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Teaching English in Poland means being a jack of all trades. Teaching a huge variety of students, typically highly motivated young professionals, studious teenagers aspiring to apply to top universities, and excited kids looking to improve on their general English, an ESL teacher must be able to whip together a lesson plan about pretty much anything and everything.
For experienced ESL teachers and newly qualified teachers alike, Poland offers one of the most lucrative job markets in the EU. Oh and did we mention, it’s an AWESOME place to live and work!
Nearly all your students will be highly motivated and usually at an upper intermediate to advanced level in English. So, you won’t be teaching them how to say “apple,” but rather how to have political debates, negotiate contracts, and other intricacies of real-life English.
Expect to work 15 to 25 hours per week of classroom teaching, in addition to prep time and light administrative work such as marking written coursework. The schedule itself will be mostly afternoon and early evening hours, with the occasional mornings for teaching “in-company” classes. You’ll be paid a similar pay rate to your local colleagues, varying between 5000 and 10,000 PLN per month (€1,200 – €2,200), depending on the job and how many hours you’re teaching. The national average monthly salary for an English teacher is approximately 7,500 PLN (€1,700).
You’ll fly into Krakow to begin the program with a 7-day-long Orientation Week, where you’ll get to know some of your fellow Wizards and get accustomed to life in Poland. And have some fun, of course! The magic of Krakow, Poland’s historical and cultural capital, will immediately make you fall in love with your new home.
Immediately following our orientation program, you’ll begin working as an ESL teacher at a school. We have partnerships with some of Poland’s most well-known schools to place teachers for this program.
Demand to learn English with native speakers at the advanced level has skyrocketed in Poland recently, with more and more jobs, careers, and university programs requiring an advanced professional level of English to even be considered.
The types of students you’ll be teaching are as varied as the industry itself. You might be teaching business professionals in the morning, younger kids in the early afternoon right after school hours, and energetic teenagers at the language center in the evening, or perhaps the whole day spent with kids in a preschool or kindergarten. Classes with teens will often focus on preparing for competitive exams, such as the FCE and IELTS, while adult classes will usually be more practical and conversation-based.
Nobody likes to feel alone when moving to a new country and navigating the bureaucracy of visa processes and self-employment certainly isn't for everyone. To accommodate the needs of freelancers relocating to Europe, English Wizards offers a number of levels of support services.
Poland is a gorgeous country filled with medieval castles and town squares, breathtaking mountains and lakes, picturesque cobblestone streets, and culture and nightlife that puts much of Western Europe to shame. Oh yeah, and did we mention…it’s affordable.
Not only is the country incredibly beautiful and full of culture, but it also ranks as one of the most livable countries in Europe. The infrastructure is modern and developed, the streets are safe and crime-free, and the population of major cities is largely proficient in English.
Poland's teaching job market is perhaps the biggest and fastest-growing in Europe, with more and more language schools opening everyday and looking for qualified teachers.
Just a warning: Many people come to Poland to teach for a semester and end up staying for years. It's just one of those places!
Poland is an incredibly affordable country for all. However, it is incredibly important to be realistic and keep in mind the costs of living. Nobody like surprises, so below you’ll find the average costs of living in Poland.
Rent in Poland can be as low as €200 per month for a room in a shared flat.
A private apartment in a big city like Warsaw will cost between €500 and €700 per month.
It’s generally advised to budget €150 to €550 for a few weeks of temporary accommodation in a hotel or hostel when you first arrive so that you have time to see potential apartments and attend our Orientation Week. Also, keep in mind that most landlords will require a deposit of 1-2 month’s rent before moving in.
Public transport is excellent in Poland, so there’s no need to have a car. A monthly pass is around €25.
A mobile phone plan costs less than €8 per month, and home internet plans start at €15 per month.
After housing and commuting costs, a reasonable budget for living and having fun in Poland is between €300 and €800 per month depending on your spending habits.
Personal Income Tax in Poland is between 6% and 19%, depending on your income level and line of work. Most English teachers, as well as those in most creative professions, pay the lowest tier of income taxes.
If you are required to pay into Poland’s social security and national healthcare system, the cost of this is between 300 and 850 PLN (about €70 to €200) per month. In return, you’ll receive full access to public healthcare and social services in Poland and the entire European Union.
English Wizards takes care of accounting, invoicing, and tax management for our teacher who are hired on freelance contracts.
Our ongoing monthly fee for this service is 350 PLN (about €70) per month. This includes and covers:
You are also welcome to utilize the services of your own accountant, however this rate is fairly standard for the Polish market. Feel free to read more about the administrative costs of being a freelancer on our blog.
For teachers hired on employment contracts, administration is managed by the school so there is no additional cost, though the tax rate on this type of contract is considerably higher.
To join either the freelance teaching or digital nomad pathways, and be fully legal to live and work in Poland, non-EU citizens are required to have:
Absolutely!
