The bon senioralny is now working in practice: the Act has applied since 7 August 2026, and the regulation introducing the Senior Voucher Programme for 2026-2028 took effect on 30 September 2026. In short: the voucher is available to people who have completed their 65th year and whose average monthly income does not exceed 3,410 zł, and it takes the form of free support services worth up to 2,500 zł a month. It is granted by the gmina where the senior lives, but not every gmina has started at once. How to apply is covered in a separate piece: bon senioralny application: where to get the form, how to apply and how long it takes.
If you have already looked into this, you have probably run into conflicting numbers: 75 years, 80 years, 2,150 zł a month, a scale from 11 to 60 points. You did not misread them. Those figures come from an earlier, separate draft bon senioralny bill from September 2025, which never became law. Many newsrooms did not update their articles once the actual Act was passed. Everything below is based on the Act promulgated in the Journal of Laws as item 986 of 2026 and on the regulation of 29 September 2026 (item 1277).
What the voucher is, and what it is not
The bon senioralny is not a payment. It is a non-cash benefit: a set of support services that somebody actually performs in the senior's home. The Act lists help with everyday activities such as dressing, preparing meals, moving around and keeping the home in order, hygiene and nursing care, support in accessing health services, and ensuring contact with other people, including intellectual or physical activity.
Gminas run the programme as a task delegated from central government, financed by an earmarked grant from the state budget. In practice that means the money does not land in the senior's account, or the family's. The gmina assesses the needs, arranges the service and pays whoever provides it. For a family hoping for extra money to spend freely this is often the first disappointment, but it is also the only sensible design: the voucher exists to relieve the carer, not to top up a pension.
Who qualifies
The Act sets five conditions, and all of them must be met at once:
- Age: a completed 65th year of life. Not 75, and not 80.
- Unmet needs in basic daily activities, assessed by the gmina in its own procedure. The regulation treats needs as unmet when, because of health or age, the senior cannot manage the basic activities at home alone and has no actual carer who could provide such support.
- Income: average monthly income across the three months before the application no higher than 3,410 zł.
- Citizenship: Polish, or that of an EU, EEA or Swiss state, or UK citizenship covered by the withdrawal agreement.
- Residence in Poland throughout the period the voucher is used. The competent authority is the gmina where the senior lives.
It is worth noting what is absent from that list. The Act does not require a working adult child to file the application, and it does not examine the applicant's income. One caveat: although the Act does not exclude a senior who lives with someone close, the regulation treats needs as unmet only when the senior has no actual carer able to provide such support, so the gmina will check this, and it is worth describing in the application who really helps and how much. The thresholds of 3,500 zł, 6,700 zł and 10,000 zł circulating online belonged to the abandoned draft. Under the law in force, only the senior's own situation counts.
The income test: 3,410 zł, but not gross
This is the most misunderstood number in the whole programme. The Act refers to the definition of income in the Family Benefits Act, so it means the amount after deducting tax due and social and health insurance contributions. Not the gross figure from the ZUS decision. For a pensioner the practical reference point is what actually reaches the bank account.
The difference can be large enough to decide the case. A gross pension of 3,600 zł leaves roughly 3,150 zł in hand, depending on tax reliefs, and therefore falls within the criterion even though at first glance it looks like an excess. Many people give up at this point unnecessarily, because they are comparing the wrong figure with the threshold.
A second point the press handles loosely: the ZUS dodatek pielęgnacyjny care supplement is exempt from income tax, so it does not enter income in this sense. The often repeated phrase about a pension together with the care supplement implies that the supplement pushes the senior towards the threshold, and it does not. The criterion itself is indexed annually by the same rate as pensions, with the indexed figure announced in Monitor Polski by the end of February.
The Act provides no sliding scale and no tapering of support. Exceeding the threshold by one zloty means refusal. If the income falls close to the line, calculate it precisely rather than estimating. You can do that in our bon senioralny eligibility checker, which shows the provision behind every condition.
