Minimum hourly rate on a mandate contract - changes from 2021
The minimum hourly rate on the mandate contract has been in force for several years and that is why most clients have already got used to this obligation. The amount of this rate is not constant, therefore it is necessary to control compliance with the appropriate minimum remuneration of contractors.
Who is affected by the minimum hourly wage on the mandate contract?
The minimum hourly rate applies to contractors, i.e. people employed under a civil law contract, as defined in art. 734 and art. 750 of the Civil Code. These are contracts relating to the performance of an order or provision of services to an entrepreneur or organizational unit. Importantly, the minimum hourly rate on the mandate contract also applies to public tenders. The hourly rate does not include:
- people who decide on their own about the place and time of work and receive commission remuneration;
- care contracts:
- running a family nursing home;
- childcare under foster care;
- childcare during trips longer than one day.
The amount of the minimum stake - what does it depend on?
The amount of the hourly minimum wage on the mandate contract depends on the minimum wage applicable in a given year. This means that the hourly wage increases in proportion to the increase in the minimum wage. The minimum hourly rate on the mandate contract is indexed every year.
The amount of the minimum rate in 2021
The minimum wage in 2021 is PLN 2,800 gross. Thus, the minimum hourly rate on the contract of mandate will be PLN 18.30 gross. This is an increase of PLN 1.30 per hour compared to 2020, where the rate was PLN 17 gross.
The increase in the hourly rate on the contract of mandate is presented in the table below.
|
Year
|
The amount of the minimum hourly rate in the contract of mandate |
|
2021 |
PLN 18.30 |
|
2020 |
PLN 17.00 |
|
2019 |
PLN 14.70 |
|
2018 |
PLN 13.70 |
|
2017 |
PLN 13.00 |
Is the minimum hourly rate on the mandate contract voluntary or obligatory?
The minimum hourly wage on the mandate contract is mandatory. As in the case of the minimum wage resulting from the employment relationship, the hourly rate of civil law contracts is of a guarantee and maintenance nature and is subject to special protection. In order to avoid the circumvention of the law, the law prohibits the waiver of the right to remuneration or assign it to a third party. Moreover, if one service is provided by several people together, each of them is entitled to remuneration with the minimum hourly rate. These issues are regulated by the Act on the minimum remuneration for work.
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How to keep a record of working time for a contractor?
Until the obligatory hourly rate was introduced in the mandate contract, the amount of remuneration was solely the result of arrangements between the parties to the contract. The regulations did not regulate how much the remuneration was to be, nor for what period of work, and even less how often it was to be paid. Thus, the bills for the contract of mandate were issued quite freely, without any major regulations. However, the introduction of the minimum hourly wage changed these rules, although not directly. As you can guess, if the obligation to provide the contractor with a minimum hourly rate has been introduced, the relevant authorities (here most often ZUS) must have grounds for verifying whether this obligation is fulfilled during the inspection. In turn, it is for the payer to prove that the amount paid on the invoice meets the requirement to ensure the minimum hourly rate. As a result, it became clear that principals must start recording contractors' working time for evidence purposes.
The Act does not specify a specific method of keeping records of working time. It is to depend on individual arrangements between the contractor and the client. If the parties fail to do so, the contractor is obliged to provide the client with the number of hours worked in writing, electronically or in a documentary manner. The same applies to oral contracts. If the rules for recording working time are not specified in writing, the basis for remuneration is the hours worked indicated by the contractor.
In practice, the principals make sure that the contractor, together with the invoice, provides a statement on the number of hours worked in a given month. Initially, many entities suggested keeping detailed records of the contractor's working time, but labor law specialists indicated that such strict control of the contractor's working time may suggest establishing an employment relationship, not a civil law contract. Consequently, the contractor's statement is the safest.
Salary paid monthly
Along with the introduction of the minimum hourly rate, another new obligation was implemented in the settlement of the contract of mandate. Namely, the regulations introduced the necessity to pay the contractor's remuneration at least once a month. Until these provisions were implemented, in the case of contracts that lasted more than a month, the date of payment was also a contractual issue between the contract acceptor and the principal. Currently, the client, in addition to guaranteeing the minimum hourly wage, must pay the remuneration at least once a month.
As you can read on the website of the Ministry of Family, Labor and Social Policy, the main purpose of introducing the hourly rate is to combat the abuse of civil law contracts. The introduction of the hourly wage is also intended to compensate for the level of remuneration of employees with the lowest earnings. In other words, it is counteracting the phenomenon in which employees employed on the basis of a mandate contract earn below the minimum wage. The hourly rate is to compensate for these disproportions.
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