flash news: #foreigners
Last year, both the Polish authorities and EU institutions announced that the current extension of temporary protection for displaced persons from Ukraine would be the last. During this period, Member States were to develop solutions to encourage beneficiaries of protection to transition to the general rules governing the residence of foreign nationals (e.g. by obtaining residence permits) or to return to their country of origin.
The transitional period regarding the employment of certain types of foreign students in Poland will come to an end on 1 July 2026. Student status alone will no longer be sufficient to qualify for exemption from the requirement to obtain a work permit.
The Ministry of the Interior and Administration has announced work on an amendment to the Aliens Act concerning citizens of selected developed countries, such as Australia, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, the US, the United Kingdom and Taiwan.
The draft aims to enable citizens of these countries to obtain most types of temporary residence permits in Poland through the tacit approval procedure, as regulated in the Code of Administrative Procedure. This should take place within 60 days of submitting the application.
From 4 May 2026, applications can be submitted for a residence card marked ‘former holder of temporary protection’ (the so-called CUKR residence card).
Latest Statistics Poland (GUS) data (published on 14 April 2026), shows that over one million foreigners (1,139,400) were working in Poland at the end of October 2025. Their share of the total active labour force in Poland was therefore 6.9%. This represents a 7.1% increase in foreigners working in Poland (compared to a year earlier).
On 27 March 2026, a draft regulation was published on the RCL website concerning countries whose citizens holding a work permit are not entitled to work whilst staying in Poland under the visa-free regime.