Key information:
- The District Court in Radom fined the president of a transport company 25,000 zlotys after a Border Guard inspection found irregularities involving 58 foreign workers.
- Officers reviewed documentation for 131 drivers from Belarus, Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine.
- In Poland, illegally assigning work to a foreign national can result in a fine of between 3,000 and 50,000 zlotys.
- In Germany, breaches involving the employment of drivers have also led to suspended prison sentences. In the Netherlands, similar cases have resulted in fines worth hundreds of thousands of euros.
On 9 September 2026, the District Court in Radom found the president of a local transport company guilty of illegally assigning work to foreign nationals. In a penalty order, the court imposed a fine of 25,000 zlotys, the Border Guard Headquarters reported. The case followed an inspection by officers from the Border Guard post in Radom.
The inspection lasted four months and concluded in April 2026. Officers examined employment records for 131 citizens of Belarus, Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine who worked for the company as road-haulage drivers.
A work permit does not cover all employment situations
Irregularities were identified in the cases of 58 foreign nationals. In most instances, they were working under conditions that differed from those stated in their permits.
The Border Guard also found that copies of the employment contracts had not been sent to the relevant authority before the workers were assigned their duties.
Based on the inspection findings, officers submitted a request to the court to punish the company president. On 9 September, the court found him guilty and imposed a fine of 25,000 zlotys.
Poland’s Act on the Conditions for Permitting Foreign Nationals to Work in the Republic of Poland has been in force since 1 June 2025. The legislation increased the penalties for breaches. Illegally assigning work to a foreign national now carries a fine of between 3,000 and 50,000 zlotys, compared with a previous maximum of 30,000 zlotys.
For transport operators, an important point is that a breach does not require the complete absence of a work permit. Employment can also be considered illegal when a foreign national works under conditions that differ from those authorised in the documents legalising the employment, unless a statutory exception applies.
Employers also have a separate duty to submit a copy of the contract signed with the foreign worker to the relevant authority. Failure to do so can result in a fine of between 1,000 and 3,000 zlotys.
Germany: €35,000 in fines over 40 drivers
The fine in Radom is lower than sanctions imposed on transport operators elsewhere in Europe. Cases in Germany and the Netherlands have involved fines ranging from tens to hundreds of thousands of euros. Although the breaches were not identical, they illustrate the scale of the risks facing transport businesses.
Similar cases have been reported in other European countries. In August 2026, a case involving 40 foreign drivers was reported. The drivers were formally employed by Lithuanian companies but in practice worked exclusively for a German transport business.
German customs authorities challenged the arrangement, classifying it as the unlawful supply of workers without the required authorisation. The drivers were formally employed by two related Lithuanian transport companies, but inspectors found that they worked solely for a business near Freiburg and followed its instructions.
The arrangement was presented as the performance of contracts for specific work. German authorities concluded, however, that it was actually the supply of labour and therefore required a permit. The director of the Lithuanian companies was fined €20,000, while the German entrepreneur received a €15,000 fine. Both decisions are final.
The case shows that inspectors look beyond the paperwork. They also examine how drivers are actually managed and how their work is organised.
German freight forwarder receives suspended prison sentence
A freight forwarder from Weinstadt faced even more serious consequences. In August 2025, the District Court in Backnang, Baden-Württemberg, sentenced the 37-year-old entrepreneur to one year and four months’ imprisonment, suspended. He was also ordered to pay €4,000 to an association of probation officers. The judgment is final.
The case involved 12 drivers from Uzbekistan whom the entrepreneur employed in 2021 and 2022 without the necessary permits. Although the men held short-term residence permits issued by other European Union countries, those documents did not give them the right to work legally in Germany.
An investigation by Finanzkontrolle Schwarzarbeit (FKS), the German unit responsible for combating illegal employment, also found that the drivers had not been registered for social insurance. There were serious breaches relating to pay: their wages were well below Germany’s statutory minimum, and they had to cover basic expenses with money paid directly by the company’s customers.
The violations in this case therefore went beyond those described by the Border Guard in the Radom proceedings.
Netherlands: €378,000 in fines and a seized truck
The financial penalties were even higher in a case involving a Dutch haulier, reported in March 2020. Dutch labour inspectors found that the company had employed nine Turkish truck drivers without the required work permits. The operator also refused to provide documentation concerning a further 18 employees.
Inspectors additionally determined that the company had failed to include the workers on its payroll.
The company was fined €216,000, while its manager received a separate fine of €162,000 for directing the illegal practices.
The total sanctions came to €378,000. To secure the potential recovery of the debt, inspectors also seized the haulier’s truck and bank accounts.
A valid permit is only part of the compliance picture
The Radom case shows that the risks of employing drivers from outside the European Union are not limited to situations where no work permit exists. Problems can also arise when a worker has the required documents but performs the job under conditions that differ from those authorised.
The examples from Germany and the Netherlands demonstrate how serious the consequences of breaching employment and working-time rules can become — from substantial fines to criminal liability for company managers.
The cases differ in both the nature and scale of the violations, but they share one important lesson: documents alone do not determine whether employment is lawful. Operators must also comply with the conditions set out in those documents, keep employment records accurate and meet all obligations under labour and transport regulations.
