Many of the beneficiaries of the Polish pension have been recently received a letter mailed in October, 2023 from ZUS, the social insurance agency in Poland, and, in some cases, a certificate of life (called the “EMRG”), which needs to be completed and sent back to ZUS.
The main point of this letter is that ZUS has made a technological change in its system and has assigned new identification numbers to beneficiaries.
This has no practical effect on the Polish pension, but we recommend that the letter with the new ID number should be kept for the beneficiary’s records.
It is important to note some of these letters contain one or two additional paragraphs:
- Some letters state that (1) the payment has been suspended because ZUS has not received the EMRG form earlier this year after sending it to the beneficiary. In this case, the letter will also state that (2) the EMRG should be completed and returned to ZUS as soon as possible so that the payment can be reinstated as soon as possible.
- Some letters have not suspended the payment but still request that the EMRG form be completed and returned to ZUS. This might be because ZUS may not have sent the EMRG form earlier in the year.
A copy of one version of this letter, including the two paragraphs mentioned above, can be found on our Website here, with annotation and translation in English.
The most recent quarterly Polish payment was issued yesterday, on December 20, 2023, to the beneficiary’s bank account. If the beneficiary has not received it, and also has not received this letter, it might be that the benefit has been suspended, in which case an EMRG form should be completed as soon as possible.
More information about the EMRG form can be found on our Website here, along with a copy of the form and instructions on how to complete it.
If you have any questions or need additional help in completing the form, please contact us.
