ul. Dywizjonu AK "Jeleń" 7B/U4, WarszawaFirst permit
15 months
if you are starting your first year
Later permits
Studies + 3 months
capped at 3 years
How you apply
Online only
through MOS, since 27 April 2026
Monthly means
PLN 1,010
above housing costs, per month
Stamp duty
PLN 340
plus PLN 100 for the residence card
Who it covers
Full-time only
part-time and language courses are elsewhere
On this page
What the temporary residence permit for studies is
Your university has to be approved – check first
What this permit does not cover
Conditions for a temporary residence permit for studies
How long the temporary residence permit for studies lasts
Filing since 27 April 2026 – and your university’s part
Working while you study – the 2025 change
Coming from abroad: the student visa
Getting admitted is harder since 2025
If you stop studying, or are deregistered
Never started? Recovering your tuition
After graduation: the nine-month permit
Fees for a temporary residence permit for studies
What the temporary residence permit for studies is
The temporary residence permit for studies – zezwolenie na pobyt czasowy w celu kształcenia się na studiach – is the residence title for someone whose purpose of stay in Poland is full-time higher education. It is applied for in Poland, from the voivode, and results in a decision and a residence card.
Three things about it decide most of what follows.
It depends on your university, not just on you
The permit is granted where the studies are at an institution approved by the Minister of the Interior, or one exempt from approval that is not under a ban on admitting foreigners. A perfect application to the wrong school fails on the first line of the statute.
Your university files part of it
Since 27 April 2026 the confirmation that you are admitted or continuing is not a certificate you attach. The university completes and electronically signs an annex inside the portal. Until it does, you cannot submit at all.
It is monitored while it runs
The voivode checks the student registers every year, after 1 March and after 1 June. Your rector must report a deregistration without delay. Quietly stopping your studies is not something that goes unnoticed until renewal.
If your course is part-time, postgraduate, a language course or a post-secondary school, this is not your permit – see the next section but one. If you are already working in Poland rather than studying, the residence permit for work is the one to look at.
Your university has to be approved – check this first
This is the single most important check, and almost no English-language guide mentions it. The permit is only available where the institution running your studies has been approved by the Minister of the Interior for the purpose of admitting foreigners, unless it is one of the categories exempt from approval.
| Type of institution | What applies |
|---|---|
| Private academic universities, public and private vocational universities | Must hold ministerial approval, granted for five years and renewable. Approval can be withdrawn, and refused outright where the institution is found to operate mainly to facilitate unlawful entry or stay. |
| Public academic universities with doctoral-awarding rights, military and state-service academies, PAN and Łukasiewicz institutes, certain church institutions | Exempt from the approval requirement – but the permit still fails if a ban on admitting foreigners has been issued against them. |
Check the ministry’s published list before you pay a single złoty of tuition. The Ministry of the Interior maintains and updates a list of approved institutions. A school’s own marketing material is not evidence of anything, and “we accept international students” is not the same statement as “we are approved to admit them”.
The consequences of getting this wrong compound. An unapproved school means no student permit, and since 1 December 2025 it also means no exemption from the work permit requirement. Students have arrived, paid, enrolled and only then discovered that neither their stay nor their part-time job could be legalised.
If you are already in that position, it is recoverable more often than it looks – sometimes by transferring to an approved institution, sometimes through a different residence title, and frequently alongside a claim to recover the tuition you paid. What does not work is waiting to see whether anyone notices.
What this permit does not cover
The student permit is for full-time degree studies and doctoral schools. A great deal of what people call “studying in Poland” falls outside it and needs a different permit entirely – with different conditions and, importantly, without the student work exemption.
Covered by this permit
- Full-time first-cycle, second-cycle and long-cycle degree studies
- Doctoral schools
- Preparatory courses for degree studies – but only for nationals of countries on a government list
Not covered – you need the “education” permit instead
- Part-time and extramural studies
- Postgraduate studies
- Language courses
- Post-secondary schools and school-level education
Those four go under the residence permit for other circumstances, in its education variant. It is a real and workable permit – but it is a different application, and a student who assumes otherwise usually discovers it at the worst possible moment.
