The paper deals with the existence of so-called shadow economy in the hospitality industry – in hospitality and cathering service businesses. The authors focuses on the activities of shadow economy in relationship between business and state and in employment contracts. We present the results of survey between 74 respondents – managers of hospitality companies. We analyzes the occurrence of the activity, the average income generated by the activity. We were interested in the opinion of respondents about the ethics of using such practices.