How much is the voucher worth
Up to 2,500 zł a month, but that is the value of services, not a transfer. The regulation of 29 September 2026 provides that the value of support services under the voucher is the cost of one hour of the service provider's work multiplied by the monthly number of hours written into the agreement, and comes to at most 2,500 zł a month. The hourly cost is set for the gminas of a voivodeship by the voivode and may not exceed 48 zł. The services are free for the senior.
How many hours a particular person gets depends on that person. The agreement sets the monthly hours and the number of days a week in line with the level of unmet needs, so there is no single number of hours for everyone. As simple arithmetic: at the highest permitted rate of 48 zł, the 2,500 zł ceiling corresponds to about 52 hours of services a month, and at a lower rate there could be more. The 2,150 zł figure and the hour brackets that circulated earlier came from the draft that never entered into force.
The funding limit also sets the scale of the programme. The maximum state-budget spending limit for 2026-2035 is 4,698.60 million zł. Of that, the grants reaching gminas amount to 100 million zł in 2026, 419.23 million zł in 2027 and 519.71 million zł in 2028, then roughly 520 million zł a year. That limit, rather than the number of eligible people, will set the real scale of the programme in its first years.
What the voucher cannot be combined with
Here the rules are unusually detailed, and this is the most common reason for refusal. The voucher is not available if the senior has been granted the nursing benefit, the special care allowance or the carer's allowance. Nor is it available where the senior uses the support benefit, specialist care services at a support centre, care services or personal assistance co-funded by government programmes, round-the-clock care in a public care home, in a nursing and treatment facility, in a facility operating under social assistance law, with any other provider of round-the-clock care, or institutional day care.
Watch the names, because the difference decides entitlement. The exclusion list includes świadczenie pielęgnacyjne, but not zasiłek pielęgnacyjny and not the ZUS dodatek pielęgnacyjny. These three benefits have deceptively similar names, are confused even in the trade press, and have entirely different effects.
The exception almost nobody writes about
If the use of services or care from that second group is occasional and lasts no longer than 14 days at a time, the gmina may grant the voucher anyway. A two-week respite stay in a facility therefore does not close the door, while a permanent stay does. The provision says the gmina may, not that it shall, so it is an official decision and better settled before the stay than after it. We develop this in a separate piece on whether the bon senioralny can be combined with a care home.
From when, and in what order
The Act has applied since 7 August 2026 and the Programme since 30 September 2026, and in 2026 it covers only the fourth quarter. That does not mean the voucher is available in every gmina. According to gov.pl, 1026 gminas, or 41.4 per cent, applied for funds for this quarter, and gminas request funds for the following year by 30 November.
The Act itself sets the order. First come gminas where no public care services for seniors were being provided. Then those where such services cover no more than ten people. Last, gminas with the highest projected growth in the number and share of seniors. There is a logic to this, since it directs money first to places with nothing, but for a family in a large city with well developed services it means a longer wait. How to check where your gmina stands, and what happens after you apply, is covered in our piece on the bon senioralny application.
What to do now
First, calculate the senior's income precisely, after tax and contributions, so you know whether you fall within the criterion. Then call the local social services office and ask whether the gmina takes part in the Programme in the fourth quarter of 2026 and is already accepting applications. There is no single national form and each gmina has its own, so ask where to find it. Everything about the application itself is collected in bon senioralny application: where to get the form, how to apply and how long it takes.
It is also worth assessing the scale of need honestly. The bon senioralny is occasional support at home and will not replace round-the-clock care. If your parent needs constant supervision, entitlement would be excluded anyway, and the conversation should be about other options. We have collected them in our guide to benefits and allowances for seniors. And if you already know a facility is needed, describe the situation in the form and we will send options matched to the needs and the budget.
Sources
- Act of 11 June 2026 on older persons and the coordination of long-term care (Journal of Laws item 986), Articles 25-29
- Council of Ministers regulation of 29 September 2026 on the Senior Voucher Programme for 2026-2028 (Journal of Laws item 1277), sections 2, 3 and 9
- Program Bonu Senioralnego, gov.pl
