ul. Dywizjonu AK "Jeleń" 7B/U4, WarszawaMost common cause
Visa refused
or no consular appointment in time
What decides it
Your contract
plus what the university actually delivered
Where you can be
Anywhere
you never have to come to Poland
Biggest mistake
Waiting
claims expire, and evidence disappears
On this page
When you can get a tuition refund
Studying in Poland usually means paying for the year before you arrive. When something then stops you arriving, the money is already with the university – and getting it back becomes a matter of contract, evidence and persistence rather than goodwill.
These are the situations we see most, and all of them are worth pursuing.
Your visa was refused
The strongest position of all. You paid to study, the state would not let you enter, and the university taught you nothing. Keep the refusal decision – it is the single most valuable document in the file.
No consular appointment in time
In several countries the wait for a student visa slot runs past the start of term. You were never refused – you simply could not be seen. Evidence of the attempts matters here, because the university will say you did nothing.
You withdrew before classes began
A change of plan, a place at another university, illness, a family emergency. The closer your withdrawal is to the start of teaching, the more the contract's own deadlines matter – which is why the date you notified them is critical.
You left partway through
You attended for part of the year and then stopped or were deregistered. A full refund is unlikely, but a proportionate one often is – the university cannot usually keep a full year's fee for a term and a half of teaching.
The course did not run
The programme was cancelled, moved, taught in a different language than advertised, or never opened for lack of numbers. Here it is the university, not you, that failed to perform.
You were never properly admitted
You paid on the strength of an offer that was later withdrawn, or on a conditional admission whose conditions the university itself could not confirm. Money taken for a place that never existed is money taken for nothing.
One principle runs through all of them. Tuition is payment for teaching. Where no teaching was delivered, the university's claim to keep the money has to come from something specific in the contract – and a clause that lets it keep a full year's fee for nothing at all is exactly the kind of term that is worth challenging rather than accepting. Most students never test it, which is why most universities never have to answer for it.
Why universities refuse a tuition refund
A refusal is not the end of the matter, and it is usually not a considered legal position. It is an administrative reply. Knowing which of these you have received tells you what to do next.
| What you are told | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| “You withdrew after the deadline.” | The single most common answer. Everything then turns on what the contract actually says, when you actually notified them, and whether a deadline that bites before teaching has even started can fairly be applied to you at all. |
| “The fee is non-refundable.” | Stated as though it settled the question. A blanket non-refundable term, applied where the university delivered nothing, is precisely what a claim tests. It is an opening position, not a conclusion. |
| “We only refund part of it.” | Sometimes right, often arbitrary. The question is what the retained part is actually for. A genuine administrative cost is defensible; a round percentage with no explanation behind it is not. |
| “You did not submit the right form.” | A procedural refusal, not a substantive one. It is also the easiest to cure – and the easiest to lose time to, because each exchange takes weeks while your time limit runs. |
| Silence. | Extremely common with foreign students, and the cheapest strategy available to an institution that expects you to give up. Silence is not a refusal; it is an invitation to escalate formally. |
There is an uncomfortable pattern behind all of this. A student who has gone home, does not speak Polish and has no idea how Polish civil procedure works is, from the university's point of view, unlikely to do anything. A letter from a Polish law firm changes that calculation immediately, and a surprising number of refusals are reconsidered at exactly that point – before anyone goes anywhere near a court.
Your contract decides most of a tuition refund claim
A fee-paying student at a Polish university has a written contract setting out the terms of payment – the umowa o warunkach odpłatności za studia. It is signed at enrolment, often online, often skimmed. It is also the document that decides most refund claims, which is why it is the first thing we ask for.
What we look for when we read it
What the payment is for
Tuition for a year of teaching, or something else wearing the same name? A fee described as covering enrolment, administration or a place reservation is a different thing from a fee for instruction, and the difference matters when nothing was taught.
The withdrawal window
When you could cancel, how notice had to be given, and to whom. Contracts frequently demand written notice to a specific office – and just as frequently the student emailed a recruitment agent instead, which the university will later say was nobody with authority.
