Deputy Health Minister Tomasz Maciejewski acknowledged in the Senate that the share of doctors earning more than PLN 1 million a year may exceed 10%. With roughly 143,000 practising doctors, that would mean as many as several tens of thousands of people.
What the deputy minister said
The statement was made on 4 November during a Senate sitting, while lawmakers were working on a bill on pay caps for medical professionals. According to Maciejewski, the scale of the phenomenon is now larger than originally assumed. – It has already reached thousands, perhaps more than 10 percent – the deputy minister said.
This is the ministry’s estimate, not statistical data. For a group of about 143,000 practising doctors, 10% amounts to more than 14,000 people.
How the estimates changed
At the start of work on the bill, which aims to curb “pay chimneys” in the public healthcare system, officials spoke of at most several hundred doctors earning more than PLN 1 million a year. Later, estimates emerged that 5–10% of people earn over PLN 100,000 a month. Now the ministry admits the share may be even higher.
Previous publications were based on partial data. A study by the Civic Network Watchdog Polska found that in 2025, 172 doctors earned over PLN 1 million gross across 160 hospitals that responded to information requests. The highest salary was PLN 2.98 million gross. However, these figures do not add up the earnings of doctors working in several facilities. We also previously reported on the health minister’s response to data on hundreds of doctors with million-zloty earnings.
Precise data in January 2027
Information on the actual earnings of medical professionals is collected by the Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Tariff System (AOTMiT). Healthcare providers report staff pay, but earlier submissions were fragmentary and did not account for the fact that one doctor may work in several facilities. Detailed results, according to the Ministry of Health’s announcement, are expected to be known in January 2027.
