Renting in Warsaw without a Polish employment contract: remote work for a foreign company or B2B, what to show

Yes, you can rent a flat in Warsaw without a Polish umowa o pracę (employment contract). The Act on the Protection of Tenants’ Rights mentions income declarations only for public housing (municipal flats and social tenancy), and for a lease from a private owner we found no such requirement: it is the landlord who asks for proof. In our experience, a work contract or an employer’s letter, bank statements for a few months and, on B2B, invoices are usually enough. What to demand is the owner’s call, and nobody can promise you a yes.

Checked on 7 October 2026. Legal basis: the Act on the Protection of Tenants’ Rights (consolidated text, Dz.U. 2023 item 725) and the GDPR (RODO in Polish), with links at the end. “Usually”, “in our experience” and “in our estimate” mark practice, not law: the law contains no list of documents. This is general information, not legal or tax advice.

Can I rent a flat without a Polish employment contract?

Yes. An employment contract is not among the conditions of a lease that the law sets. In the text of the Act (consolidated text, Dz.U. 2023 item 725), income declarations appear only for public housing: for a rent reduction (art. 7 sec. 4) and for someone applying for a municipal flat or a social tenancy (art. 21b sec. 1). For an ordinary lease the Act speaks about other things: the deposit (art. 6) and the form of a najem okazjonalny lease (art. 19a).

The landlord checks whether you can pay at their own discretion. A guide for owners from Rankomat dated 14 May 2026 advises asking for proof of employment or of the source of income, with the tenant’s consent. So the real question is not whether you can rent “without a contract” but what you offer in its place. The options are below. If you also have no karta pobytu (residence card), your status is covered separately: renting on a visa or visa-free stay. The general list of rental documents is in our article on documents for renting a flat; this one deals only with income earned abroad.

A note on najem okazjonalny. This type of lease can be offered by an owner who is a private individual and does not rent flats out as a business (art. 19a sec. 1). It comes with the tenant’s notarial statement, the address of another place where you could live, and that place’s owner’s consent (sec. 2). You will often read that the notary must have your PESEL. We found no such mandatory element in art. 92 § 1 of the Notaries Act, and identity is established from a document (art. 85 § 2). A notary may, however, check the PESEL reservation register before an act (art. 85a § 2), so ask in advance what they will want from a foreigner. More in our guide to najem okazjonalny.

What should I show if I work remotely for a foreign company?

The law gives no list, so here is what in our estimate persuades landlords most often, from the most important to the supporting items.

• A letter from your employer on company letterhead: your position, the date you started, your pay, and a contact who can confirm the letter.
• The contract or offer letter. The pages with position, pay and term are enough.
• A bank statement for the account your salary goes to, covering 3 to 6 months. A foreign bank is fine.
• Payslips for the last few months, if your company issues them.
• Savings. A statement with your balance supports the rest well if you started the job recently and the account shows few deposits.

If you are paid in another currency, give the amount in that currency and its conversion into złoty with the rate and date: it makes comparison with the rent easier. Before showing a contract, check that it does not forbid disclosing its terms to third parties. Tax questions and the legality of working from Poland (permits, residence status) are outside renting, and we give no advice on them.

What should I show if I work on B2B or freelance?

This kind of income has no single paper like an employer’s letter, so the landlord looks at how regular the payments are. People usually put together:

• the contract with your client (or several): term, rate, payment terms;
• invoices for the last 3 to 6 months and the bank statement showing the payments against them;
• proof that your business is registered: an extract from your country’s register or, for a Polish JDG (sole proprietorship), the CEIDG entry;
• a tax return or certificate for last year, if you have already filed one (the format depends on the country);
• savings, if the business is under a year old.

In our estimate several clients look steadier than one, so show that if it is true.

Can I round up my income a little?

No. Show real figures. A gap between what you say and what the papers show usually ends in a refusal before anything is signed, in our estimate. Forging or altering a document in order to use it as genuine is a crime: under art. 270 § 1 of the Criminal Code it carries imprisonment from 3 months to 5 years. If your income is lower than the owner expects, it is more honest to offer something else: savings, a higher deposit within the legal limit, or a cheaper flat.

Do I need to translate my documents?

The Act on the Protection of Tenants’ Rights has no such requirement for income papers, and we found no general one for a private landlord. A sworn translation (tłumacz przysięgły) is needed where a particular body demands it, such as an office or a court; that is a separate matter and not covered here.

The one place in a rental where translation is written into the law is the notarial deed. If a participant does not know Polish and no translation is attached, the notary translates the deed personally or through an interpreter (art. 87 § 1 pt 1 of the Notaries Act). For the lease itself, see our article on leases in English and in two languages.

In practice, in our estimate, owners read English documents without trouble. With other languages they more often ask for an English or Polish version. If someone asks for “a translation”, find out which kind before ordering: a certified one costs money and is not always needed. Our oral interpreting for you at viewings and in talks with the owner is not a sworn translation.