Preparatory courses are the exception people get backwards. Guides often say flatly that they do not qualify. They do – the statute expressly provides for them – but only for nationals of the countries listed in a Council of Ministers regulation. So whether a preparatory course supports this permit depends on your citizenship, not on the course.
Conditions for a temporary residence permit for studies
What you must satisfy for a temporary residence permit for studies
Beyond the approved-institution requirement, the conditions must be met cumulatively – the statute says so in terms, and failing any one of them is a refusal.
| Condition | What it means in practice |
|---|---|
| Health insurance | Cover under the Polish public health insurance system, or written confirmation from an insurer that it covers your treatment costs in Poland. Private travel policies frequently do not satisfy this – read the scope before you rely on one. |
| Sufficient financial means | Enough to cover three things: your living costs, the cost of your studies, and your return journey. This has its own section below, because the arithmetic is not obvious. |
| Proof that the fee is paid | Where the studies are fee-paying, evidence that you have paid for the semester or the year. Not a promise to pay, and not an invoice – proof of payment. |
| Confirmation of admission or continuation | Now supplied by the university itself, electronically, inside the application portal. You cannot produce it, chase it or substitute it – you can only make sure the university does it. |
You do not have to prove accommodation for this permit. There is no requirement to produce a lease, a dormitory contract or a landlord’s statement. Where housing appears in the statute it appears only as arithmetic – your monthly means are tested after deducting what you need for housing costs.
The contrast matters, because English pages routinely merge the two: for the graduate job-search permit secured accommodation is an express condition. Same client, two years apart, two different rules.
The permit is also refused where the authority has justified doubts about the credibility of what you have said about your purpose of stay, and where the institution is one that mainly facilitates unlawful entry or stay. Both grounds have been used far more actively since 2025, and both are about substance rather than paperwork.
How much money you must show
The financial condition is the one most often miscalculated, partly because the figure is not fixed in the Act at all. It is tied to the income threshold for social assistance, so it moves when that moves.
| What has to be covered | Amount |
|---|---|
| Monthly living costs, after deducting housing costs, if you live alone | more than PLN 1,010 per month |
| The same, per person, where you have dependent family members with you | more than PLN 823 per person per month |
| Return journey – country bordering Poland | PLN 200 |
| Return journey – another EU member state | PLN 500 |
| Return journey – anywhere else | PLN 2,500 |
| Cost of your studies | the actual tuition for the period applied for |
The return-travel amount is not required if you hold a return ticket. The living-cost figures above are the social-assistance thresholds in force from 1 January 2025 and unchanged for 2026 – but because the rule is dynamic rather than a fixed sum, check the current figure at the moment you apply rather than trusting any page, including this one, a year from now.
Two Polish voivodeship offices still publish PLN 776 and PLN 600 on their own websites. Those figures are years out of date, and they have been copied into a great many English-language guides and agency pages. Applying on them understates what you need to show.
The deduction rule is the other trap. It is not “PLN 1,010 in the account”. It is PLN 1,010 per month on top of what your accommodation costs – rent apportioned per occupant, plus electricity, gas, water, sewage and waste. A student paying PLN 2,000 for a room needs to demonstrate materially more than a student in a subsidised dormitory.
How you prove it is flexible: a bank statement, a scholarship award, a credit-card limit, a formal undertaking from a parent supported by their own evidence. What offices react badly to is a single large deposit that appeared the week before filing and has no explanation behind it.
How long the temporary residence permit for studies lasts
There is no single answer, and the widely repeated “the first permit is 15 months” is only true of one situation.
| Situation | Period granted |
|---|---|
| First permit, starting your first year of study | 15 months |
| First permit, studies under an EU mobility programme, a multilateral programme or an inter-institutional agreement | 2 years |
| Starting a doctoral school | 2 years and 6 months |
| Where the remaining study period is shorter than the above – for example an academic year of under a year | that period + 3 months |
| Preparatory course | course duration + 3 months |
| Every subsequent permit | period of studies + 3 months, capped at 3 years |
The three extra months exist so that you are not unlawfully present in the gap between finishing and doing whatever comes next. They are not spare time: if you intend to stay on, that is the window in which the graduate permit or a work-based permit has to be applied for.
