Składka zdrowotna on ryczałt (2026): how much per month?

For a sole trader on ryczałt (the lump-sum tax on revenue), the health contribution depends on annual revenue after the statutory reductions, not on profit after costs.

Monthly amounts in 2026

• up to PLN 60,000: PLN 498.35,
• over PLN 60,000 and up to PLN 300,000: PLN 830.58,
• over PLN 300,000: PLN 1,495.04.

Each amount is 9% of a base equal to 60%, 100% or 180% of the average monthly wage in the enterprise sector in the fourth quarter of the previous year, including profit-sharing payments.

Revenue counted towards the thresholds

Revenue for the thresholds is not always the same as the unadjusted total in your revenue records. The law lets you take into account social security contributions you have paid, as long as they were not already treated as costs or deducted from income on another basis.

If you run more than one business or use different forms of taxation, the rules for setting the base have to be analysed across all of your insurance titles together.

Monthly payments and the annual reconciliation

You pay contributions every month during the year and then reconcile the year in the ZUS document for April of the following year.

If you meet the conditions, you can also use a simplified method that sets the monthly base from the previous year's revenue. The idea that everyone picks a threshold once at the start of the year, based only on their own forecast, and changes nothing until PIT-28 is wrong.

The annual reconciliation can end with an extra payment or an overpayment. It is done in ZUS documents, not in the PIT-28 return itself.

Deducting 50% of the contribution paid

A ryczałt taxpayer can reduce revenue by 50% of the health contributions paid in respect of the business taxed under ryczałt.

The other 50% is not deducted from revenue. The old rule of deducting 7.75% of the contribution from the tax itself does not apply to sole traders' settlements for 2026.

Start-up relief and preferential ZUS

Neither the start-up relief (ulga na start) nor preferential social contributions exempt you from the health contribution. On ryczałt the amount still follows the revenue thresholds.

The contribution holiday (wakacje składkowe) does not cover the health contribution either.

An example without fake "threshold optimisation"

If annual revenue after the statutory reductions goes above PLN 60,000, the annual reconciliation uses the base for the higher threshold, as the law requires. Do not move invoice dates just to steer your revenue: when revenue arises is set by the regulations, not only by the date on the document.

Tax scale and flat tax

On the tax scale, the health contribution is 9% of income calculated under the relevant rules, with a minimum contribution. On flat tax (podatek liniowy) the rate is 4.9% of income, also with a minimum.

The cap that applies on flat tax limits how much of the paid contribution you can count as a cost or deduct from income. It is not a cap on the annual contribution itself.