Automatic enrolment of employees to the Employee Capital Plan in 2023

This mechanism ("auto-enrolment") will be repeated every 4 years. 

The employer will be required to auto-enrol an employee unless he or she re-files an opt-out declaration. 

Before auto-enrolling an employee, the employer will be required to inform those who opted out of this fact. Employers will be required to provide such information for the first time by the end of February 2023. After that, they will be required to do so every 4 years. 

The ECP auto-enrolment communication should be addressed to every employee who has filed an opt-out declaration (regardless of whether the declaration has been filed before or after the ECP account maintenance agreement on the employee's behalf was concluded). Employers should meet the information obligation in a way allowing them to prove that employees have received such information. 

Employees subject to the auto-enrolment regulation (these are generally persons between 18 and 55 years of age) can resubmit their opt-out declarations starting from 1 March. If they do not do that, their employer should make first ECP contributions on their behalf until 17 April 2023.

The auto-enrolment also applies to employees hired by micro enterprises that have not implemented the ECP so far. A micro enterprise whose all employees opted out of the ECP membership is required to meet the information obligation. If not all employees file the opt-out declaration, the micro enterprise should conclude an ECP management agreement and then an ECP account maintenance agreement. 

Notably, the status of enterprises that so far did not have to conclude the ECP management agreements could change into a SME or a large enterprise. In this respect, it might be necessary to verify the financials and data regarding the headcount of an enterprise. 

On the "Moje PPK" ("My ECP") website kept by Polish Development Fund (PFR), you can find a ready-to-download template of the communication to employees about ECP contributions.