Filing since 27 April 2026 – and your university’s part in it
On 27 April 2026 every application for a temporary residence permit for studies became exclusively electronic, through the MOS portal. For students the change went further than for anyone else, because the university was written into the procedure.
An application filed on paper is left without consideration. Not refused – not read. The ordinary rule that posting a letter counts as filing it has been disapplied, so the postmark protects nothing; only a completed electronic submission does.
There is no paper route for the student permit. The narrow exceptions that survive cover intra-corporate transfers and family members applying from abroad. Students are not among them.
The university is now a gatekeeper – plan around it
The confirmation that you are admitted, or continuing, no longer comes to you as a certificate. The portal e-mails your institution a link; a designated person there completes the annex and signs it electronically. Until the university has signed, you cannot submit your application at all.
Chase the international office early
Universities had to designate an authorised signatory and a monitored mailbox. Not all of them did it well. In 2026 the most common reason a student cannot file on time is not the student – it is an unanswered link sitting in a university inbox. Ask your international office, by name, who signs and how fast.
You submit it yourself
The application goes from your own account, under your own signature. A representative is not entitled to file it for you, and you should never share your credentials with anyone. Parents, guardians and court-appointed curators acting for a minor use their own accounts. We prepare and check everything; you press submit.
A trusted profile takes time to get
The account needs a Polish profil zaufany, and in practice a PESEL number first. Universities advise starting this about a month before you need it. A student who begins in the last fortnight of their visa is usually already too late.
The portal is not a mailbox
MOS does not prompt you when something needs completing, and it is not a correspondence channel with the office. Deadlines must be diarised. Appeals, if it comes to that, are filed outside the portal.
Filing online has not removed the human step: you will still be summoned to attend in person to give fingerprints and a specimen signature and to present your original travel document.
What replaced the passport stamp
The stamp confirming that an application had been filed was abolished on the same date. In its place the voivode issues an electronic certificate of submission which you download and print, and the Border Guard is notified electronically. Your stay is lawful from the day of filing until the decision becomes final – but the certificate is not a travel document, and it does not on its own entitle you to work.
The temporary residence permit for studies procedure, step by step
Confirm the institution qualifies
On the ministry’s list of approved institutions, or exempt from approval and not banned from admitting foreigners. Before tuition, before the visa, before anything.
Get a PESEL and a trusted profile
These are the keys to the portal, and each has its own queue. Start roughly a month before you intend to file.
Assemble the evidence
Travel document, health insurance, proof of the tuition payment, and the financial evidence built to the arithmetic in the section above. Stamp duty paid, proof of payment ready to attach.
Trigger the university’s annex – and chase it
The portal sends the link; the university completes and signs. This is the step outside your control, so it is the step to start earliest and follow up hardest.
Submit, before your last day of legal stay
From your own account, with your own signature. The certificate of submission follows and your stay is protected from that day.
Attend for fingerprints, answer what is asked
On the voivode’s summons. Any request to complete the file runs on its own deadline, and an unanswered one pushes back the point at which the decision clock is treated as starting.
Decision, then the residence card
The card costs PLN 100 and is the document that evidences your status. The permit itself is the decision behind it.
How long a temporary residence permit for studies takes
The statute says the voivode decides within 60 days, and appeals within 90. Applications from doctoral candidates and researchers are, by statute, given priority. None of that describes what actually happens.
The running of that 60-day deadline is suspended – currently until early March 2027 – under a provision of the 2022 Ukraine assistance act that has been extended repeatedly. It covers temporary residence permits generally, so it covers students. Cases are still processed; what is removed is any effective complaint about delay.
There is a real argument that this provision, sitting in an act adopted to help Ukrainian citizens, cannot apply to every foreigner – and an administrative court has so held. Offices apply it to everyone regardless. The point is unsettled rather than hopeless, and on a file that has sat untouched for a year it is worth running.
In practice, expect months rather than weeks, varying widely between voivodeships. We deliberately do not publish an average here: the figures circulating online are either stale or drawn from datasets that predate the April 2026 switch to electronic filing, and a student who plans around a number that turns out to be wrong by six months has a serious problem rather than an inconvenience.
