Get Your Residence Card Faster? 7 Ways to Expedite the Temporary Residence Permit Process in Poland

We’re not going to beat around the bush here; the process of getting a temporary residence permit in Poland is a notoriously slow process. It can often feel like you’re stuck in a stalemate, with the case dragging on for months (sometimes even years) without any sort of update or communication from the office.

But the good news is that you can always get some communication from the office (even if you have to initiate it), and there are ways to speed up the process of finally getting your residence permit approved.

Here are a number of the tricks that work best, from our experience. Though none are a guarantee, and even in the best cases, they’re rarely a magic bullet, it can never help to try.

While sending your application in by mail might seem like the easiest and quickest option, and indeed it is always an option, it should only be done as a last resort. And it will slow down the process by a few months, or even more.

Although some cities only offer the mail-in option (we’re looking at you, Poznan), most also offer the option to book an appointment to submit everything in person. This is by far the most ideal option, if possible. Many cities (Krakow, Warsaw, and Wroclaw) divvy out appointments on a lottery-based system, so the earlier you put your name on the list, the more likely you’ll snag an appointment before the end of your legal stay.

Many cities (Warsaw, Katowice) also offer the option to walk in, take a number, and wait to be called to submit your application without an appointment. Although less ideal than coming with an appointment, it is far better than applying by mail.

Many expats wrongly believe that they need to have all required documents when submitting the application and that if the application is incomplete, it will delay the process, or even worse, risk rejection. As such, they might wait months to submit their application, during which time the application could already be in progress.

But in fact, the opposite is true. The sooner you apply, the sooner your application will get approved. It’s as simple as that.

Whether applying by mail, walk-in, or an appointment, it will be at least 3–4 months until an inspector begins reviewing your application and supporting documentation, even in the best cases. So as long as you get the remainder of the required documentation in before this, there will be no delays to your application.

Even if, by some miracle, an inspector does review your application faster than you can complete everything, the chances are almost zero that they will outright deny your application on this basis. You’ll most likely just get a letter in the mail explaining that your application can’t be further processed until you submit some additional documents—and you know this already!

But, when it comes to applications that are incomplete and speeding up the residence permit process, here’s what is important…

If you know that your application is missing some required documents, it’s important to get these in before an inspector begins reviewing your application.

Though it’s unlikely that the inspector will outright reject your application, they’ll likely put it on the “I’ll get back to it later” shelf. And who knows how long that “later” might be. So while it’s totally okay to submit your application even if you’re missing a supporting document or two, for optimal processing speed, you’ll want to make sure you get everything in before the application lands on an inspector’s desk.

If your application has been under review for a while, you might want to check to see if some of the documents you submitted have expiration dates. Very likely your insurance plan, labor market test, and rental agreement (just to name a few) aren’t valid indefinitely. And you can bet your bottom dollar that, if anything is expired or nearing expiration, they’ll want to see an updated version before approving your residence permit. So keep yourself ahead of the game and submit updated versions of any documents that are expiring before they ask.

If you’re applying for a business-based residence permit, in nearly every case they will ask for additional documentation to prove that your business is generating income and paying taxes, usually about 6 months into the application process. So, stay ahead of the game, and if your application has been under review for 6–8 months, ask your accountant to provide documentation such as billing records, invoices, ZUS payment receipts, and a letter from the tax office confirming you’re a taxpayer.

In some cities (Warsaw, Wroclaw, and Poznan), application status updates can be viewed in their online portal, so checking for updates and staying on top of things is rather easy.

But most other cities are a bit less technically sophisticated and send updates primarily by mail. So make sure to check your mail frequently, as every day that an important update letter is collecting dust in your mailbox, your application is likely to be also collecting dust and not moving forward. Or worse, if the letter is a request for missing documents and you fail to action it within a reasonable time, you risk your application being rejected.

And anyone who’s ever sent letters by snail mail can tell you that the postal system is far from perfect. If the letter ends up being kept for collection at the post office, the mailman is supposed to slip a receipt called an awizo in your mailbox or under your door, but in practice, they don’t always do this. And sometimes letters just get lost in the mail and never make it.

Unfortunately, “I never got the letter” is not a valid excuse for failing to action an update from the office. So if you’re applying in a “snail-mail-only” city, then we recommend contacting the office’s help desk, either by phone, email, or in person, every month or two for an update on your application’s status. If they tell you that you’ve missed a letter, you can then ask for it to be resent, or you can collect it in person at the office.

While it might sometimes feel as if your application is being processed by some sort of mysterious, robotic system of bureaucracy, the reality is that the inspectors reviewing residence permit applications are human beings. They’re usually overworked and not paid very well, thus they are prone to make mistakes and forget about things.

If your application has been taking longer than it should, it’s very likely that the inspector simply forgot about it and just needs a little nudge. There are two ways you can do this.

The first, which is ideal but not guaranteed, is to schedule an appointment to speak with your inspector. You can inquire whether this is an option by contacting the office’s help desk.

The second option, slightly less ideal but always an option, is to write a reminder letter to your inspector, called a ponaglenie. Make sure to address the inspector by name and include your case number in the header; write formally and in Polish. Some cities (Warsaw, Wroclaw, and Poznan) have online portals where you can check your case number and inspector name, but in others you’ll have to inquire with the help desk. The must be hand-signed and submitted in person or by mail.

Whether contacting your inspector in person or by letter, it’s important to list and document the reasons why you need him or her to process your application as soon as possible. For example, you might need to travel home, or your employer might urgently need you to start work. Attach documents, like a flight itinerary or letter from your employer, to your letter to justify these circumstances.

Polish and EU law state that residence permit applications must be decided within 60 days. You might be rolling your eyes reading this, as the reality is that the residence permit process always takes much longer than that. But it is the law, so you are well within your rights to pursue legal action through the court.

We recommend only doing this in the most desperate of cases, as it requires enlisting the help of a lawyer and thus comes at a cost. And it also takes a long time; courts are also government offices with their own backlog of cases. Court records show that about 50% of such cases are won, and most of the remaining 50% were withdrawn, likely because the residence permit was approved before the court could hear the case.

In order to do this, your lawyer will prepare a formal demand letter and a collection of supporting documentation justifying the hardships you’ve faced by waiting such a long time for your residence permit. This will go to your city’s regional court, which will hear the case in usually about 6 months. Assuming they decide in your favor, the court will send the inspector a legal demand letter requiring that they issue a decision on your residence permit immediately.

While immigration agents (despite what some might claim) do not have any magical powers to get your case processed fastest within the office or get you an appointment if none are available, they are experts at gaming the system. And thus, they’ll be sure to remain on top of all these methods and do everything as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

Most agents work through legal power of attorney, which grants them the power to send and receive communication from the office on your behalf. So you don’t need to worry about missing a letter in the mail or needing to regularly check in yourself.

A skilled agent will also be able to tell you, with a good amount of certainty, if any document is missing from your application and when it should be submitted. And while they can’t make an office give you an appointment if none are available, they’re usually experts at navigating the office’s appointment scheduling logic and know the optimal ways to increase your chances of getting one.

At English Wizards, we’ve been helping foreigners obtain residence permits for almost a decade, and our immigration professionals have worked with the offices in almost every city in Poland. We know the ins and outs of how the process works and can do our absolute best to ensure your application gets processed as quickly as possible. So you can sit back and be assured your application is in the best of hands.

If you’d like to learn more, contact us today, and we’ll get working on your case!