
• Automation: The system itself converts the income to a family member, assigns the employee to the corresponding threshold from the regulations and calculates the amount of the surcharge without errors. Statistics show 99% effectiveness in the correctness of the submitted applications.
• No plastic and logistics: Elimination of physical gift cards and problems with their distribution in a distributed structure (e.g. several provincial government offices in different cities).
• Online reporting: Digital circulation allows you to generate a report on demand in 3 seconds, which facilitates cooperation with the accounting department and external auditors.

Hint: Conduct introductory training with your crew on digital social filing. Show them that the whole process will take 2 minutes on the screen of their own smartphone.

Tools: Nais ZFŚS connected to Digital Document Circulation.

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Control of RIO and NIK: Errors in the disposal of public funds (What to avoid?)

The biggest flaw in the management of the social fund is ignoring the income criterion and allocating benefits in an equal amount to the entire crew, which is a clear violation of the provisions of the law.

The Regional Chambers of Auditors (RIO) and the Supreme Audit Office (NIK) regularly review the procedures for disposing of public money. The Company Social Benefit Fund Act of 4 March 1994 (as amended) is absolute.

The granting of concessional services and benefits must be solely depending on the life, family and material situation of the employee. This means a ban on the so-called “urawnilovka”.

List of the most serious mistakes (What to avoid like fire):

• Giving to everyone “equally”: Transfer for holidays exactly the same amount (e.g. PLN 500 each) to a director earning PLN 15,000 net and an administration employee earning the minimum wage. In the event of an inspection, the authority shall order a refund of funds.
• Financing of non-social events: Paying for an expensive integration event with alcohol from the ZFŚS account, without checking who actually needs this help.
• No fund rules: Disbursement of funds on a discretionary basis, without formal recognition of income thresholds in a document consulted with the trade unions.
• Require hard certificates from the US from everyone: Requesting the SPOUSE's PITs in any case. The law allows relying on the employee's own statements, and PIT can be called only in situations of obvious doubt.
• Unclear terms of write-offs: Transfer of installments to the ZFŚS account after 31 May or after 30 September, which violates the provisions on the timely replenishment of the fund.

Hint: Introduce the iron rule in the Regulations of the ZFŚS: “Failure of an employee to submit a declaration of financial position within the prescribed period is tantamount to declaring the highest income threshold by him.” Thanks to this, you will keep the operation smooth, and no one will stop the work of the social commission.

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FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Is the thirteenth salary included in the income when applying for funds from the ZFŚS?

Yes. When determining the living, family and material situation for the purposes of the social fund, the employee should show all the real income of the family, including the additional annual salary (“thirteen”).

Is the replenishment of the virtual wallet in the Nais cafeteria taxable?

Benefits in kind and in cash financed entirely from the funds of the ZFŚS are subject to exemption from personal income tax up to a certain annual limit (as standard it is PLN 1000 in the tax year, this limit returns to normal after covid changes). It should be borne in mind that a commodity voucher is not always treated as a benefit in kind. Points in the cafeteria system, if they allow the purchase of services included in the employer's social catalog, are eligible for exemption.

Can the office completely renounce social activities?

No. Institutions of government and local government administration and schools, regardless of the number of employees employed, are obliged to create a social fund and cannot withdraw from it.

How does the revolving budget differ from the ZFŚS in the cafeteria system?

The working budget is the current funds of the employer (awards, discretionary bonuses, non-social co-financing), which are subject to the full allocation of ZUS and taxation. ZFŚS is a separate fund with specific exemptions from ZUS, but subject to the requirement to check the social criterion. Good platforms (like Wishes) support both sources of funding.

How quickly can a cafeteria platform be implemented in the office?

In the SaaS model, the implementation of the infrastructure usually takes from a few to a dozen days. More than 90% of processes (so-called onboarding) in implementations Wishes is successful at an early stage, thanks to the absence of the need to install external software.

summary

• Instead of archaic vouchers, bet on cafeteria systems. Freedom of choice in an employee dramatically increases his satisfaction with an unchanged burden on the budget of a public entity.
• Digitization of ZFŚS It is not an innovation, it is a legal safeguard. By eliminating paper requests, you protect your personal data (GDPR) and avoid compromising controls by RIO.
• Absolutely give up handing out “on an equal footing.” Build a clear matrix where employees with the lowest incomes per family member receive higher co-financing.
• Use properly selected and configured IT tools (such as Wishes), which automatically recalculate funds, monitor income thresholds and generate error-free personnel reports on an ongoing basis.
• Communicate pay structures transparently - non-wage benefits and stability are your biggest bargaining chip on the market in competition with private entities.

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