What follows from that is simple. Your stay is protected from the day you file, so filing early costs nothing and filing late costs everything. If your first permit runs 15 months and the procedure takes most of a year, the renewal has to be in preparation long before the card expires.
Working while you study – what changed on 1 December 2025
For years the position was simple and every guide said the same thing: full-time students in Poland may work without a work permit. That is no longer true as a flat statement, and the pages still saying it are giving advice that can cost a student and an employer real money.
| Your situation | Can you work without a work permit? |
|---|---|
| Full-time student at an approved institution, or one exempt from approval and not banned | Yes – this is the exemption, and it now carries that condition on its face |
| Full-time student at an institution without approval | No. A work permit is required. The transitional periods that cushioned this expired in June 2026 |
| Part-time or extramural student | No – the exemption is for full-time study only |
| Doctoral candidate in a Polish doctoral school | Yes – exempt by statute, not merely by regulation |
| Graduate of a Polish institution | Yes – on production of the diploma, regardless of study mode |
Any page citing the old employment-promotion act on this point is out of date. That act’s work-permit chapters were replaced on 1 June 2025, and the student exemption was re-made on 1 December 2025 in a new regulation which added the approval condition. Article numbers you will still see quoted – and the 2015 regulation – no longer exist in the form cited.
Employers carry the exposure here too: entrusting work unlawfully is punishable by a fine of PLN 3,000 to 50,000 per foreign worker. A careful employer will want to see your enrolment certificate and check the institution against the ministry’s list, and will be right to.
Professional placements that form part of your curriculum sit outside the work-permit regime altogether. And if your permit is a student permit but you have effectively stopped studying and started working, that is not a technicality – it is the ground on which the permit gets withdrawn, as the next section explains.
Coming from abroad: the student visa
If you are not yet in Poland, the temporary residence permit for studies is not your first step. The sequence is a national visa first, obtained abroad, and the permit once you are here.
Admission at an approved institution
With everything the 2025 recruitment rules now require – see the next section, because this is where most plans now fail.
National visa, type D, from a Polish consul
Issued by the consul and only by the consul – there is no procedure for obtaining one inside Poland. Valid for up to one year, and it also allows travel in the Schengen area for 90 days in any 180. Like the permit, it is for full-time students; part-time study does not support it.
Arrive, enrol, get a PESEL and a trusted profile
Do this in the first weeks, not the last. Everything electronic afterwards depends on it.
Apply for the permit before your visa expires
Through the portal, personally, with your university’s annex already signed. A one-year visa against a procedure measured in months means this is a second-semester task, not a final-week one.
One consequence of the 2025 reforms is worth knowing: your university must now notify the consul who issued your visa if you are struck off the student list. The enrolment register and the consular system are joined up in a way they were not before.
Getting admitted is harder since 2025
In 2025 Poland overhauled the recruitment of foreign students, explicitly to close down the use of enrolment as a migration route. Almost no English-language guide covers this, yet it now decides whether a client can be admitted at all – and therefore whether any of the rest of this page is reachable.
Language proof at B2
Documented proficiency at B2 or above in the language of instruction, before admission. This applies to programmes taught in English as much as to those taught in Polish.
NAWA confirmation, and an entrance exam
Candidates from outside the EU, OECD and EFTA need written confirmation from NAWA of their entitlement to study. Without recognised foreign qualifications, a university entrance examination may count for up to 100% of the admission score.
A cap on foreign enrolment
No institution may admit more than 50% foreign students of its total intake in an academic year. Places at the schools most popular with international applicants are therefore genuinely finite.
Approval refused to “visa mills”
Approval can be refused where an institution operates mainly to facilitate unlawful entry or stay – in particular where it teaches foreign students only. If a school’s entire student body is international, treat that as a warning sign, not a selling point.
Admitted students are now registered in the national higher-education system with their identifiers and citizenship data, and the ministry of foreign affairs and consulates have access to it. The practical effect is that admission, visa and residence are cross-checked against each other rather than each taken on its own paperwork.