What happens on a visa refusal
Better contracts address it expressly, sometimes with a near-full refund on production of the refusal. Many say nothing at all – and a contract that is silent is not a contract that says no.
Terms that go too far
Polish law protects consumers against contract terms that have not been individually negotiated and that unfairly load the risk onto one side. A standard-form clause allowing an institution to keep a full year's fee while delivering nothing is the kind of term that invites that argument.
You are on the stronger side of this contract than you think. A student paying for education from a private provider is, in the ordinary case, a consumer – and the protections that come with that status apply to standard-form terms you had no ability to negotiate. Universities rarely mention this in correspondence with students, and students almost never raise it themselves.
That does not make every non-refundable clause unenforceable. It does mean the clause has to be looked at rather than obeyed, and that an institution relying on one should be asked to justify it.
If you cannot find your contract, that is not fatal. Universities are required to have one, and a request for a copy is itself a reasonable first letter – occasionally a revealing one, because an institution that cannot produce a signed contract is in a considerably weaker position than one that can.
Tuition, recruitment fee, deposit – what is actually recoverable
Students usually pay more than one thing, and the payments are not equally recoverable. Separating them is the first practical step, because a claim that lumps everything together is easy to refuse in one line.
| Payment | Prospects |
|---|---|
| Tuition for a year or semester never attended | The strongest claim. Payment for teaching that was never delivered. This is where most of the money is and where most of the argument is worth spending. |
| Tuition for a part-attended year | Often recoverable in part. The argument is proportionality – what share of the teaching you actually received against what share of the fee the university kept. |
| Recruitment or application fee | Usually not. It pays for processing your application, and that work was genuinely done. Worth separating out early rather than weakening the rest of the claim by insisting on it. |
| Deposit or place-reservation fee | It depends entirely on the wording. If it is an advance payment of tuition it usually follows the tuition. If it is genuinely a fee for holding a place open, it is harder – though not impossible where the place was never usable. |
| Agent or intermediary fees | A separate matter entirely. If you paid a recruitment agency rather than the university, your counterparty is the agency and the claim is against them. Tell us either way – it changes who the letter goes to. |
| Accommodation paid in advance | Frequently recoverable where the room was never occupied, and often overlooked because students focus on the tuition alone. |
Payments made in a foreign currency, or through an intermediary payment platform, add a further wrinkle: what you sent and what the university received may differ, and the difference is not always the university's to keep. Send us the transfer confirmations rather than a summary of them.
The evidence that decides a tuition refund claim
A tuition refund claim is won on documents, not on how unfair the situation was. This is the list. If you have all of it, the case is usually straightforward; if you have most of it, it is usually still workable.
Essential
- The contract on terms of payment, and the admission decision or offer letter
- Proof of every payment – bank confirmations, not screenshots of a balance
- The visa refusal decision, if there was one
- Your written notice of withdrawal, and the date it was sent
Valuable, and usually available
- The full email thread with the university and with any agent
- Evidence of visa appointment attempts – booking pages, confirmations, screenshots with dates
- The version of the fee regulations in force when you enrolled
- Anything showing you never enrolled in practice: no student number, no account, no card
Two things quietly destroy otherwise good claims. The first is a withdrawal communicated by telephone or through an agent, with nothing in writing – the university then dates your withdrawal to the first letter it can find, which is usually months later and conveniently past its own deadline.
The second is losing access to the email account you used to apply. Student applications are often made from an address that later lapses. Export that mailbox now, whatever you decide about the claim itself.
How a tuition refund claim works
Most tuition refund claims are resolved without a courtroom. The sequence below is what we actually do, and the great majority stop at step three.
We read the contract and tell you what it is worth
Before anything is sent. You get a straight answer on what is recoverable, what is not, and what we think the realistic outcome is. If the claim is weak, we say so – that conversation is cheaper for you than a year of correspondence.
We assemble the file
Payments, contract, refusal decision, correspondence, dates. Where something is missing we ask the university for it directly, which is both faster and more productive than asking you to chase it from abroad.
