Residence card case status in Poland: how to check it, and what to do when the case runs past its deadline

The status of a residence card (*karta pobytu*) case in Poland is not checked in one place. It is checked with the voivode (*wojewoda*) who runs your case, and that is the voivode for the place where you stay. Some voivodeship offices have an online service and some do not, and MOS, the Office for Foreigners' online case system through which applications have been filed since 27 April 2026, does not show the status of a case.

The second thing to know in 2026: the time limits for deciding these cases are suspended by statute until 4 March 2027. A long wait is not in itself a breach of the law, and a complaint about delay does not work at the moment.

Below: where to check your residence card status in your city, what time limit the law sets and why it is not running, where summonses actually arrive, whether you may work and travel out of Poland while the case is open, and what to do before and after a refusal. Every rule is named, and the links lead to the sources page, which holds the text of the acts and the date we read it. Every route to legal stay in Poland, and what to do at each stage, is on the overview page Legalisation in Poland.

In short: residence card (TRC) status in Poland in 2026

• Where to check the status. With the voivode for the place where you stay; there is no single service for the whole of Poland. After filing, MOS does not run the case and does not show its status.
• Processing time. The time limits for deciding these cases are suspended until 4 March 2027 for all foreigners, not only for citizens of Ukraine.
• Complaints. A ponaglenie, a complaint to a court and any other legal remedy against inaction or delay have no basis during this period.
• Summonses. They arrive at your address for electronic delivery or by registered letter. A letter you did not collect within 14 days is treated by law as delivered.
• Stay and work. Your stay is lawful while the case runs, provided the application was filed on time and has no uncorrected formal defects. The right to work is a separate condition.

How to check your residence card status online

A temporary residence permit (*zezwolenie na pobyt czasowy*) case is run by the voivode for the place where the foreigner stays, art. 104(1) of the Act on Foreigners (*ustawa o cudzoziemcach*) as amended by the act that introduced MOS. That is why the status of your case lives in the system of the voivodeship office your application went to, not in a nationwide database.

MOS does not show the status. The official MOS page says plainly that the portal lets you file an application and receive confirmation that it was filed, but does not currently provide any further electronic handling of the application. The only thing the law delivers through MOS is the certificate of filing (*zaświadczenie*), art. 108(6). Advice to "check your status in MOS" describes something the portal does not do.

What you need to check the status:

• the case number — the *znak sprawy*. It appears on the letters the office sends you about your case;
• sign-in details, if the service asks for them: in Poznań, the case number and an access code; in Opole, your date of birth and the phone number you gave the office.

The status labels differ between the systems of different offices, and we found no official glossary for them. That is why this page does not explain every label, such as "analiza materiału dowodowego" (analysis of the evidence). What the law does say about the stage just before a decision is in the section on the letter before a refusal, below.

If your status has not changed for months and you already have a summons, a refusal or a deadline running, describe your case.

Checking your residence card status by city in Poland

These are the services on the official websites of the voivodeship offices, read on 15 September 2026; the rows for Lublin, Rzeszów and the second Warsaw service were read on 18 September. The addresses are given as text: if a service has moved, look on the website of the office's department for foreigners for a section called "Sprawdź stan sprawy" (check the status of a case).

If there is no service, or it shows something you cannot make sense of, you have a right that works in every city: to inspect the file of your own case, and to take notes and copies from it, including after the proceedings have ended. The authority may let you do this in its own electronic system. Art. 73 of the Code of Administrative Procedure (*Kodeks postępowania administracyjnego*, KPA). It is the most direct way to find out whether the case is waiting for a document from you.

Residence card processing time in Poland under the law

The voivode decides on a temporary residence permit within 60 days, art. 112a of the Act on Foreigners. Since 27 April 2026 the period no longer runs from your personal appearance but from the later of two events: an application filed without formal defects, or the submission of documents the voivode asked for (or the expiry of the deadline he set for them).

Other cases follow the general time limits of the Code of Administrative Procedure: up to one month for a case that needs investigation, up to two months for a particularly complex one, art. 35.

On paper that looks simple. At the moment these time limits are not running.

Why residence card deadlines are suspended until 4 March 2027

Art. 100d of the Act on assistance to citizens of Ukraine (*ustawa o pomocy obywatelom Ukrainy*) provides that in proceedings before the voivode, time limits in cases on granting a temporary residence permit, a permanent residence permit and an EU long-term resident permit, on changing a temporary residence and work permit, and on revoking these permits do not begin to run, and those already running are suspended.

