Poland plans to tighten the rules for foreigners, including Ukrainians, to receive the “800+” benefit. It is a monthly child allowance of 800 zlotys, or about $220. Starting in February 2026, only families where at least one parent is officially employed will be eligible. In June this year, a condition was added requiring the child to attend a Polish school or kindergarten.
In the context of Poland’s planned changes, political analyst Andrey Lazutkin said on the CTV program “Entertaining Political Science” on September 9, 2025, that children would now be taken en masse from Ukrainian refugee families. He explained it by claiming that benefits are being paid for them even though they don’t attend Polish schools:
“They may not be in Poland, but if they are, all of them could be taken from their families and put up for adoption by Poles because they don’t go to school. In Poland, for a child to be removed from a family, the parents don’t need to live an antisocial lifestyle, have a criminal record, or lack proper living conditions. It’s enough to miss more than two weeks of classes without a valid reason. As of last year, 77,000 children were taken from their families, but the data is closed, so it’s unknown what citizenship they had before removal,” Lazutkin said.
Poland’s Education Law states that if a child misses more than half of their classes in a month without a valid reason, it is considered a failure to fulfill the obligation to attend school. But children are not removed from their families for this; instead, parents are fined.
Poland’s Family and Guardianship Code says the court intervenes in family life only if a child’s well-being is at risk. Authorities may first assign a supervisor, require parents to work with a family assistant, or mandate therapy. Placing a child in foster care or an institution is considered a last resort.
As for the 77,000 children Lazutkin mentioned, that was indeed the number of minors under guardianship in Poland at the end of 2024. Most are raised in foster families, often with relatives. Citizenship is not listed separately in the statistics, but it is known that only about 1% of them are foreigners. That means fewer than 1,000 people.
On the same program, Lazutkin spoke about checks on the legality of foreign parents’ employment for those receiving child benefits: “Starting Sept. 30, parents will face inspections at work by ZUS, the equivalent to Belarus’ Social Protection Fund (FSZN). They will be checking for fake employment. For example, when a parent is not present at the workplace where they are officially listed. Another case is when the benefit is the family’s only source of income. In such situations, children will also be taken away.”
The new Polish bill does not call for taking children from families but for ending child benefit payments — only families with at least one working parent will be eligible. The Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) will check monthly whether recipients live in Poland and whether they were economically active in the previous month. Otherwise, the social assistance will be suspended.