Obligation to submit ZUS DRA declarations - what is worth knowing

Entrepreneurs are obligatorily subject to ZUS insurance. Accounting with the Social Insurance Institution consists in paying contributions for himself, co-workers and employees. The obligation to pay contributions is also connected with the requirement to provide information on settlements made on the ZUS DRA declaration. Read the article and find out when the obligation to submit ZUS DRA declarations arises.

You pay minimum contributions - you may not submit a ZUS declaration

If the entrepreneur does not employ any employees and decides to pay minimum ZUS contributions, either preferential or basic, but minimal, then he is not subject to the monthly obligation to submit ZUS DRA declarations. This rule also applies to the payment of contributions for a cooperating person (not to be confused with an employee!) Also on the basis of the minimum amount. Of course, this does not apply to the first declaration submitted by a given entrepreneur - this must be submitted to ZUS. On the other hand, if the contributions do not change in the following months, social insurance institutions allow the payment of contributions without the need to submit a declaration. However, in the event of any changes in the amount of paid contributions (e.g. due to sick leave), the entrepreneur is obliged to submit a declaration for the month in which the change took place. The deadline for submitting the ZUS DRA declaration and paying contributions for the entrepreneur is the 10th day of the following month. This period is extended to the 15th day of the month when the company employs employees.

Payment of contributions other than the minimum ones generate the obligation to submit the ZUS DRA declaration

The entrepreneur decides for himself whether he will pay minimum ZUS contributions, the amount of which is determined taking into account the calculation basis equal to the indicators specified by ZUS, or whether he will pay higher contributions. If the entrepreneur chooses the second option - by committing to pay higher than the minimum insurance premiums - he should take into account the obligation to submit the ZUS DRA declaration every month. Therefore, he cannot benefit from the simplification - the possibility of not submitting ZUS DRA every period - as when paying minimum contributions.

You hire employees - you are required to submit ZUS DRA declarations

The obligation to pay ZUS contributions is related to the obligation to complete and submit the ZUS DRA declaration to ZUS. This declaration is basically as important as the payment of contributions. It is a document indicating, inter alia, how much contributions have been paid and for whom. The entrepreneurs who hire employees fulfill their monthly obligations towards ZUS by the 15th day of the following month. The deadline for submitting the ZUS-DRA declaration and paying contributions is the same.

The top-down change of the indicators does not make the declaration obligatory

A change in the contribution assessment base caused only by a change in the minimum wage or the average wage does not require the submission of the ZUS DRA declaration, if the entrepreneur pays the minimum contributions. An example is the increase in the minimum wage, which in 2020 was PLN 2,600, and in 2021 it is already PLN 2,800. This change has an impact on the amount of preferential ZUS contributions, but does not require the ZUS DRA syntax in the case of entrepreneurs who continue to pay the lowest amount of ZUS contributions, with the value set for 2021.

Start a free 30-day trial period with no strings attached!

The general rules impose the obligation to submit ZUS DRA declarations every month to every entrepreneur. An exception to this rule applies to entrepreneurs who pay only a contribution for themselves or for themselves and a cooperating person, if they declared the lowest calculation basis for social and health contributions in the first or previously submitted ZUS DRA declaration.

Contribution rate per year:	The lowest social contribution base on general principles	The lowest base of social contribution on a preferential basis
2020	PLN 3,136.20	PLN 780.00
2021	PLN 3,155.40	PLN 840.00

ZUS DRA declaration generated from the accounting system

For several years, the monopoly of the ZUS Płatnik settlement program has been broken, and at the moment every professional accounting system has the function of generating ZUS DRA declarations.

The advantage of such a solution is the combination of automatic settlement of contributions with the deduction of them from the calculated income tax advances and accounting in the costs of paid contributions for employees.

Based on the interactive online accounting system wFirma.pl, we will show you how to easily generate and settle ZUS DRA declarations and book contributions based on them.

Just click on the generate ZUS DRA declaration. The system monitors the current basis for calculating contributions for business people on an ongoing basis. The entrepreneur does not even need to know them when generating the declaration.

Then mark the declaration and settle it on the date of its payment.

The system will automatically take the paid contributions into account when calculating the advance payment for the income tax for the period in which it was paid.

The contribution to the labor fund will be automatically booked to the KPiR.

The accounting system allows you to export the declaration to a KEDU file, which can be imported to the ePUAP system or to the Płatnik program. The declaration can also be printed and submitted to the Social Insurance Institution in paper form, provided that the entrepreneur settles contributions from less than 5 people.

You do not need to know the basics of calculating premiums to settle them correctly!

To sum up, the user of the wfirma.pl system does not need to know the current amounts of contributions, the basis for their calculation or the restrictions applicable in a given year for deducting health insurance from the calculated tax. The online integrated system constantly monitors and updates data on the basis of information published by the Social Insurance Institution and the Ministry of Finance.