What will happen to British people in Poland after Brexit?

February 14, 2019

More than 6,000 British people are residing in Poland. When currently, with the United Kingdom a member of the European Union, British people can freely move and reside within its borders as well as work and conduct business activity in the member states, that will change after a no-deal Brexit. To prepare for this eventuality, the Polish government introduced a draft bill regulating the principle of residence of UK nationals after March 29th.

What does the draft bill encompass?

  • According to the new regulations, British people will have 12 months after Brexit to apply for the residence permit in order to continue their stay in Poland legally. During this period, until March 30, 2020, they won’t be required to change their status to immigrants from a third country. Applications submitted after the deadline would not be considered.
  • The act applies to the citizens of the United Kingdom and members of their families, even if they are not British citizens: spouses and children (up to 21 years or dependent) and parents (dependent), who on the date preceding the effective date of the Act have been legally residing in Poland.
  • If a person has been legally residing in Poland for five years or more, he / she will be granted a permanent residence permit.
  • If a Brit has been legally living in Poland for less than five years, this person will be eligible to apply for a temporary residence permit granted for three years. After this period card has to be renewed or extended.
  • If the United Kingdom’s citizen had a permanent residence permit in Poland, this person will be granted, for an indefinite period, a permit for permanent residence.
  • The card issued to British citizens would be different from the normal residence permit card issued to the foreigners from other non-EU countries and would contain the annotation “Brexit”.
  • The residence permit will allow British to stay and work in Poland as well as conduct business activity on similar grounds as Poles, although the bill will not give them an access to the Polish pension system. This issue would be probably regulated later by a separate bill.
  • Proposed provisions will enable the continuation of the current job without obstacles resulting from the loss of the status of EU citizens.

There is no exact list of documents needed for the application yet, but most likely it will be necessary to provide your personal data, data on the identity document (passport), registration certificate, certificate of registration of residence of an EU citizen or residence card of an EU citizens family member, information about current and previous stays in Poland, trips outside Poland and specimen signature. Persons registering their stay will also have to submit their fingerprints.

Applications for residence permit will be considered by provincial offices with the right to appeal to the Office for Foreigners.

The possible cost of such residence permits was not mentioned in the draft bill.

Original version in Polish of the draft bill for download can be found here. And here you can check the translation of the draft made by the British Embassy in Warsaw.

For now, until the bill is passed, you can already start to take care of your documents and make sure that you are registered as a European Union citizen in Poland to ensure that this whole process would be a plain sailing for you. We will keep you updated on the issue and inform you when we receive more information. In case of any questions feel free to ask them in the comment section or contact us at [email protected].

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