ATTENTION! Text translated automatically from the Polish version.
Polish law does not have a specific table setting out the amount of maintenance depending on, for example, the child’s age or the parents’ earnings. The regulations establish only generally that the scope of maintenance benefits depends on the justified needs of the entitled person and on the earning and property possibilities of the obligated person.
Parents are obligated to provide maintenance benefits to a child who is not yet able to maintain themselves independently, unless the income from the child’s property is sufficient to cover the costs of their maintenance and upbringing. A child does not therefore need to be in poverty to claim maintenance.
An important principle for determining the amount of maintenance is that the child has the right to an equal standard of living with their parents – the right to live in similar housing conditions, eat at a similar level, and vacation at a similar standard. On the other hand, parents do not have to give everything to the child, but only as much as the child needs.
It should also be emphasized that a parent’s low income cannot exempt them from the maintenance obligation towards the child. According to the case law of the Supreme Court, a parent is obligated to share with the child even their most modest income.
When determining the amount of maintenance, the court takes into account not only the current earnings of the person burdened with the maintenance obligation, but primarily the earning possibilities of that person.
The legislature established a catalogue of benefits whose receipt does not affect the scope of maintenance benefits. These include social assistance benefits, the Alimony Fund, the “Family 500+” child benefit, and family benefits (family allowance, care benefits, one-time allowance for the birth of a child).