How this date has moved in the versions of the act we read:

The rule sits in the act on assistance to Ukrainians, but it speaks of "a foreigner", not of a citizen of Ukraine. It applies in exactly the same way to citizens of Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan and any other country.

If you read that the suspension ended on 4 March 2026, that was true until the January 2026 act. The official page of the Office for Foreigners (*Urząd do Spraw Cudzoziemców*), written before the extension, still gave the old date on 15 September 2026. The act in force gives 4 March 2027.

Ponaglenie for a residence card in 2026: why a delay complaint will not work

A ponaglenie is a complaint about inaction or delay under art. 37 of the Code. It is addressed to the higher authority and filed through the authority running the case; for a voivode, the higher authority is the Head of the Office for Foreigners (*Szef Urzędu do Spraw Cudzoziemców*). If the complaint is justified, he may order the voivode to decide the case within a set time.

For the period of the suspension, art. 100d switches this mechanism off, and not only this one:

• the rules on an authority's inaction do not apply, and the voivode is not obliged to notify you that a time limit was missed (art. 100d(3));
• no fine is imposed on the authority and no sum is awarded to the complainant for a decision not issued (art. 100d(3));
• a delay in this period cannot be the basis of any legal remedy against inaction, delay or breach of the right to have a case heard without undue delay (art. 100d(4)). The wording is general: it covers both a ponaglenie and a complaint to a court about inaction.

On top of that, under the Code itself a ponaglenie filed before the time limit has expired is left unexamined, and the time limit is not expiring now, because it is not running.

When the complaint will work again: from 5 March 2027 time limits start running again, and a ponaglenie becomes possible once a time limit expires after that date. That holds if the suspension is not extended once more — and it has been extended twice since September 2025.

Summonses in a residence card case: where the voivode's letters arrive and why you must not miss them

While the case waits, the voivode summons you to appear and asks for documents. The main risk of waiting is not the time limit but a letter that "never reached you" although the law treats it as delivered.

Where summonses arrive. The Code of Administrative Procedure tells the authority to deliver letters to your address for electronic delivery, and if you have none, by registered letter, art. 39. The Mazowieckie voivodeship office states that it sends summonses, the date to appear for fingerprints and the date to collect the card through e-Doręczenia, the electronic delivery service; to set up such an address you need a PESEL and a trusted profile (*profil zaufany*). Check on your own office's website how it delivers letters.

When an uncollected letter counts as delivered:

How much time a summons gives you. The law sets minimum periods:

The last one is the most dangerous. If a formal defect is not corrected in time, the application is left unexamined (*pozostawia się bez rozpoznania*). There is no case any more — and the protection of your stay goes with it. The period runs from delivery, including a delivery the law treats as made without you.

The first version of this page, published on the morning of 15 September 2026, said that summonses arrive through MOS. That was wrong: only the confirmation of filing arrives through MOS. The correction is recorded on the sources page.

Is your stay legal while the residence card is being processed

If the application for a temporary residence permit was filed on time — no later than the last day of your lawful stay, art. 105 as amended by the MOS act — and it has no formal defects, or you corrected them in time, then your stay in Poland is lawful from the day of filing until the day the decision becomes final, art. 108. That includes the time for an appeal if a refusal arrives.

Since 27 April 2026, instead of a stamp in the passport, the voivode issues an electronic certificate of filing — a *zaświadczenie* with a QR code, through MOS and free of charge.

Two things remove this protection:

• a formal defect not corrected in time — the application is left unexamined;
• your own request to suspend the case. If the proceedings are suspended at the request of a party, the stay is not treated as lawful for that period, art. 108(2).

This rule in art. 108 concerns applications for a temporary residence permit. Permanent residence and EU long-term resident status have their own rules in the act, and they are not covered here.

Can you work while your residence card (TRC) is pending

Lawful stay does not in itself give you the right to work. You may work while you wait if one of the conditions of art. 3 of the Act on the conditions for entrusting work to foreigners (*ustawa o warunkach dopuszczalności powierzania pracy cudzoziemcom*) is met:

• on a work permit or on a registered declaration on entrusting work (*oświadczenie o powierzeniu pracy*), if you had the right to work in Poland immediately before filing the application (art. 3(3)(2));
• without a permit, if immediately before filing you belonged to one of the groups with free access to the labour market listed in points 14–17 of art. 3(1) (art. 3(1)(18)).

For cases started before 27 April 2026 the earlier wording of these rules applies, with the same condition. If you are a citizen of Ukraine with UKR status, your rules come from a separate act and are not covered here.

