Poland’s National Training Fund (Krajowy Fundusz Szkoleniowy, KFS) is the most straightforward way to finance team training in Poland: the application goes to the district labour office covering the company’s registered seat, and the awarded money reaches the employer’s account before the invoice is paid. Since 2025, however, the fund has run on a new statutory basis — the Act of 20 March 2025 on the Labour Market and Employment Services — and several rules companies remember from earlier years no longer apply.
In brief
What this article covers:
- The exact wording of the four priorities announced for 2027, and why they rank equally
- When co-financing is 70% and when it is 90%
- How much one company can receive in a year — the cap depends on headcount
- Who may apply, and the condition that must have been met for the past six months
- Three employer obligations that are easiest to overlook
Who this is for: employers planning a 2027 training budget, HR and L&D teams, owners of micro and small companies operating in Poland.
Reading time: 9 minutes
The four priorities for 2027
Each year the minister responsible for labour sets no more than four spending priorities, after consulting the Labour Market Council. Four were announced for 2027:
- Support for developing skills and qualifications in occupations identified as shortage occupations in the given area, that is in the district or the province.
- Support for continuing education in competences enabling effective functioning in crisis situations, threats and changes affecting security, business continuity and organisational resilience.
- Support for the continuing education of people over 50 years of age.
- Support for continuing education connected with the adoption of new processes, technologies and work tools in companies, with particular regard to digital skills, AI and so-called green skills, especially where those factors create a risk of job loss.
Two points change how an application should be planned.
The priorities rank equally. The Act states that assistance is granted according to annually determined equally ranked priorities. There is no “stronger” or “weaker” priority — choosing one does not weaken an application relative to another.
Above the national priorities there are also regional ones, set separately and carrying the same weight. They are usually announced after the new year, so when planning in November or December, work from the four national priorities and treat regional ones as a possible supplement.
It is also worth knowing that funds may be spent outside the priorities — but only once applications meeting the priorities have been considered. In practice, an application with no priority assigned sits at the back of the queue.
How much the funding is
Two independent caps apply at once, and both must be satisfied.
Cap per participant. The authority may award up to 70% of costs, but no more than 200% of the average wage in the given calendar year, for each participant named in the application. For entities employing no staff, or employing — in full-time equivalents — no more than 9 people, the threshold rises to 90% of costs, with the same 200% cap per person.
Annual cap for the whole company. Regardless of how many people are trained, the total for one applicant in a calendar year may not exceed a multiple of the average wage, determined by headcount:
| Headcount in full-time equivalents | Annual cap per applicant |
|---|---|
| No employees, or no more than 9 | 4× the average wage |
| More than 9, no more than 49 | 8× the average wage |
| More than 49, no more than 249 | 12× the average wage |
| More than 249 | 14× the average wage |
In practice this ladder matters more than the per-person cap, because it sets the ceiling for the whole training project. A company employing thirty people cannot plan a KFS budget larger than eight times the average wage, however many staff it would like to train.
The amounts are given as multiples rather than in złoty on purpose: the base is the average wage, which changes during the year. The current threshold is always confirmed by the labour office when it announces a call.
Who may apply
KFS is open to entities that paid Labour Fund contributions for at least 6 months immediately preceding the day the application is filed, or are exempt from them by operation of law. This condition is often skipped in early conversations, yet it decides admissibility — a company founded four months ago simply does not qualify.
Excluded entities include, among others, those in arrears with taxes, social security and health contributions, the Labour Fund, the Guaranteed Employee Benefits Fund, the Solidarity Fund and the Bridging Pensions Fund, or with payments to the disability employment fund, as well as entities in liquidation, bankruptcy or under compulsory administration.
Funding may cover the continuing education of four groups: employees, employers, natural persons running a business, and persons providing services under civil-law contracts. That last category often comes as a surprise — a contractor is not automatically outside the project.
The money covers more than the course itself: the Act also lists fees for the institution validating the knowledge acquired or issuing the confirming documents, for an institution running postgraduate studies, for the medical and psychological examinations required to begin the education, and for accident insurance connected with it.
