After losing your job you have thirty days to file a new application, and fifteen to notify the voivode, otherwise the permit is revoked.
The entry bar is low: the labour market test is gone, the salary must only match the minimum wage, a spouse may work without a separate permit and children go to state school free of charge. Banks open an account on a passport in half an hour to an hour. Demand has not cooled: 794,701 temporary residence applications were filed in 2025, against 662,614 a year earlier.
Delivery is where it breaks. The law promises a decision in 60 days, but the average at the start of 2026 was 341 days, with more than 718,000 cases pending. In autumn 2025 the state suspended voivodes' deadlines by law, and in January 2026 it extended the suspension to 4 March 2027: a complaint about delay does not work for now, as the Ombudsman confirms. Families wait longest: you can apply for reunification only after 2 years in Poland, and the application then joins the same queue.
Rules for people already living there were tightened three times in two years with no transition period. Since June 2025 holders of some visas (family visits, non-university study, medical treatment) lost the right to work. Since July 2025 school certificates from Polish-language schools no longer count as language proof for permanent residence and citizenship, and the transition period ended on 30 June 2026. Third, the deadline suspension also covered cases already under way.
A separate risk: refusals and revocations based on classified files from the ABW security service, which the foreigner is not shown. There is no mass campaign, but such cases have reached the Supreme Administrative Court. About 7% of all decisions in 2025 were negative.
Status is tied to the employer, and the margin is thin. A break in work of no more than 30 days is allowed once per permit term, and you must notify the voivode in writing within 15 working days of losing your job, or the permit is revoked. Changing employers requires amending the permit at the voivode's office.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
Visa-free entry for up to 90 days within 180, as in the rest of the Schengen area. To live and work, the same residence card route as everyone else.
No residence card needed: EU free movement rules give the right to live and work.
EU temporary protection is extended to 4 March 2028. Since 31 July 2026 new applicants must show they left in line with their military obligations; people who already hold the status are not affected.
Poland is effectively closed to them at entry: the Foreign Ministry considers visa applications from Russian citizens only on humanitarian grounds or where Poland's interest requires it. In 2025 they received no permits to buy property. Banks apply sanctions restrictions: deposit limits, and some banks refuse. Residence permits have been revoked on ABW grounds.
Routes are open: 45,387 temporary residence applications in 2025, the second-largest group. There is a 3-year humanitarian residence permit with no fee, and property purchase permits are issued (475 in 2025). The friction: bank compliance checks, with some banks refusing, and ABW-based revocations.
The place interval 54-69 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Family rights: 75 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 72.2. The weakest is Agency processing: 45 against 48.7. Above the world average: 3 out of 7.
All 97 states are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
60 days by law, 341 days on average in practice at the start of 2026. Fastest in Małopolskie (Kraków, 175 days), slowest in Śląskie (633). While a renewal is pending you may keep living and working on the same terms.
Yes, through temporary residence for running a business, but the justification requirements are high. Poland has no digital nomad visa.
540 zloty (about €126) per cycle: a 440 zloty stamp duty and 100 zloty for the card. There are no annual fees, and health insurance is covered by contributions under your employment contract.
Yes. A break in work of up to 30 days is allowed once per permit term, and you must notify the voivode within 15 working days. Otherwise the permit is revoked.
EU long-term resident status after 5 years with B1 Polish and stable income. Recognition as a citizen 3 years after that, about 8 years in total. Bills extending this to 10 years had not passed when we checked in August 2026.
The entry bar is low, but the state is cooling from the inside: the 2025-2030 strategy aims to reduce migration, processing deadlines are switched off by law until 2027, and rules for current residents were tightened three times with no transition period.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.