If you stop studying, or are deregistered
This is where student files most often go wrong, and where the difference between acting in the first fortnight and acting in the sixth month is the difference between a solvable problem and a lost status.
Three separate notification duties bite at once, and one of them is yours.
Your rector must notify the voivode, without delay and in writing, that you have been struck off the list of students or doctoral candidates – and must separately notify the consul who issued your visa, if you hold one.
The voivode checks the student registers against permit holders every year, after 1 March and after 1 June. Deregistration is found systematically, on a schedule, not by chance.
You must notify the voivode who granted the permit, within 15 working days, that the reason for which it was granted has ceased. Your university's notification does not discharge your duty.
The permit does not vanish by itself. It continues until the voivode withdraws it by decision – and the grounds for withdrawal are wider than deregistration alone. They include the permit being used for a purpose other than the one it was granted for, which is the provision that catches a student who has in substance stopped studying and started working.
Because withdrawal requires a decision, there is a window. Used properly it is enough to re-enrol, to move to the education permit if your new course is part-time or postgraduate, to move to a work-based permit, or – if you have in fact graduated – to apply for the graduate permit. Ignored, the same window closes into a withdrawal decision and an obligation to leave.
A separate point for students who applied more than once: a repeat application can be refused outright where a previous permit was used for a purpose other than the one granted, and refused at the authority’s discretion where you have been struck off the list. A history matters here, which is why the response to a first deregistration is worth getting right.
Never started your studies? Recovering your tuition
Plenty of students pay a year’s tuition and never see a lecture – a visa appointment that never came, a refusal, a family emergency, a change of plan. The money is usually recoverable, and universities know that most students will not press for it.
Looking for a tuition refund? Claim your money back.
We recover tuition fees from Polish universities for students who never started, or who withdrew early. We read the enrolment agreement, assemble the proof of payment and correspondence, and put the request in a form the university has to answer properly.
Get a tuition refund → Ask about your caseWhy refunds get refused
- Withdrawal after the deadline in the enrolment agreement
- Missing proof of payment, enrolment or correspondence
- Policies that offer only a partial refund
- Students simply not knowing what they are entitled to ask for
What helps your claim
- Keep every transfer confirmation and every e-mail
- Notify the university in writing as soon as you know you are not coming
- Keep the visa refusal or the appointment evidence
- Ask early – the agreement’s deadlines are the first thing the university will point to
It is worth saying plainly that this is a separate matter from your residence status, and can be pursued whether or not you ever came to Poland. Our tuition refund service sets out how it works in detail.
After graduation: the nine-month permit
Graduates of Polish higher education can obtain a temporary residence permit to look for work or to start a business in Poland. It is the natural bridge out of student status, and it is narrower than people expect.
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Length | 9 months – not twelve, as is often written |
| How often | Once only. There is no second graduate permit after a second degree |
| Who | Graduates of Polish institutions – first-cycle, full-time second-cycle, and doctoral studies or a doctoral school |
| Conditions | Health insurance, sufficient means, the Polish diploma – and, unlike the student permit, secured accommodation in Poland |
| Working on it | As a graduate of a Polish institution you have labour-market access on production of your diploma, whatever mode you studied in |
Apply immediately after graduating, while you are still legally resident – those three extra months on the student permit exist precisely for this. Once you find work or start a business the basis of your stay changes, and you have a further notification duty to the voivode, so this is a permit to move off promptly rather than to run to its end.
From there the usual routes open up: a residence permit for work, the EU Blue Card if the role is highly qualified, and in time the long-term EU resident permit. Student years count towards the five for long-term residence, but only at half rate – five years of study buys two and a half, which is worth knowing before you plan around it.
Fees for a temporary residence permit for studies
How much a temporary residence permit for studies costs
These are the official charges, not our fees. The stamp duty and the card fee go to different accounts, and neither is paid inside the portal – you make the transfers separately and attach the confirmations.
| What | Amount |
|---|---|
| Stamp duty – residence permit for studies | PLN 340 |
| Residence card – issue or exchange | PLN 100 |
| Residence card – replacement after loss or damage (first / repeat) | PLN 200 / 300 |
| Power of attorney | PLN 17 (exempt for a spouse, sibling, parent or child) |
One honest caveat on the card fee: some voivodeship fee tables show a reduced rate of PLN 50 for pupils and students, while other offices publish the 2022 rates without any student reduction. We have not been able to resolve that from the published sources, so if the PLN 50 matters to you, confirm it with the office handling your case rather than budgeting on it.