What cannot be funded
Three exclusions settle the matter regardless of how good an application is. Education cannot be funded where it has already been financed from other public funds, where the employer is obliged to provide it under separate regulations — that is, mandatory training — or where it covers activities started before the funding agreement was signed.
The last of these is the most expensive common mistake: a course begun “now, because the date suited us”, before the office signed the agreement, drops out of funding entirely.
Three obligations that get overlooked
Keeping the person employed for three months. An entity that has signed the agreement must keep the person whose education was funded in employment for at least 3 months from the day they complete it. The Act provides exceptions — including notice given by the employee themselves, and termination without notice in the statutory cases. Failing this condition means the entity receives no KFS funding for a year from the day the funded education ended.
No purchasing from a related party. Services covered by the agreement may not be bought from an entity related personally or by capital. The Act defines this broadly: partnership in a civil or partnership company, holding shares or at least 5% of stock, serving as a member of a supervisory or management body, as a commercial proxy or an attorney, and any other legal or factual relationship that could raise justified doubts about impartiality in selecting the provider.
The provider must be on the register. The institution delivering training financed from KFS must be a provider entered in the register kept by the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development for the provision of training services — that is, the Development Services Database. Check that entry before writing a provider’s name into the application.
How a call works, and why it starts in January
The division of funds between offices closes at the turn of the year: the province marshal informs the minister of the amounts for individual offices by 10 December of the budget year, and the minister notifies the authorities of the amounts set. The director of the labour office immediately upon receiving that notification publishes the available amount and announces the date or dates of the call — together with the rules and selection criteria. Hence the concentration of calls from mid-January to March.
The implementing regulation on the fund also sets two deadlines that allow more time than is generally assumed. Notice of a call is published at least 10 working days before it opens, and the call itself may not run for less than 5 working days. A call is therefore not a race decided in seconds — at least three calendar weeks pass between the announcement and the closing. In justified cases the authority may extend the filing deadline further.
Nor is the moment of filing what decides. In considering an application, the authority takes into account its alignment with the priorities for the year, the match between the competences acquired and the needs of the local or regional labour market, and the cost of the service compared with similar services available on the market. That third point means the price in the offer must be defensible against the market — an inflated rate is a risk to the whole application. Each office publishes its rules and selection criteria together with the call; in practice these take the form of a points score and a list on which the score decides funding.
Two features take some of the pressure off the procedure. An application filled in incorrectly or incompletely is not lost straight away — the authority sets a deadline for completing it, at least seven days and no more than fourteen. Only an application not completed within that time is left unconsidered. An application may also be approved in part rather than only in full or not at all; where it is partly approved, the office gives reasons.
Calls are repeated until the amount allocated to the office is exhausted, and the office itself decides how many to hold. If a call does not exhaust the funds, the authority may announce another — this time admitting applications that do not meet the year’s priorities. There is also a reserve at the minister’s disposal, fed by amounts the offices did not use, which explains the top-up calls that appear in autumn, usually for smaller sums.
The application is filed electronically, through an individual account, with the labour office competent for the company’s seat or place of business.
What to do before January
At least three calendar weeks pass between a call being announced and closing — enough time, provided the company is not starting from scratch at that point. Gathering certificates, participant data and internal approvals usually takes longer than filling in the application itself. Before the new year it is worth confirming the six-month record of Labour Fund contributions, checking that there are no public-law arrears, setting up an account in the filing system, agreeing the training subjects and matching them to one of the four priorities, collecting participant data, and verifying the chosen provider’s entry in the development services register.
One detail that shapes the plan: each participant is assigned to a single priority, and every course planned for that person must fit within it. If you are planning both a technical and a soft-skills course for the same employee, check whether one priority covers both — otherwise one of them may be rejected while the other stands.
The legal position and the wording of the priorities were checked on 4 November 2026 against the national annex published by the labour ministry, the text of the Act of 20 March 2025 on the Labour Market and Employment Services (Journal of Laws 2025, item 620, as amended), and the Regulation of the Minister of Family, Labour and Social Policy of 25 November 2025 on the National Training Fund (Journal of Laws 2025, item 1641). Each labour office announces its rules and selection criteria together with the call — check your office’s announcement before applying.