Can I decline to give a copy of my passport and contract?

The law does not oblige you to hand over copies, and it does not forbid the landlord to ask for them: we found no such provision. There is, however, a GDPR principle: data must be adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary for the purpose (art. 5 sec. 1 lit. c). Whether the GDPR applies to a particular private landlord depends on the circumstances: purely personal or household activity is excluded (art. 2 sec. 2 lit. c), and we do not decide that. The principle is still a useful yardstick: you can calmly ask why a copy is needed.

What the UODO (the Polish data protection authority) has said: in 2022 and 2025 it wrote about banks and other financial institutions, noting that a document does not need to be copied in every situation and that showing it is often enough. That is a position about financial institutions, not about landlords.

In practice, in our estimate:

1. Show before you send. Do not send files to a stranger whose listing you have not yet checked: that is also how fraud schemes work. How to tell them apart is in our article on fake rental listings.
2. A landlord can copy your passport details into the lease, so a copy is not needed for that (Rankomat gives the same advice).
3. If a copy is still requested, write on it what it is for and for whom: “for the rental of [address] only, [date]”.
4. Show the contract and the statement in part: the pages with position, pay and term, and the deposits for the months that matter.

If you decline, the landlord may choose another applicant.

How much deposit can a landlord ask for?

For an ordinary lease the deposit (kaucja) may not exceed twelve times the monthly rent, calculated at the rate in force on the day the lease is signed (art. 6 sec. 1). For najem okazjonalny the ceiling is six times (art. 19a sec. 4), and it also covers possible costs of enforcing an eviction. The deposit is returned within a month of you vacating the flat, less what you owe for the lease (art. 6 sec. 4; for okazjonalny art. 19a sec. 5).

That is a ceiling, not the norm. The Rankomat guide for owners (14 May 2026) advises 2 to 3 months of rent, and in our estimate landlords usually ask for one to three. The law does not allow an amount above the ceiling. More on getting a deposit back: tenants’ rights and the kaucja. Do not transfer money until you have checked the owner and signed the lease.

How do we find flats for this kind of profile?

Leave a request in the form on the page for tenants: district, number of rooms, budget, move-in date, your name and phone. The form has no field for how you work (remotely for a company abroad, B2B, your own business), so tell us on the first call or in a WhatsApp message. The form does not ask for documents or their numbers: through it we collect none. Identification data comes later, when the agency agreement (umowa pośrednictwa) is concluded, which is done in writing or in electronic form (art. 180 sec. 3 of the Real Estate Management Act, u.g.n.).

After that we do what our search service includes. We narrow the choice to your budget, district and dates. At an online viewing by video we check what you would ask. We speak to the owner directly, and before the viewing we can find out what proof of income they expect, so that you do not spend time on a flat where the answer is a “no” in advance. We explain and interpret orally (not as a sworn translation). Our agents work in Ukrainian, Russian, English, Polish, German, Italian, Turkish and Spanish.

What we do not do: we do not vouch for your income to the owner, we do not guarantee the owner’s consent, and we are not a replacement for a lawyer or a tax adviser.

Our fee is 70% of one month’s czynsz najmu, that is of the rent itself, without czynsz administracyjny and utilities: with a czynsz of 3,500 zł it is 2,450 zł. It is paid once, after the umowa najmu (lease) is signed, and invoiced as a faktura bez VAT. Help with PESEL and with the visit to the urząd is included in the 70%. The scope of the service is written into the agency agreement (umowa pośrednictwa).

Send a request: move-in date, budget, number of rooms. Tell us how you work on the first call or on WhatsApp. Phone: +48 666 866 468.

Sources

Checked on 7 October 2026.

• Act on the Protection of Tenants’ Rights, consolidated text, Dz.U. 2023 item 725: art. 6 sec. 1 and 4, art. 7 sec. 4, art. 19a sec. 1, 2, 4, 5, art. 21b sec. 1. Income declarations appear in the Act only for public housing.
• Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR): art. 5 sec. 1 lit. c, art. 2 sec. 2 lit. c.
• UODO, 16 August 2022: Czy instytucje finansowe mogą kopiować dowody osobiste? and UODO, 26 August 2025: Bank nie może skanować dowodów osobistych klientów bez stosownej analizy celowości. Both concern financial institutions.
• Notaries Act (Prawo o notariacie), consolidated text, Dz.U. 2026 item 614: art. 85 § 2, art. 85a § 2, art. 87 § 1 pt 1, art. 92 § 1.
• Criminal Code (Kodeks karny), consolidated text, Dz.U. 2025 item 383: art. 270 § 1.
• Rankomat: Wynajem mieszkania obcokrajowcom (14 May 2026): a guide for owners, not statistics.