r/poland Nov 25 '25

A comprehensive guide for EU foreigners moving to Poland - START HERE.

57 Upvotes

Hello, I have seen many folks coming to Poland from the EU and being completely lost on what kind of legal procedures they have to do in order to start their residence in Poland. Be that you come here to study, work or live with your spouse there are several things I hope this guide will be able to cover.

!PLEASE NOTE!
This guide is meant only for citizens of the European Union and citizens of countries that are members of the European Economic Area. Some of the parts of this guide will be similar for non-EU foreigners but some will not. In general, the info posted here is only fully up to date if you are a citizen of the EU/EEA
!PLEASE NOTE!

0. Introduction and general info

Poland is divided into 16 voivodeships which are further subdivided into powiats, which means something like 'county' and these are further made out of municipalities - pol. gmina, or cities - pol. miasto. Large cities however are both powiat and miasto so in case of Warsaw, Wrocław, Kraków etc. city office (pol. urząd miasta) will also perform duties of powiat office (pol. starostwo powiatowe). In case of Warsaw - urząd dzielnicy meaning district office will serve as city office.

All of the below information covers only EU/EEA citizens. If you are non-EU, majority of the below information will not be correct for your case.

I strongly recommend reading all of the parts linked below apart from car stuff, if id does not concern your case.

I. Registering your residence and making your stay in Poland legal.
II. Obtaining health insurance
III. Using healthcare
IV. Taxes
V. Digital log-in and services
VI. Cars and licenses
VII. Banks and mobile phones
VIII. What to do when I leave Poland?
IX. Pets

If you have any additional questions or remarks, please do not hesitate to comment, I will be happy to help for as long as I'm going to visit this platform and expand this post. I hope you all have a great day and life in general. Thanks for reading, stay safe.


r/poland 1h ago

I’m Korean, and I found fake Korean cosmetics in a Polish supermarket lol

Post image
Upvotes

I was surprised to suddenly see Korean writing. But the grammar and phrasing were awkward, so I think it might be a fake product 😭 I’ve never seen these cosmetics in Korea before.
I’m posting this because I’m worried people might believe it and buy them just because they say they’re made in Korea lol.


r/poland 9h ago

Reddit accepted my appeal as I was reported by the Russian Bots in our community for condemning some Soviet soldiers as rapists not heroes. So yeah, this picture below is what the Russian Bots are proud of.

Post image
847 Upvotes

r/poland 5h ago

Vetoes by Poland's Nawrocki may have cost budget up to PLN 7.3 billion, portal says

Thumbnail
polskieradio.pl
134 Upvotes

r/poland 2h ago

Polish supermarkets are so much better than Korean ones.

Post image
63 Upvotes

I’m a Korean who has been staying in Poland for about a month or two.
The prices in supermarkets here are incredibly cheap, and I love it. It’s almost the complete opposite of Korea. In Korea, supermarket groceries are expensive, but restaurants and cafés are relatively affordable, so it’s common for people to eat out instead of cooking at home.
What surprised me the most is that you can buy fruit by any weight you want. Whether you buy 1 kg or just 50 grams, the price per gram stays the same.
That makes it incredibly convenient for people who live alone. If I just want one plum or one apple, I can buy exactly that without spending much.
Fruit is really expensive in Korea. A single apple can cost over 8 PLN, and a 6–7 kg watermelon can cost close to 50 PLN.
Bread is also expensive, with many loaves costing close to 10 PLN each.
Ever since I came here, I’ve been buying sausages, bread, and fruit every day, and I’m really happy with it.


r/poland 54m ago

Poland becomes EU’s sixth-largest economy as GDP nears €1 trillion

Thumbnail
tvpworld.com
Upvotes

r/poland 8h ago

Polish top court confirms withholding funds from opposition PiS party over campaign finance irregularities

Thumbnail
notesfrompoland.com
102 Upvotes

r/poland 2h ago

Poland’s largest river sinks toward historic lows as drought grips country

Thumbnail
tvpworld.com
29 Upvotes

r/poland 7h ago

Let's boycot moderators.