What other pages still get wrong
Errors that still circulate in 2026
The student route changed on three separate dates – 1 July 2025, 1 December 2025 and 27 April 2026 – and most published guidance has stopped at one of them, or at none.
| Still commonly said | The position now |
|---|---|
| “Book an appointment at the voivodeship office, or send it by post.” | Electronic filing only since 27 April 2026. Paper is left without consideration and the postmark is irrelevant. |
| “Your lawyer or agency can submit it for you.” | Not in the portal. You log in and sign personally; credentials must not be shared. Many agency sites still advertise exactly this. |
| “Attach a certificate from your university.” | The university signs an annex electronically inside the portal. Until it does, you cannot submit at all. |
| “Full-time students never need a work permit.” | Since 1 December 2025 the exemption depends on the institution being approved or exempt and unbanned. The transitional cushions expired in June 2026. |
| “You must show PLN 776 a month, or PLN 600 per person.” | Long out of date. PLN 1,010 and PLN 823, and calculated on top of housing costs. |
| “You need to prove accommodation.” | Not for the student permit. It is a condition for the graduate permit – the two are routinely confused. |
| “The first permit covers the length of your course.” | 15 months for a first-year student; later permits run to the study period plus 3 months, capped at 3 years. |
| “Language courses and part-time study get the student permit.” | They get the education permit under other circumstances – different conditions, and no student work exemption. |
| “Preparatory courses never qualify.” | Over-broad. They do qualify, but only for nationals of listed countries. |
| “Graduates get 12 months to find work.” | Nine months, and once only. |
| “If you drop out your permit is automatically void.” | It must be withdrawn by decision – but your rector reports the deregistration at once, the voivode checks the registers twice a year, and you owe a notification within 15 working days. |
| “The voivode must decide within 60 days.” | True on paper; the running of that deadline is suspended until early March 2027 and complaints about delay are effectively blocked. |
| Nothing at all about ministerial approval of your university, the B2 requirement, NAWA confirmation or the 50% cap. | These now decide whether you can be admitted, whether you can be granted the permit, and whether you can work. Almost no English guide mentions them. |
Where this page is not certain, it says so – the student reduction on the card fee above is one example. There is one more worth naming: for Ukrainian clients, taking the new CUKR residence card ends UKR status, and with it the entitlement to study without tuition fees. If that applies to you, take advice before choosing between them rather than after.
How our lawyers help with a temporary residence permit for studies
KRASUSKI Legal is a boutique firm built around immigration law, and we have handled several thousand immigration matters for clients from all over the world. On student files the value is mostly in sequencing and in the two things students cannot control alone: the university’s part of the application, and what happens when studies stop.
Before you apply
- Checking your institution’s approval status before you commit money
- Building the financial evidence to the actual arithmetic, housing costs included
- Confirming which permit your course really needs
- Timing the application against your visa
Through the procedure
- Preparing the whole file for you to submit through the portal
- Pushing the university to complete and sign its annex
- Answering the voivode’s requests within time
- Pressing a case that has stopped moving
When it goes wrong
- Refusals, appeals and proceedings before the administrative courts
- Deregistration and withdrawal proceedings
- Moving to another permit before the window closes
- Recovering tuition you paid for studies you never began
And afterwards
- The graduate permit, applied for in the right window
- Work permits where the exemption does not reach you
- The route onward to long-term EU residence and Polish citizenship
- Family members’ applications, kept in step with yours
Applying soon, or already stuck?
Tell us where you are – the institution, your visa or current permit, and whether your university has signed anything yet – and we will tell you whether the application will hold together and when it has to go in. If you have been deregistered, that conversation is more urgent than it feels.
