Polish opposition PiS party tables bill tying child benefits for Ukrainians to employment

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland’s opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party has tabled a bill that would restrict the eligibility of Ukrainian families for the country’s main child benefit programme to those whose parents work and pay taxes in Poland.

The 800+ programme (formerly 500+), which provides 800 zloty (€188) per child per month regardless of their parents’ income or wealth, was a flagship policy during PiS’s eight years in power between 2015 and 2023.

The move comes after Rafał Trzaskowski – Warsaw mayor and presidential candidate of Civic Coalition (KO), the main group in Poland’s ruling coalition – called on the government to limit the eligibility of Ukrainian families for the benefit to those who actively contribute to the Polish economy.

PiS admitted that it had tabled the bill to test whether Trzaskowski and KO are genuinely committed to the change or if it was just campaign rhetoric ahead of the presidential elections in May.

PiS first introduced the child-benefit programme in 2016 – when it paid 500 zloty (€117) per child per month and was known as 500+ – to provide financial support to Polish families, regardless of income. It was renamed 800+ in 2024 after an increase in payments and remains one of the party’s most popular policies.

Under current rules, the benefit is also available to Ukrainian families residing in Poland. In May last year, parliament voted to link Ukrainian refugees’ access to the benefit with their children’s attendance in Polish schools, with support from both the ruling coalition and PiS, now the main opposition.

Trzaskowski, however, recently proposed limiting the benefit to those Ukrainians who live, work and pay taxes in Poland.

“Benefits like 800+ should go to those who contribute to our economy. This is a fair and common-sense approach,” Trzaskowski said during a meeting with residents of Puńsk, a small village in eastern Poland.

The statement marked a shift to the right for Trzaskowski, who is seen as being on the more socially liberal wing of KO. In Puńsk, however, he argued that Poland must avoid the mistakes made by Western European countries, where, he claimed, “it is profitable” for migrants to come seeking social benefits.

PiS framed its bill as a direct response to Trzaskowski’s remarks. Mariusz Błaszczak, the leader of PiS’s parliamentary caucus, said the proposal reflects growing concerns among Poles that the benefits are being abused.

“Rafał Trzaskowski has finally acknowledged what we have been saying for years: welfare should support contributors to our society,” Błaszczak said. “Our bill ensures fairness for taxpayers and preserves the integrity of this vital programme.”

In an interview with news website Wirtualna Polska, deputy interior affairs minister Maciej Duszczyk confirmed that the government is working on reforming Ukrainians’ access to benefits.

“In the first amendment [to the Ukrainian aid law], we introduced what PiS did not introduce. We introduced compulsory education [in Polish schools],” Duszczyk said. “Now we are working on how to tie the payment of benefits with the economic activity of Ukrainians in Poland,” he added.

Trzaskowski’s call, however, was met with resistance from other partners in the ruling coalition. Speaker of parliament Szymon Hołownia, who is also a presidential candidate as well as leader of Poland 2050 (Polska 2050), expressed caution about altering the system.

“One could consider more thoughtful checks on programme participants, but I see no need for radical changes,” Hołownia said on Monday, quoted by broadcaster TVN24.

He warned against penalising vulnerable families, such as Ukrainian single mothers fleeing war. “To deny support to those in desperate circumstances would be inhumane,” he added, calling instead for targeted measures to address abuse of the system.

Wanda Nowicka, an MP from The Left (Lewica), also expressed surprise at Trzaskowski’s proposal during an interview on Polsat News. “For humanitarian reasons, Ukrainian children must receive the necessary aid from us,” she said.

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Poland has been one of Ukraine’s most vocal allies and has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the war.

Since then, however, the countries have clashed on a number of issues, including the question of exhuming the remains of Polish victims of the Volhynia massacres of 1943-45, in which around 100,000 ethnic Poles were slaughtered by Ukrainian nationalists.

According to the latest Eurostat figures, there are nearly 990,000 Ukrainians in Poland. Data from the Polish state Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) show that the 800+ benefit in the first half of 2024 was paid out to 247,000 children, down from over 500,000 in 2022.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Oleksandr Rakushnyak/Flickr

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.