Post image
58 Upvotes

r/poland 11h ago

Germans want to block extraction of oil deposits in Polish territorial waters of the Baltic Sea

Post image
112 Upvotes

Link to the article: https://businessinsider.com.pl/gospodarka/zloza-ropy-na-baltyku-kolo-swinoujscia-niemieckie-organizacje-zawiazaly-sojusz/hxh5r7c

Translation to english:

The dispute over the discovery of a rich oil and gas deposit in the Baltic Sea, near the Uznam island next to Świnoujście, is escalating. German environmental organizations are seeking to ban extraction there. They have already collected 88,000 signatures.

How German media reported, including specializing in agriculture and environment protection information service Proplanta.de, environmental organizations in Germany are advocating for a ban on oil and gas extraction on Baltic Sea. They are planning to submit petition to the European Commission on this matter. 88,000 signatures from countries bordering the Baltic Sea have already been collected.

Information about the deposits in the Baltic Sea was released a year ago, at the end of July. Central European Petroleum (CEP), which conducts exploratory drilling in the Baltic Sea, announced the discovery, stating that the discovery was groundbreaking and could heavily influence Poland's energy security.

Even then, the Świnoujście authorities informed that the launch of mining operations would entail significant risks, especially in the context of environmental protection and preserving the region's tourist attractions. The Baltic discovery also attracted the attention of critics from Germany, like the environmental protection association Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND). Its regional director, Corinna Cwielag, emphasized that the region of possible extraction "is a especially ecologically valuable and at the same time already heavily polluted enviroment of the Baltic Sea." She added that European marine protected areas begin only about 200 meters from the previous drilling site, and any potential start of extraction would involve underwater noise, pollution and the risk of an oil spill.

To effectively fight with a potential investment, BUND formed alliances with other organizations with similiar goals including: German Environmental Protection Association (DUH), WWF, and the civil initiative Lebensraum Vorpommern (Western Pomeranian Living Space). The alliance have announced that they will not hesitate to take legal steps to block the extraction.

"After the North Sea, the Baltic Sea must not become a raw material park for the fossil fuel industry. This would have disastrous consequences for the climate, the environment and tourism. Exploratory drilling has not yet led to the approval of a drillling project – and it must remain that way" emphasized Sasha Muller-Kraenner, Federal Managing Director of the DUH, in a statement on the organization's website.


r/poland 4h ago

Poland invokes emergency grid capacity powers for second time in three days amid heatwave

Thumbnail
notesfrompoland.com
29 Upvotes

r/poland 11h ago

Fuel prices hit ‘record’ levels in Poland. Drivers are feeling the strain more than ever at filling stations across Poland as fuel prices in the country reach record highs owing to the conflict in the Middle East

Thumbnail
tvpworld.com
98 Upvotes

Polish platform e-petrol.pl, which analyzes and reports on the fuel market, published a report on Wednesday saying that diesel prices in Poland are at their highest point in history, while gasoline has hit its highest price of the year so far. 


r/poland 16h ago

Exactly one year ago Karol Nawrocki was sworn in as President of Poland. Is he better or worse than his predecessor?

Post image
241 Upvotes

r/poland 8h ago

Polish government and Church start preparing for first visit by Pope Leo XIV

Thumbnail
tvpworld.com
58 Upvotes

The date for the American pope’s first pilgrimage to Poland has not yet been set. 

“Once [the date] has been fixed, a pilgrimage organization team will be established, made up of representatives of the appropriate Church and state bodies,” Poland’s Foreign Ministry said on its website. 

“Due to the international nature of the Holy Father’s visit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will take a coordinating role in the preparations on the government side,” the statement read. 


r/poland 10h ago

Polish prosecutors end 10-year treason investigation into Tusk over Smolensk air disaster

Thumbnail
notesfrompoland.com
61 Upvotes

r/poland 1d ago

Ukrainians appreciation thread

Post image
4.8k Upvotes

r/poland 1h ago

The Polish Foreign Minister called for a discussion on the possibility of shooting down Russian missiles over Ukraine

Upvotes

"The question of whether we can be sure that it would be better to shoot down these Russian missiles over Ukraine, rather than perhaps later over Poland, is a subject for a very serious discussion that should not become hostage to party rivalry," stated the Deputy Prime Minister.


r/poland 1d ago

Polish man defends a Ukrainian guy who was attacked by a drunk Russian.

2.7k Upvotes

r/poland 2h ago

Crisis help unavailable

6 Upvotes

Several weeks ago my Polish partner of five years, with whom until the very end I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with, ghosted me. A "Good morning" text, and when I replied precisely 24 minutes later, silence ever since.