Ask us about your case → Our fees Order the serviceFrequently asked questions
How do I know whether my university is approved?+
The Ministry of the Interior publishes and updates a list of institutions approved to admit foreign students. Public academic universities with doctoral-awarding rights and certain other bodies are exempt from approval altogether, but even they can be made subject to a ban on admitting foreigners. Check the list before paying tuition – a school’s own claim that it welcomes international students tells you nothing about its approval status.
My university has not signed the annex. Can I file anyway?+
No – the application cannot be submitted until the institution completes and electronically signs its part inside the portal. This is the most common practical blocker we see in 2026. Contact the international office by name, ask who the designated signatory is, and escalate early. If your legal stay is running out while the university sits on it, tell us before the last week, not after.
Can my lawyer submit the application for me?+
The submission itself comes from your own account, under your own signature, and you should never share your login with anyone. What we do is everything around it: checking the institution, building the financial evidence, preparing the whole file, chasing the university’s annex, answering the office’s requests and running the appeal if there is one. In practice clients find the portal the easy part.
Can I work while I study?+
If you are a full-time student at an approved institution, or one exempt from approval and not under a ban, yes – without a work permit. If your institution is not approved, or you study part-time, you need a work permit; the transitional periods that softened this expired in June 2026. Doctoral candidates are exempt by statute, and graduates of Polish institutions have access on production of the diploma.
How much money do I actually need to show?+
More than PLN 1,010 a month if you live alone, or more than PLN 823 per person where dependants are with you – and that is after deducting your housing costs, which include rent apportioned per occupant plus utilities. On top of that you need the cost of your studies and the return journey: PLN 200, PLN 500 or PLN 2,500 depending on destination, unless you hold a return ticket. Figures still quoting PLN 776 or PLN 600 are years out of date.
Do I need a rental agreement or dormitory contract?+
Not as a condition of this permit. Housing appears only in the calculation of your means, not as a document you must produce. Be careful with English guides here: secured accommodation is an express condition of the graduate job-search permit, and the two are frequently merged into one list of requirements.
I was struck off the student list. What happens now?+
Your permit does not disappear automatically – it has to be withdrawn by decision. But your rector reports the deregistration to the voivode without delay, the voivode checks the registers after 1 March and after 1 June each year, and you yourself must notify the voivode within 15 working days. That leaves a window in which to re-enrol, move to another permit, or apply for the graduate permit if you have in fact finished. The window is real, and it is not long.
I paid tuition but never started. Can I get the money back?+
Often, yes – particularly where a visa never came through or an appointment was never available. It depends on the enrolment agreement, its withdrawal deadlines, and how well you can evidence payment and correspondence. Keep every transfer confirmation and every e-mail, and notify the university in writing as soon as you know you are not coming. We run tuition refund claims against Polish universities as a separate service, independent of your residence status.
Does a language course or a part-time programme count?+
Not for this permit. Language courses, part-time and extramural studies, postgraduate studies and post-secondary schools go under the education variant of the permit for other circumstances. It is a workable route, but the conditions differ and it does not carry the student work exemption. A preparatory course for degree studies is the one exception that does fall here – but only for nationals of listed countries.
How long will I wait for the decision?+
Months, and it varies a great deal between voivodeships. The statutory 60 days exists but its running is suspended until early March 2027, which also removes the usual remedy for delay. We do not publish an average because every figure currently circulating either predates the April 2026 move to electronic filing or cannot be traced to a reliable source. Plan on the assumption that it will be slow, and file early – your stay is protected from the day of submission.
Your attorney
Kamil Piotrowski – Attorney at law
Kamil leads our student practice: applications through the portal and the university annex, financial and insurance evidence, refusals at both stages, deregistration and withdrawal proceedings, the graduate permit, and tuition recovery for students whose studies never began. If you want to know whether your institution and your evidence will hold up, that is the question he answers first.
k.piotrowski@krasuski.legal
Warsaw: +48 502 115 589 Wrocław: +48 71 719 59 08
Legal status as of September 2026. This article is general information and does not constitute legal advice in an individual case. Whether your institution, your course and your evidence satisfy the conditions for a temporary residence permit for studies depends on your documents and can only be assessed on them.
Warsaw Office
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