Best Employer of Record · startupsBest EOR for startups: three in Poland

Three engineers on one rule

Each provider that prints an EOR price runs the same hire: three software engineers in Poland at $48,000 gross, about PLN 189,207 each at the European Central Bank reference rate of 30 October 2026. The engine adds the Polish employer contributions, each with its official source on the Poland page, then the published fee, and sorts on the monthly total. Before any fee one engineer costs $4,839 a month and the team $14,518. Rippling and Safeguard Global quote on request and stay unranked.

Where the 21% comes from

Pension insurance is 9.76% and disability insurance 6.50% of gross pay, both up to an annual ceiling of PLN 282,600 that these salaries stay under all year, so the two lines run on every month’s pay. The Labour Fund and Solidarity Fund add 2.45%, the Guaranteed Employee Benefits Fund 0.10%, and the employer’s basic PPK pension contribution 1.50%. An engineer who files the PPK opt-out declaration takes the on-cost down by 1.5 points from that month.

Accident insurance is entered at 0.67%, the activity-group rate for IT and professional services. ZUS charges a flat 1.67% to payers with up to nine insured people, and the provider’s Polish entity, not the startup, decides which applies. The same flat rate is what a brand-new Polish company of three would pay, a point that belongs in any EOR vs own entity calculation.

Costs the engine does not add

Two Polish employer costs sit outside the engine: the pre-employment medical check and the remote-work allowance the Labour Code requires for home-based staff. Ask each provider how it bills both. Deposits sit outside the monthly total as well: Playroll’s month of salary per engineer is about $12,000 for the team, Multiplier’s EOR terms require a refundable deposit per employee whose size it sets, and Oyster’s pricing FAQ requires one without an amount.

The fee is the line a startup controls once the country is chosen: $597 a month for the three at RemoFirst against $2,097 at Oyster, $18,000 apart over twelve months. A higher fee can still buy a single login for contractors in other countries or a US PEO; the head-to-head comparisons set those features side by side.