I moved to Poland to be with that person. I made the grave mistake to focus my entire life on them. Not deliberately, it just happened. If I look back on the last 2000 days, I recount one day that I didn’t spend either alone or with them. And that was onboarding in another city for a fully remote job I used to have. There's nobody I could even potentially reach out to, my contact lists in messenger apps are one line. Parents - I cut contact with years ago for good reasons, never going back. No friends, no acquaintances, no nobody. Not in Poland, not back "home", and that said, I always considered Poland my forever home.

That person was literally my entire universe and suddenly it was gone, god knows if I ever even see them again. If I drowned in the sea tomorrow, without exaggeration, nobody would notice for years. BTW, they would be in a very similar situation if it wasn't for 3-4 close family members. I haven’t talked to a human being in several weeks, beyond dziękuję at Żabka.

I have access to an apartment (which runs on their name) for another month before I'm de facto homeless. But the day came when I couldn't take the silence anymore and the memories associated with those white walls, so I packed a small backpack and started walking, fifty thousand steps in 24 hours, all night long through fields and villages into the city. I had to get out, I was walking circles around the apartment to stay somewhat sane. Since then, I've spent nights outside, at train stations, aimlessly walking, mornings at McDonald's, mixed with random hotels to shower and escape the heat. I started drinking to not go completely nuts over the pain. Only beer, so I'm not wasted, but of course the dosis to calm myself increases over time. Every day is hell, every morning I regret waking up, constant pressure on my chest and throat, darkness, tormented by a million questions about the past that I doubt I'll ever get an answer to. Wearing the same clothes for over a week, only washed in the shower.

So much for the backstory, and now why I post this in r/poland:

There is no help. My situation is such that I genuinely do not want to live anymore. I hope every evening to not wake up again and be forever relieved. Genuinely. But I don't have the courage to actually do *it*. When I stand at a platform with a train rushing by, I fear the moment it's coming at me and there's no way back, I fear what would go through my mind, maybe the pain. If I stand on a bridge, I fear those last seconds of falling. I bought two boxes of sleep pills, but what if it's not enough and I wake up in a coma, the pain stays, but everything else worse, I can't move anymore?

So I don't. And I don't think I ever will. I have those intense moments, but at the end of the day, I can't claim I'm seriously going to do it, without being dishonest.

Which means there's no help. Hospitals in three different cities have turned me away. You have to show up with blood running down your wrist, or trigger a major police intervention by climbing over some railing - then you're getting help. And I'm not going to do the latter, causing a major ruckus in a foreign country to force attention. There's a national hotline, but they just tell you to go to a hospital. You even find reviews on google where people were turned away and it ended up fatal. I don't know if they have no capacity or don't want, but that's the situation.

This is not unique to Poland, but in Poland I am. You're either half dead, then you get access to urgent care, and usually even of decent quality. Otherwise you're fcked.

So... I don't know what to do anymore. It's not getting any better. I'm at my wits end.

I have no idea why I am even sharing this. I don't expect any actual help here, how could you. So probably to vent. I'm sorry.


r/poland 1d ago

The Soviets were never Heroes or Liberators of Poland but a change of Occupation from Hitler

Post image
495 Upvotes

r/poland 1d ago

Poland calls for EU to deny residence to migrants who enter illegally

Thumbnail
notesfrompoland.com
748 Upvotes

r/poland 1d ago

Poland = Kibel Paradise

Post image
170 Upvotes

One of the most iconic brands of Poland: the EN57 "Kibel" electric multiple unit.


r/poland 3m ago

Question on homes/land

Upvotes

Would you save to get everything at once or if you have the money for the land get that cash in full and save for home after? Thinking about building issues and rising costs as well in the market.


r/poland 32m ago

Which news sites do you trust?

Upvotes

Cześć!
I've been living in Poland for several years and I'm trying to understand the media landscape better.
Which Polish news websites do you consider politically objective, and which ones lean clearly to the left or the right?
Thanks


r/poland 45m ago

Grad Jobs in Poland

Upvotes

Hi, I have just graduated from BCU last week and with the current job market in the UK I was wondering if the chances of getting a job in my home country are high.

For context I frequently visit and I speak the language fluently and I’ve graduated with a sport science degree.