The situation
An assignment’s start date, breaks and planned extension
An agency with offices in Katowice and Leipzig has workers on long assignments at automotive suppliers in both cities. The Leipzig client wants to keep three welders for another year; they started fifteen months ago. In Katowice, a client wants to bring back a worker who left in spring. The operations lead needs a yes or no for each.
The headline limits are well known. The detail is not: how the period is counted, whether a break resets it, whether a collective agreement changes it, and what happens to pay along the way. A wrong answer can turn an assignment into an employment relationship with the client.
What the research has to settle
The rules behind the answer
- Germany: 18 months with the same client
- The Temporary Employment Act limits the assignment of the same worker to the same client to 18 consecutive months. Earlier assignments count unless more than three months separate them. A collective agreement in the client’s sector can set a different maximum.
- Germany: exceeding it has consequences
- If the maximum is exceeded, an employment relationship with the client is deemed to exist unless the worker declares in time that they want to stay with the agency. Separately, equal pay with the client’s staff applies after nine months, unless a collective agreement provides otherwise.
- Poland: 18 months within 36
- Polish law on temporary work limits work for the same user employer to 18 months within any 36 consecutive months. Check how earlier assignments, including through other agencies, count towards the limit.
- Some work is off limits
- Polish law bars temporary workers from certain work, including particularly dangerous work and replacing workers on strike. German law largely excludes temporary agency work in construction.
How it runs in azta
From the question to the document
The question, as you would type it
Agency worker assigned to the same client in Leipzig since July 2025, with a two-month break over summer 2026. The client wants to extend to the end of 2027. Has the 18-month maximum under the Temporary Employment Act been reached, and can the client’s sector collective agreement change it?
You start with
An assignment’s start date, breaks and planned extension
- 01
Give the assignment history
Set out the start date, any breaks, the client’s sector and the planned extension. azta searches the German Temporary Employment Act and the Polish act on temporary workers.
Cited research· Free - 02
Check how the courts count
Ask for decisions on counting the period and on breaks. azta searches German labour court and Polish court decisions and links each to the full text.
Case-law search - 03
Draft the assignment note
Ask for a note per worker: the count, the limit, the options. Edit it in Canvas.
Canvas · Ask azta· Pro - 04
Send it to the client manager
Export to Word for the account manager’s conversation with the client.
Word export· Pro You send
A note on whether the assignment can be extended under the maximum-term rules
What you get
A note on whether the assignment can be extended under the maximum-term rules
Assignment note · draft
Leipzig welders: can the assignment be extended
Count. The three welders have been with the client since July 2025. The two-month break in summer 2026 is not long enough to restart the count, so the assignment period runs from July 2025.
Limit. Unless a collective agreement in the client’s sector allows longer, the statutory maximum is reached in January 2027. The client’s sector agreement, and whether it applies to this client, are discussed in Annex 1. Without it, the assignment cannot run to the end of 2027.
Options. The client can hire the welders directly, or the assignment ends at the maximum and a new one starts only after a break of more than three months. Equal-pay obligations already apply after nine months and are reflected in current pay.
Outcomes on your numbers
What azta is worth on this task
Pro pays for itself after
24 minutes a month
At €70 an hour, that is all the time Pro (€27 a month) has to take off your desk to cover its price.
Example figures. Replace them with your own.
- Hours back a year
- 22
- Capacity at your rate
- €1,512
- More assignment-length checks a quarter
- 5.4
- Return on Pro
- 4.7×
- Research
- Drafting
- Your review
A scenario you set, not a promise. The hours that come back go to another client, or deeper into this one.
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- Gesetze im Internet
- Rechtsprechung im Internet
- Dziennik Ustaw
- SAOS
What stays with you
- The assignment records and their accuracy.
- The conversation with the client.
- The decision whether to extend, end or hand over the worker.
Frequently asked questions
- Does azta track assignment dates?
- No. It establishes the rule and how to count. The dates come from your own records.
- Does it hold sector collective agreements?
- Not for every sector. Upload the agreement that may apply and azta reads it alongside the statute and the case law.
- Does it cover the client’s duties too?
- Yes. Ask about the user employer’s obligations in either country and azta cites the provisions.