A formal demand, in Polish, from a Polish law firm
Addressed to the right office, setting out the legal basis, the sum and a deadline, and making clear what follows if it is ignored. This is the step that resolves most cases, and it is the step students cannot replicate with an email in English.
Negotiation
Universities often counter with a partial refund. Sometimes that is a fair reflection of costs genuinely incurred and worth taking; sometimes it is an opening number. We will tell you which we think it is, and the decision stays yours.
Court, if it is worth it
A money claim before the Polish civil courts. We advise on cost against likely recovery before starting, because for smaller sums litigation is not always the rational choice – and we would rather say that than issue proceedings you regret.
You do not need to be in Poland
Everything above works by email and power of attorney. Clients run these claims from Lagos, Delhi, Tashkent and Bogotá without ever entering Poland, and without a Polish bank account – recovered funds can be transferred internationally. If you left Poland years ago, that does not by itself end the claim; the time limit does, which is the subject of the next section.
Why acting early matters for a tuition refund
This is the part of the page we would most like people to read, because it is the one that cannot be fixed later.
Claims expire
Claims under a contract with a university become time-barred after a period fixed by law, and the period is measured in a small number of years rather than a generous one. Once it has run, a claim that was worth thousands is worth nothing, however strong it was. If your payment was more than a couple of years ago, treat the question as urgent rather than interesting.
Evidence decays
Email accounts lapse, agents stop replying and go out of business, banks archive statements beyond easy reach, and the staff who handled your case move on. Nothing about your legal position changes – only your ability to prove it.
Silence gets read against you
A student who complains within weeks is obviously aggrieved. A student who raises it three years later invites the argument that they accepted the position at the time. It is answerable, but it is an argument you would rather not have to answer.
None of which means an older case is hopeless – we have recovered money on claims the student had written off. It means the first step should be a five-minute conversation now rather than a decision to deal with it eventually.
Mistakes that cost students money
| The mistake | Do this instead |
|---|---|
| Telling only the recruitment agent you are not coming | Write to the university itself, in writing, and keep the sent message. The agent is not the university, and its inbox is not your evidence. |
| Waiting for the visa appeal before asking for the money | Do both at once. Notifying the university early costs you nothing and protects the withdrawal date, which is often the decisive fact. |
| Accepting the first refusal as final | Treat it as an opening position. Refusals sent to students are routinely revisited when the same points arrive from a law firm. |
| Signing a settlement without reading the waiver | Partial-refund offers frequently come with a full and final release. Have it read before you sign, not afterwards. |
| Assuming a non-refundable clause ends it | Have the clause looked at. Terms in standard-form consumer contracts are not automatically enforceable simply because they are printed. |
| Deleting the application mailbox after giving up | Export it first. It costs nothing and it is the file your claim is built from. |
If you have already made one of these, say so when you contact us. None of them is automatically fatal, and knowing about it changes how the first letter is written.
How we run your tuition refund claim
KRASUSKI Legal is a Polish law firm built around immigration work, with offices in Warsaw and Wrocław. Tuition recovery sits naturally beside it, because the students who need it are usually the students whose visa or residence case went wrong – and because we already act against, and correspond with, the same institutions.
What you get
- An honest assessment before you commit to anything
- Correspondence conducted in Polish, by Polish lawyers
- A single point of contact who answers in English
- Court proceedings where they are justified, and candour where they are not
What we need from you
- The contract and the admission letter
- Proof of payment
- The visa refusal, if there was one
- Your correspondence with the university or agent
Fees are agreed in advance and in writing, and depend on the amount at stake and how far the matter has to go. Send us what you have and we will quote before doing any chargeable work – and if we think the sum is too small to be worth pursuing through us, we will tell you that instead of taking the case.
Send us your contract and we will tell you what it is worth
Attach the contract, the payment confirmation and the visa refusal if you have one. You will get a straight answer on whether the claim is worth running – including if the answer is no.
