How Long Does It Take on Average to Issue a Decision on Granting a Temporary Residence Permit?

This is a difficult question to answer. In accordance with the general principle laid down in the Polish Code of Administrative Proceedings, a decision to grant a permit should be issued within 1 month from the date on which the proceedings were initiated. If the case is particularly complicated, the time limit for its processing is longer, but the case should be resolved no later than within 2 months from its initiation.


Meanwhile, before issuing a decision on granting a temporary residence permit or a permanent residence permit and a long-term EU resident’s residence permit – the competent voivode is obliged to apply to the commanding officer of the Border Guard division, the voivodeship Police chief, the Head of the Internal Security Agency and, if necessary, also to other authorities, for information whether the foreigner’s entry and stay in the territory of the Republic of Poland may pose a threat to state defence or security or the protection of public security and order. This requirement does not apply to children under 13 years of age at the date of application.


The designated authorities are in principle obliged to provide the information requested within 30 days from the date of the request for information. In particularly justified cases, the 30-day period may be extended up to 60 days. They often use all the time available to them to communicate their position on the case. This means that in practice, the procedure for issuing a temporary or permanent residence permit takes longer than the basic one-month period.


The time necessary to process cases concerning the issue of a temporary or permanent residence permit may also be affected by circumstances such as:

• the correctness of the submitted application,
• number of formal defects of the application (e.g., lack of required annexes or lack of adequate translation of documents),
• the time needed for the defects to be remedied by the party,
• the total number of applications submitted to the Voivodeship Office in a given period.

Therefore, to be safe, it is not a good idea to submit an application at the last minute, and it is better to be prepared for the fact that even though the employees of the Voivodeship Office exercise due care to issue a decision on a permit for a temporary or permanent stay of a foreigner in Poland as soon as possible, the processing time may take more than one month.