Today we will talk about business incubators. Poland offers favorable conditions for foreigners who want to legally relocate and work here. We’ve gathered information from various sources — acquaintances, clients, colleagues who have interacted with business incubators (BIs). Let’s break down what it is, the pros and cons, potential risks, and collaboration nuances. We will also compare it to the alternative of opening your own company. The article won’t name any names or brand names, it’s honest information, and you can draw your own conclusions.
Business Incubator in Poland: Pros and Cons
During personal consultations, clients frequently ask about starting a business, often micro and small businesses. A common alternative is a business incubator in Poland — easier entry, many advantages, and few obligations.
An incubator essentially is an organization that hires you. Everything written online is based on this understanding. The company provides you with a sub-account, various perks, infrastructure, but legally, you are an employee of this firm. An entrepreneur who opened a limited liability company (spółka) can also open their own business incubator.
Pros:
- Separate bank account and the ability to connect local and international payment systems: Paypal, Stripe, PayU, etc. You can quickly obtain a legal account to receive payments from clients.
- Legal and accounting support. The incubator checks all contracts you sign. Different organizations allocate different hours for communication with a lawyer.
- CRM and digital infrastructure. The BI offers services for managing and controlling the business to make your work easier.
- Possibility to obtain a work permit, enter with it, and have an employment contract. This gives you social insurance and a way to obtain temporary residence and mortgage.
- Low taxes. There is a possibility to withdraw money under a 8.5% tax rate if you create something original (copyright, IT specialist, architect, designer, etc.) — this type of contract is called umowa o dzieło z przeniesieniem praw autorskich. For an online store, this doesn’t apply. If you hire yourself for a job, the income tax on your earnings will be about 38% (employment contract umowa zlecenie).
- A lot of ready-made documents and instructions: contract templates, privacy policies, RODO (GDPR), etc. Since you are working under the name of the business incubator in Poland, it is in their best interest to do everything legally.
- For students under 26 who study full-time, it is possible to withdraw money with zero taxes.
- Quick start and easy exit from the business (just terminate the contract). In the case of a limited liability company, this is more complicated. Read here about how to close a non-operating company.
Cons:
- A lot of paperwork and bureaucracy. The lawyer may refuse to sign a contract with a client or take a long time to approve it. The contract is signed between the BI and the client. You are just an employee working for the business incubator.
- Fines. For rule violations or improperly executed documents, penalties may apply.
- Bad coordinator/manager or frequent changes. Work processes can be disrupted or delayed because of this.
- No VAT refund. VAT goes to the business incubator. Poland offers 23% VAT, which is a significant amount.
- Everything is registered under the BI: cash registers, terminals. You can’t buy assets for the company, only as an individual. You can’t purchase anything for the company account.
- Not all contractors/subcontractors/clients want to work with incubators due to a bad reputation. Remember, the contract is signed between the client and the BI, and there are cases when the client doesn’t trust or doesn’t want to work with certain organizations.
- Incubator service fees are about €100. This is not a small amount.
- No possibility to scale: hire employees, open branches, give shares, or enter into partnerships.
- Not suitable for all businesses or will be very inconvenient for some. For example, in the beauty industry, there is a lot of paperwork, and processes are slow.
- Complicated system of withdrawing funds and accounting. You can’t write off everything as expenses. If you have a non-standard mono service, it’s quite complicated to manage income/expenses.
- Not taken seriously in the eyes of clients or partners.
- For connecting many payment systems, you need to agree that you risk all your assets. Risks, debts, financial losses — all fall on you.
- Not suitable for financial optimization with large turnovers.
- You cannot register leasing, receive subsidies, or additional financing.
- You cannot sell your business as an asset or add new owners.
- Once a year, you need to withdraw all funds from the accounts. You are working under someone else’s rules and can’t always control your funds.
The Incubator Provides You with Business Infrastructure, But You Are Actually Their Employee
Who It’s Suitable For
A business incubator in Poland is not for everyone:
- IT specialists or similar creative, digital professions,
- Micro businesses,
- Not suitable if your business is growing and needs material assets, licenses, permits, equipment purchases, or hiring employees.
After listing the pros and cons of a business incubator in Poland, we can say that it is:
- A real way to relocate and stay here.
- A good opportunity to quickly start and legalize your business if you are working alone.
- You can create a credit history for a mortgage.
If you feel that your goals are higher and you are ready to invest time and effort, and your activity is not so simple, interacting with an incubator will be difficult. If you decide to open a company in the Republic of Poland, the Uniconsulting.group team is ready to help.