Claim your tuition refund → office@krasuski.legalFrequently asked questions
My visa was refused. Will I get my tuition back?+
This is the strongest version of the claim, because the university delivered no teaching at all and the reason you did not arrive was a decision of the Polish state, not a change of heart. Some contracts provide for a refund in exactly this situation. Where the contract is silent, the argument is that a fee paid for instruction that was never given should not simply be retained. Keep the refusal decision – it is the most important document you have.
The university says the fee is non-refundable. Is that the end of it?+
No, and it is usually the first thing said rather than the last word. A clause in a standard contract that you had no opportunity to negotiate is not automatically enforceable against a consumer, particularly where it lets an institution keep a full year's fee for a service it never began to provide. Whether it holds depends on the wording and the circumstances – which is precisely why the clause needs reading rather than obeying.
I never went to Poland at all. Can I still claim?+
Yes, and that is the typical case. You never have to enter Poland to bring the claim. Everything is handled by email and power of attorney, the correspondence is conducted here on your behalf, and recovered money can be transferred to you abroad. You do not need a Polish bank account and you do not need to speak Polish.
How long do I have to bring a claim?+
Claims arising from a contract with a university become time-barred after a period set by law, and it is a short one by the standards of civil claims – a small number of years, not a decade. Because the exact start date depends on your facts, the only safe approach is to have it checked as soon as possible. If your payment was made more than about two years ago, treat this as urgent.
I attended for one semester and then left. Is anything recoverable?+
Often, in part. A full refund is unlikely because you did receive some teaching, but a university that has taken a full year's fee and delivered one semester is in a weak position on the balance. The claim becomes one about proportion rather than principle, and the deciding factors are the contract's terms, the date you stopped, and whether you notified them properly.
Can I get the recruitment or application fee back too?+
Usually not. That fee pays for processing your application, and the processing genuinely happened. It is normally a modest sum and we would rather isolate it than let it weaken the case for the tuition, which is where the real money sits. A deposit or place-reservation fee is a different question and depends entirely on how the contract describes it.
I paid an agency, not the university. Who do I claim from?+
It depends on who the money reached and on what basis. If the agency passed your tuition to the university, the tuition claim is generally against the university and the agency's own commission is a separate matter with the agency. If the agency kept the money, your counterparty is the agency. Send us the transfer confirmations and the agency agreement – that single question changes who the first letter is addressed to.
The university has ignored me for months. What now?+
Silence is a tactic, not an answer, and it is used most often with students who have already left the country. The response is a formal written demand to the correct office, in Polish, with a deadline and a stated consequence – which changes the calculation for whoever is deciding whether to reply. Meanwhile your time limit is still running, so silence is a reason to escalate rather than to wait.
Will this affect a future application to study or live in Poland?+
Recovering money you are owed is an ordinary civil matter and is not a mark against you in immigration terms. If you intend to apply again, the more relevant point is choosing an institution that is approved to admit foreign students in the first place – the rules tightened considerably in 2025, and our guide to the temporary residence permit for studies explains what to check before you pay anyone.
What will it cost me?+
Fees are agreed in writing before any chargeable work starts, and they depend on the amount at stake and how far the matter needs to go. The initial assessment of your contract is how we decide whether the case is worth taking at all – and if it is not, we will say so rather than bill you for finding out slowly.
Your attorney
Kamil Piotrowski – Attorney at law
Kamil leads our student practice: residence permits for studies, refusals and deregistration – and tuition recovery for students whose studies never began. Send him the contract and the payment confirmation and he will tell you what the claim is worth before you commit to anything.
k.piotrowski@krasuski.legal
Warsaw: +48 502 115 589 Wrocław: +48 71 719 59 08
Legal background: claims of this kind are governed by the contract on the terms of payment for studies concluded between the student and the institution under the Act of 20 July 2018 – Law on Higher Education and Science, read together with the Civil Code (including its provisions on performance and on unjustified enrichment) and, where the student contracts as a consumer, the rules on unfair terms in contracts not individually negotiated. Related: our guide to the temporary residence permit for studies.
Legal status as of September 2026. This page is general information and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case. Whether and how much of your tuition is recoverable depends on your contract, your payments and your correspondence, and can only be assessed on those documents.
Warsaw Office
How can we help? 
