flash news: #foreigners
On 26 September 2025, the President of the Republic of Poland signed the Act of 12 September 2025 amending certain acts to verify the right to family benefits for foreigners and the conditions for providing assistance to Ukrainian citizens in connection with the armed conflict in that country.
The most important changes in the so-called Ukrainian Special Act:
- The provisions have been extended until 4 March 2026, which means that the uncertainty regarding the legality of residence and employment of Ukrainian citizens without UKR status has been dispelled;
- Both adults and minors will be able to obtain a PESEL number with the UKR annotation only in person.
Current EU regulations guarantee protection for Ukrainian citizens until 4 March 2027. However, in July this year, the European Commission proposed to start planning its gradual phasing out. In recent weeks, the EU Council has indicated that the phasing out of temporary protection should be based on Ukrainian citizens obtaining national residence permits reflecting their new purpose of stay or voluntarily returning to Ukraine.
The Interior Ministry has announced that border traffic between Poland and Belarus will be completely suspended from 12 September 2025. This means that all border crossings - road, rail, and pedestrian, will be closed until further notice.
On 7 August 2025, the Government Legislation Centre published the Minister of Family Labour and Social Policy draft regulation of 4 August 2025 on countries whose citizens may be covered by declarations on entrusting work to foreigners and certain provisions of the Act of 20 March 2025 on the conditions for permissibility of entrusting work to foreigners.
In connection with the war in Ukraine and the massive influx of its population to Poland, the so-called Ukrainian special law introduced a provision temporarily limiting deadlines in cases concerning legalisation of residence in Poland. According to the current wording of art. 100d of the Ukraine special law, in the period until 30 September 2025, the course of deadlines for handling cases concerning temporary residence permits, permanent residence permits, and long-term EU residents does not start, and the one started is suspended for this period.
From July 7, 2025, the Polish government has reinstated temporary border controls at the internal borders of the Schengen area with Germany and Lithuania. According to the authorities, the aim of this decision is to strengthen state security and prevent the uncontrolled flow of migrants.