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Polish citizenship - law
According to art. 8 of the Polish Citizenship Act, “one can give (grant) the Polish citizenship on foreigner’s application if he/she has stayed in Poland on the basis of settlement permission, residence permission or long-term stay permission of the UE resident for at least 5 years”. According to what other legal acts settled in that matter, granting the Polish citizenship is within the competence of the Polish President. Granting the Polish citizenship can involve submitting the evidence of loss or renunciation of a foreign citizenship. To sum up, even people who don’t have Polish roots could be given the Polish citizenship and Polish passport (European passport).
Art. 10 of the same Polish citizenship act states: “A foreigner, who has got settlement permission and is married to a Polish citizen for at least 3 years, gets the Polish citizenship, if he/she will submit the application at the right time indicated in 1a. to an appropriate institution which will issue the decision to accept the application”. 1a. The application for the Polish citizenship should be submitted 6 months from the moment when a foreigner got the settlement permit, or 3,6 years from the moment when he/she got married with a person who possess the Polish citizenship. Considering art. 10, if anybody would like to apply for the Polish citizenship and passport - he/she has to be given a settlement permission (except of being married to a Polish citizen) but it requires permanent residence in the territory of Poland for at least 2 years. It means that within 2 years intermissions which may take place cannot be longer than 10 months in total, and none of them can be longer than 6 months.
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Polish passport - procedure
However, para. 2 of art. 8 (the Polish Citizenship Act) gives an exception to the condition of 5 years’ residence in Poland on the basis of a settlement permission, long-term residence permission of the European Community or right to permanent residence, stating that in particularly justified cases the cited rule does not apply and a foreigner may be granted the Polish citizenship on his/her request, even if in a particular case it does not correspond to the conditions specified above. This applies both to a foreigner staying in Poland for less than 5 years on the basis of the above mentioned permissions, and to a foreigner living abroad.
Each case is being considered individually. With this procedure, the Polish citizenship may be acquired by people who had it before (or if they ancestors got the Polish citizenship), but there were different circumstances when they have lost it (for example, if they resigned the renounced Polish citizenship or lost it because of some regulations/laws). Only the President of Poland has an authority to grant the Polish citizenship.
Residents in Poland submit their applications for the Polish citizenship through appropriate regional governor office (corresponding to a place of residence), and people who live abroad - through an appropriate consulate. Applications and accompanying documents shall be submitted to the Department of Citizenship and Repatriation in Ministry of Interior and Administration, and then sent forward together with the position of the ministry to the Chancellery of the President. Granting the Polish citizenship to both parents also applies to children remaining under their parental authority. When a child reaches the age of 16, this takes place by his consent.
Detailed procedure in cases of Polish citizenship and corresponding certificates and applications are listed in the Regulation of the President from March 14 2000 (Dziennik Ustaw Nr 18, Poz. 231). To get a Polish passport (European passport), further procedures are necessary and it may take some months.
