Polish employment certificate (Świadectwo Pracy)

What a świadectwo pracy is

A Polish employment certificate (świadectwo pracy) is the document an employer must issue when employment ends. It states the period of employment, the type of work performed, the position held, the manner in which the employment ended, and periods that affect entitlements — sick leave, unpaid leave, military service.

It is not a reference or a testimonial. It is a factual record, and for pension purposes it is the primary evidence that a period of Polish employment took place.

Where the records are when the employer is gone

This is the situation most people face, and it is solvable. Polish law requires personnel and payroll documentation to be preserved for decades after a business closes. When a company is liquidated, its files pass to a legal successor, to a licensed storage company, or to a state archive.

State-owned enterprises wound up in the 1990s are the largest single category. Their records are traceable — through the liquidator’s filings, the archive’s holdings, or the register of storage companies — but tracing them is specialist work, and it is the reason this service exists.

Why foreign pension authorities ask for it

Under EU social security coordination and under bilateral agreements with countries such as the United States and Canada, periods of work in Poland count towards a pension abroad. To count them, the foreign institution needs documented proof: the employment certificate, and usually the ZUS contribution record alongside it.

Without documents, the periods are simply not counted — which for someone who worked ten or twenty years in Poland can mean a materially smaller pension for life.

What we need from you

The employee’s full name and date of birth, the employer’s name and town, and the approximate years of employment. Anything else you have helps: an old identity document, a payslip, a work booklet (legitymacja ubezpieczeniowa), or the name of the department. Family memory of the employer’s name is often slightly wrong, and old business registers let us check variants.

What can go wrong

Some documentation was destroyed, particularly where a liquidation was handled badly in the 1990s. Where the certificate cannot be reconstructed, other evidence sometimes carries weight with pension authorities: ZUS contribution records, witness statements, or archival payroll lists. We tell you which route is realistic before you spend money on the wrong one.