Can an employment contract be signed electronically?

Yes, but only with a qualified electronic signature. An employment contract is concluded in written form (art. 29 § 2 of the Labour Code), and electronically only a qualified signature preserves it: a declaration of intent bearing such a signature is equivalent to one made in written form (art. 78¹ of the Civil Code). It is enough that one party signs electronically — the other may sign by hand.

The contract is not on that list — and that is the trap of this change. The headline “paper or electronic” sounds like permission for everything, while it covers schedules and working-time requests. The contract, its annex and a termination notice stay in written form.

Where to get a qualified signature. The mObywatel app provides one free of charge (5 PDF documents per month), but it requires an mDowód and a valid plastic e-dowód — that is, a Polish identity card. A foreigner holding a residence card has neither, so that route is closed for them: what remains is a signature bought from a qualified provider (Cencert, SimplySign, SIGILLUM, mSzafir, doPodpisu — the same companies behind the signature in mObywatel).

Hence a decision the employer has to make deliberately: either the company pays for the employee's signature, or contracts with foreigners stay on paper. There is no third way — “we will sign with profil zaufany because it is free” is precisely the path where the written form is missing.

Podpis osobisty from an e-dowód is a third, separate thing: towards a public authority it has the effect of a handwritten signature, and towards a company only if both parties agree to it (art. 12d of the act on identity cards). In the MOS procedure (the employer's annex) any of the three will do — zaufany, osobisty or qualified — because there you sign a document towards an authority rather than conclude a contract.

The service shows the type of signature in every uploaded file, not just how many there are. For documents where the law requires written form, a missing qualified signature is flagged: “1 signature” next to a podpis zaufany looked like a signed contract, while the written form was not there.