English Wizards is happy to offer flexible installment payment options. A non-refundable down payment of €500 is due upon registration; however, the remaining balance can be split into installments. Add-ons (such as travel medical insurance and accommodation) can also be paid for as part of your plan.
We recommend splitting your payments into 3 monthly installments; however, we are happy to offer custom payment plans to suit your financial needs. Keep in mind, however, that all installments must be paid at least 1 month prior to your arrival. In the above plans, we’ve used 6 months as the calculation, including emergency medical cover (195 euros), a requirement for all Type-D visa’s.
English Wizards offers 3 options for freelancers and others (teachers included!) looking to work in Poland to obtain permission to work (and thus, be eligible to apply for a work visa:
For a full outline of the costs, benefits, drawbacks, and options available for each of the above visa pathways, click the link below and download our full informational here.
Once you’ve obtained permission to work using one of the above pathways, your next step is to go to your nearest Polish embassy and get a visa (Type-D), or if you are already in Poland, go to the Immigration Office to obtain a Temporary Residence Permit (TRC). For more information on these procedures and how we can help you, click here to download our basic guide.
Got more questions? Shoot us an email back and we’ll get back to you ASAP. There’s no such thing as too many questions when it comes to moving abroad!
For the placement program, yes and no.
While we are always happy to take individual preferences into account, we have schools all over the country that cooperate with this program. As such, we cannot guarantee that every teacher will get their first choice of cities.
For all other programs, finding work is your responsibility, so you have full control over where you will be living & working.
You will fly into Krakow for our orientation week. Wizards who opt for one of our accommodation packages will be housed together at a guesthouse within walking distance from the city center. For the job placements, we work with schools all over Poland, so you may or may not end up working in Krakow.
Yes. All of the schools that we work with for this program like to speak directly with our teachers. Most interviews are conducted via Skype or Zoom in the months prior to the semester’s start. You may also be asked to conduct a trial class at the school when you arrive.
In the unlikely event that you are not offered a job, your community manager will continue to work with you to find a suitable school through our network.
Although schools will always make the final call on who they hire, the schools that we work with trust our program to provide quality teachers. Our community managers and program directors have many years of experience in the Polish ESL job market and know how many job openings to expect each semester at our partner language centers. We accept only a limited number of teachers to match the expected job openings. It is important to note that our job guarantee provided with the placement package only applies only to teachers who meet our program requirements, as listed on this page. We reserve the right to refuse to offer this package and give a refund if we believe (at any point) that you do not meet the listed requirements.
Unfortunately, this is very difficult. To work at a public school, the Polish Ministry of Education requires teachers to hold Polish teaching credentials, which include being fluent in the Polish language and completing a licensing course in Polish. For this reason, the overwhelming majority of foreign teachers in Poland work at language centers.
If you are interested in a more “ordinary” school teaching experience with the classic daily school routine, we do offer placements at private preschools and primary schools.
Finding work at a university is possible if you are highly experienced and qualified. They will typically want to see at least a Master’s Degree in English or a related subject and a few years of experience. Some teachers have found this type of work through our Freelancing Visa; however, due to the highly specialized nature of this type of work, we do not offer such placements as part of this program.
Almost all schools in Poland will expect you to commit to working with them for the entire academic year (until late June). We require this in order to deliver our placement guarantee for the placement package. Teachers looking for shorter-term options can come in the winter hiring season and find half-year contracts, though schools will typically give preference to teachers who show interest in staying longer. Of course, there’s nothing to say you can’t stay longer than a year! Many teachers have stayed with their schools for many consecutive academic years, and others have gone on to work elsewhere in Poland through one of our freelance work visas.
Absolutely! We love to welcome couples and/or groups of friends to our program. If you’re coming with the Placement Package, we cannot guarantee that you’ll be placed at the same school as your friend or partner, though we do our absolute best to accommodate the natural desire for couples and groups of friends to work in the same city.
Absolutely! We love seeing applications from teachers who have already made the jump into life overseas. However, if you are not an EU citizen, you may not be able to get a visa before you arrive, as it is not always possible to obtain a Polish visa in a third country. Check with the Polish embassy in your current country to see if it will be possible to obtain a visa without having to return to your home country.
Yes! A bachelor’s degree is not a requirement for this program.
Though you will be working as a teacher, which means you must be able to demonstrate a level of academic and professional competence that schools and students will be expecting. If you do not hold formal education, then we will ask you to demonstrate in your interview and application that you can speak, write, and work at the equivalent level of an educated person. You must have completed high school/secondary education, as this is a requirement for the visa. To check out our guide on what type of education documents are accepted, click here.
Candidates without a TEFL certificate or other recognized ESL qualification will only be considered for this program if they possess significant prior ESL teaching experience. For other required documents, you can check our guide here.
While teaching experience isn’t required, it is a huge plus. Most Polish schools want to see that you’ve had some sort of experience in the classroom. Maybe you’ve been a sports coach, academic tutor, or led corporate training sessions. While not a hard requirement, this is the type of stuff we’re looking for on your application, especially if you are interested in our placement package.