Can you leave Poland while waiting for your residence card

You may leave for your own country. You may not come back on the confirmation of filing.

The Mazowieckie voivodeship office writes in its official answers that the stamp confirming the filing of an application does not entitle you to travel: you may leave for your country of origin, but you may not return to Poland on it. That answer is about the stamp. The electronic *zaświadczenie* that replaced it contains, in the content the law sets for it, your details, the fact and date of filing and a statement on the lawfulness of your stay — there is no right to cross the border in it. To return you need your own right of entry: a valid visa, a valid residence card or visa-free travel.

While you are abroad, you lose some of your procedural rights. If a foreigner is abroad and has not appointed a representative living in Poland, the right to inspect the case file and to comment on the evidence does not apply, art. 10(1) of the Act on Foreigners. Letters keep arriving meanwhile, and the periods they set keep running.

If you are a citizen of Ukraine with UKR status, there is a separate rule. Since 5 March 2026 temporary protection ends if you have left Poland for more than 30 days, art. 109b of the Act on granting protection to foreigners (*ustawa o udzielaniu cudzoziemcom ochrony*) as amended by Dz.U. 2026 poz. 203. It also ends on the day you are granted a temporary or permanent residence permit or EU long-term resident status.

If you plan to move from UKR status to the three-year permit, the conditions, fees and risks are covered in our article on the CUKR card. The grounds for an ordinary residence card and their conditions are in a separate article.

The letter about the case file: the last chance before a refusal

Before a decision, the voivode must give you the chance to comment on the evidence gathered, art. 10 § 1 KPA. In a case started on your application he must also name the conditions that depend on you and that have not been met or proven, and that may lead to a refusal. Within the period set for your reply you may submit further evidence, art. 79a KPA.

This letter is easy to mistake for a formality. In fact it is the list of reasons you will be refused and a deadline to fix them. The next letter after it is usually the decision.

Received such a letter or a refusal? Describe your case before the deadline runs out.

If your residence card is refused

An appeal against the voivode's decision is filed within 14 days of the day the decision was delivered, through the voivode, to the Head of the Office for Foreigners, arts. 127 and 129 KPA and art. 22 of the Act on Foreigners. The period also runs from a delivery the law treats as made when you did not collect the letter. While the appeal is pending your stay remains lawful on the same conditions described above: the decision is not yet final.

How to write and file an appeal, how long it takes to be decided, what happens after a final refusal and when to go to court are covered in our article on a residence card refusal.

What to do while your residence card case waits with the voivode

1. Find out which voivode runs your case, and look on the website of its department for foreigners for the "Sprawdź stan sprawy" section.
2. Keep the case number from the office's first letter.
3. Check the status in the office's service, or, if there is none, by writing to the department or by inspecting the case file.
4. Collect registered letters and open e-Doręczenia. After 14 days the law treats a letter as delivered.
5. Report a change of address to the office straight away, or letters sent to the old address will be valid.
6. Answer every summons on time: 7 days to appear or to correct defects, no less than 14 for documents.
7. Do not ask for the case to be suspended: for that period your stay stops being lawful.
8. Before you leave Poland, check what you will return on, and remember the 30-day rule if you have UKR status.
9. Work only within your right to work, not on the strength of lawful stay.

How to check this yourself in five minutes

1. Open the act of 23 January 2026 in the Dziennik Ustaw (Journal of Laws), 2026, item 203.
2. Find art. 17 point 50: there the date "4 marca 2026" is replaced with "4 marca 2027" in art. 100d.
3. Find art. 54: point 50 is not among the exceptions, so it has applied since 5 March 2026.
4. Open the consolidated text of the Act on assistance to citizens of Ukraine, Dz.U. 2025 poz. 337, art. 100d(4): delay "nie może być podstawą wywodzenia środków prawnych" (cannot be the basis of any legal remedy).
5. If a page tells you to file a ponaglenie or to check your status in MOS and does not name these rules, it is describing something that does not work today.

Frequently asked questions about residence card status and processing time

When waiting is not the only problem

You can wait for a decision on your own if the application is complete and your letters reach you. It is different if:

• your status has not changed for months and there was a summons in the case that you are not sure you answered;
• a letter about the case file has arrived with a list of unmet conditions;
• the application was left unexamined or a refusal has arrived, and the 14 days are running;
• you are not sure your stay is still lawful;
• you are a citizen of Ukraine with UKR status and plan to travel.

That is no longer a question of patience but a case in which a mistake costs you your status. Describe it in the form below; it goes to one consultancy in Poland that handles foreigners' cases.