ZUS drops Z-3b certificate, narrows Z-3a to other insured

ZUS instruction pages for sickness benefit, rehabilitation benefit, maternity allowance and care allowance now carry only two payer certificates: Z-3 for employees and Z-3a for the remaining insuredZUS, with the Z-3b certificate withdrawn. The two-variant certificate is defined in § 3 of the new benefits-documentation regulation of 27 September 2026 (Dz. U. poz. 1316), which applies from 24 October 2026Sejm and repeals the 2015 documentation rules: the employee variant, and the variant for insured persons who are not employees, excluding the self-employed, their collaborators, clergy and seafarersSejm — with § 3(2) extending the same split to rehabilitation, care, maternity and equivalent benefits.

For payroll practice this redraws who files what. Employees are certified on Z-3ZUS; all other insured — except people running a non-agricultural business, those cooperating with them including start-up relief collaborators, clergy and seafarers — are certified on Z-3aZUS. The excluded groups do not supply a payer certificate at allZUS: a self-employed person, collaborator, clergyman or seafarer claiming sickness benefit files the ZAS-53 claim, which ZUS treats as the benefit applicationZUS. Contribution payers file Z-3 and Z-3a through the PUE/eZUS account, and where the doctor issued an electronic certificate (e-ZLA) the payer certificate itself counts as the benefit claim, so no separate application is needed.

Seafarers are now expressly named in the contribution-arrears sanctionZUS. Under art. 2a of the benefits act, self-employed persons, their collaborators, start-up relief collaborators, clergy paying their own contributions and seafarers who owe social insurance contributions of more than 1% of the minimum wage on the day the benefit right arises receive no sickness, rehabilitation, maternity or care benefit until the arrears are paid in fullSejm. They have 6 months from the day the right arose to clear the debtSejm: payment within that time restores the benefit from the day the right aroseZUS, while later payment creates the right only from the repayment dateZUS, with the earlier period precluded. The ZUS pages now list marynarze alongside the other groups in this rule and in the filing routes.

On the care-allowance page the change is visible in the claim form as well: the Z-15A form is goneZUS and the single Z-15 is filed for every care claim except uninterrupted care periods for the same childZUS. As on the other pages, ZUS- paid care claims need Z-3 for employees and Z-3a for the remaining insured with the same exclusions, and payers can file both certificates through PUE/eZUS. Claims route through the payer where it reports more than 20 insured for sickness insurance; employees of smaller payers file through the payer, which forwards the file to ZUS; other insured file directly with any ZUS field office. A refusal can be appealed to the district labour and social insurance court within one month of service.

Legal basis: Rozporządzenie Ministra Rodziny, Pracy i Polityki Społecznej z dnia 27 września 2026 r. (Dz. U. poz. 1316), in particular §§ 2–3 on the payer certificate; the contribution-arrears rule is art. 2a of the ustawa z dnia 25 czerwca 1999 r. o świadczeniach pieniężnych z ubezpieczenia społecznego w razie choroby i macierzyństwa (uniform text Dz. U. z 2026 r. poz. 854).