Our program is open to all nationalities. It is not your passport that’s important, but your English proficiency. Though we will never outright reject a candidate on the basis of nationality, if you come from a non-English-speaking country and require a work visa, please see our visas page for more information, as there may be some visa complications.
You must be a legal adult (18+), but there is no upper age restriction. Age discrimination is illegal in the European Union, and any school advertising a preference for teachers of a certain age is breaking the law.
This depends on how fluently and clearly you can speak English. If your level of English is anything below perfectly fluent or if you have a clearly noticeable non-native accent, we unfortunately cannot accept you on this program. Poland, like the rest of Europe, has a very high level of English proficiency. There is no shortage of local teachers who can speak C1 or even C2 English and have advanced degrees and loads of teaching experience. For us to be able to consider you, you must offer something that no Polish teacher can offer: a native comprehension of the English language.
If you can speak English with native proficiency and a neutral accent and can prove it in your interview, we will gladly accept you regardless of your nationality and linguistic background.
While many schools do run classes year-round, many go on break during the summer. Pre-schools, kindergartens, and in-company lessons run all year round, but you’ll need to discuss this with your school as some have summer courses and camps. Our placement package can only guarantee work for the duration of the academic year (September until June). For those that won’t have work, we provide an extensive list of summer camps all around Europe you can approach or simply enjoy the break and travel Europe yourself!
There are 3 pathways and all 3 have different calculations.
Incubator Pathway: For income under 10K PLN per month, the monthly admin fee is 350PLN. This is removed from your total, then 6% tax is removed. Using Poland’s minimum wage laws as an example. 4300PLN – 350PLN = 3,950PLN less 6% tax = 3,726PLN.
Sole Trader Pathway: For the first 6 months, Monthly public health contribution 420PLN + 300PLN monthly accounting + 8.5% tax. 7-24 months, it increases by another 403PLN. This example is based on the monthly minimum wage as above.
Direct Employment: Your employer pays everything but the total can be approximated to 37% of your net salary. For example, if you want 5K PLN net, you would cost your employer 6850PLN approx. This almost $2,000 additional cost for them is why they prefer the above 2 pathways when dealing with foreign teachers.
Many preschool and primary school jobs require teaching the entire school curriculum in English, as opposed to just teaching English classes. Anything beyond this, such as subject-specific teaching jobs at a secondary school or university, is quite rare and difficult to access as a foreigner.
Of course, the nature of your job and what you’re expected to teach is always something that you’ll need to discuss directly with your school. Through our Placement Package, we cannot guarantee placement at a preschool or primary school.
Immigration rates have been rising exponentially in Poland for over a decade, and after a further uptick of migrants after the start of the situation in Ukraine in 2022, now roughly 6% of Poland’s population is foreign-born. So it goes without saying that it’s very likely you’ll have some foreign students in your classes as well, in particular Ukrainians, who make up over half of Poland’s immigrant population. This is especially true if you’re teaching in a big city.
If you’re teaching at a private preschool or primary school, it’s perhaps even more likely that you’ll be teaching foreign students as well, as immigrant and expat parents are especially likely to enroll their kids in a school where they can study in English with a native-speaking teacher.
We get it; this does happen, and there can be a myriad of reasons, such as that you experienced a delay in arriving in Poland or the school you’ll be working at wants you to start earlier. In these situations, we will still complete all the required logistics of your arrival support (such as opening a bank account, getting a TAX number, etc.). No matter where you will be working or living in Poland, our team will organize and pay for a return train or bus to Krakow as well as overnight accommodation in a hostel. From here, you will always be invited to join the next full-week orientation! So it’s never missed in the end. To check out an example of our orientation week, click here!
Not yet, but we’re working on it!
At the moment this is incredibly rare in Poland, as elsewhere in Europe.
While schools covering flights, visa expenses, and accommodation for foreign teachers is common in many Asian and Middle- Eastern countries, it is incredibly rare in Europe. Most schools do not want to be involved in the process of teachers physically relocating and prefer to work with teachers who are already set up and ready to go at the beginning of the semester. That’s what English Wizards is here for!
While we can always take your preferences into account during the placement process, we cannot make any guarantees. As we place over 150 teachers a year and work with over 500 schools all across the country, it is simply impossible to guarantee everyone’s first choice. As such, if you wish to opt for the placement package, you’ll need to be prepared to work anywhere in the country and teach students of all ages.
If living in a certain city and/or teaching a particular age group is an absolute must for you, we recommend opting for the Support Package and taking advantage of our job-finding assistance to land your dream job in your desired city.
Absolutely!
Poland has a number of internationally ranked universities that are open to foreign students, very affordable, and offer degree programs in English. Many even offer weekend courses to accommodate students who are also working full-time jobs.
Have any questions about our programs or want to know more about English Wizards? Fill out the form and we will get back to you in the next 24 hours.
