Additional downtime benefit for persons performing civil law contracts

From 15 January 2021, persons performing civil law contracts can take advantage of the one-off additional downtime benefit under Shield 6.0. The deadline for submitting applications is by the end of the 3rd month following the month in which the state of epidemic is lifted.

Additional one-off benefit – who is entitled to it?

From 15 January, pursuant to the provisions of Shield 6.0, i.e. the Act of 9 December 2020 on amending the Act on special solutions related to the prevention, counteracting and combating COVID-19, other infectious diseases and crisis situations caused by them and some other acts, a one-off downtime benefit may be claimed by persons who receive income from civil law contracts (agency contract, contract of mandate, other contract for the provision of services, contract for a specific task) from the title of:

• creative activities in the areas of fine arts, literature, music, audio-visual creation, theatre, costume design, stage design, directing, choreography, artistic violin-making and folk art,
• artistic activities in the areas of acting, stage, dance and circus arts, and in the areas of conducting, vocalism and instrumentalism,
• technical activities supporting audio-visual production or the production and staging of artistic events,
• services in the areas of architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and architectural services provided by persons without building certification,
• services for museums:
• in the area of extracurricular forms of education,
• provided by the museum guides,

provided that they meet the following conditions:

• the income is from a civil law contract concluded before 15 December 2020 from the titles listed above,
• there is no other title for social insurance than the civil law contract concerned,

• income from a civil law contract from the titles listed above was earned in the month before the one in which the application for a one-off additional downtime benefit was submitted, and it did not exceed 300% of the average monthly remuneration from the previous quarter announced by the President of the Central Statistical Office on the basis of provisions on pensions from the Social Insurance Fund, in force on the day on which the application was submitted.

One-off downtime benefit – how to apply and how much may be received?

The additional one-off downtime benefit for persons performing civil law contracts amounts to PLN 2080, with the exception of a situation in which the sum of income from civil law contracts in the month preceding the month in which the application for the downtime benefit is submitted does not exceed the amount of PLN 1299.99, then the one-off additional downtime benefit is due in the amount of the sum of remunerations from these contracts.

For claiming the benefit, an RSP-CD6 application must be submitted to ZUS, but only via ZUS Platform for Electronic Services (PUE), and no later than within 3 months following the month in which the state of epidemic is lifted.

The one-off additional downtime benefit will be transferred to a bank account specified in the application.

Learn more: Contributions to ZUS 2021