Teach in Poland

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:

• Direct Employment: getting hired directly as an employee by a school or other company
• Sole Trader: registering as an independent freelancer, or ‘sole trader’ (EU/US citizens mainly or those with current Polish residence through other means)
• Incubator: freelancing under subcontract with a business incubator, serving as an employer of record

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 mandatory, having at least 1 year of experience is strongly preferred. Poland is one of the most educated populations in the world, and schools here expect a high level of competence and confidence from their teachers. Transferable skills from related fields—such as coaching, academic tutoring, or corporate training—may also be considered on a case-by-case basis. If you believe you’ve got what it takes, we encourage you to apply and showcase your potential.

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.

To understand our minimum requirements in further detail, please check our minimum requirements on our welcome center.

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.