Delays in residence proceedings: the problem, its impact and the changes needed
Why we act: residents’ experiences, waiting times, court judgments and proposals for change.
This initiative grew out of the experiences of people whose daily lives were disrupted by waiting months or years for a residence decision. Below, we explain the problem, present the evidence and describe the changes we seek.
This article develops materials prepared before the protest on 7 September 2026. Waiting-time figures relate to the periods stated in the text. Court statistics were recalculated on 27 September 2026; they do not predict the outcome of an individual case.
What our initiative concerns
Our initiative concerns efficient residence-permit proceedings: predictable timelines, individual assessment of every application, full document and security checks, and transparent data on how the administration performs. We do not call for changes to the rules for granting Polish citizenship or automatically positive decisions.
Why we started acting
Our initiative concerns the system and institutional accountability, not the assessment of individual office staff. The state accepts an application and a fee, and then for many months or years issues no decision and presents no credible plan for clearing the backlog.
Behind the case numbers are ordinary human lives. One person cannot travel to a sick child or to a parent’s funeral, because leaving means risking not being able to return home to Poland. Another works, studies, raises children or runs a business, yet for years cannot calmly plan a trip, a change of job or the family’s future.
Waiting for years can mean:
- a family separated, or being unable to visit relatives abroad;
- a child left in an uncertain position, because their case depends on a parent’s unfinished one;
- being unable to leave Poland and return, despite proceedings that are lawfully under way;
- difficulty changing jobs or running a business;
- being unable to perform duties that require travelling abroad — from drivers’ international routes, through researchers attending conferences, to staff in other sectors going on assignment — which employers feel too;
- reported blocks on an account, a card or some banking services, or demands for extra verification, once the previous residence document has expired and the new card has not yet been issued;
- being unable to plan study, travel and family life with any certainty.
How long people wait and what the figures measure
Materials prepared in August 2026 cited observations by the Pobytrack project from late July 2026: 26–28 months from application to collecting a card in the Gdańsk cases observed, and around 9 months waiting for biometrics. These are participants’ observations, not a representative sample of all cases.
MSWiA’s reply to parliamentary question No. 18089PL🌐 Translate reported 598 days as the average duration of temporary residence proceedings handled by the Pomeranian Voivode in 2026, as of 6 July 2026. The reply is dated 27 July 2026; we rechecked the figures on 27 September 2026.
These figures should not be added together. The entire journey to collecting a card, the wait for biometrics and the official duration of proceedings are different measures. Sources may cover different cases and periods, and MSWiA’s reply does not specify the event from which measurement begins. We therefore do not derive a “9 months + 598 days” formula from them.
The courts confirm the scale of the problem
With proceedings running 26–28 months, some people — having first filed a reminder (ponaglenie) — decide to bring a complaint about inactivity or undue delay before the Voivodeship Administrative Court.
Among WSA Gdańsk judgments dated from 1 October 2025 to 27 September 2026 in our database and decided on the merits, 205 of 206 cases — 99.5% had an outcome favourable to the complainant. The administrative court assesses inactivity or delay; it does not grant a residence permit.
The calculation dated 27 September 2026 uses WSA outcomes adjusted for linked NSA judgments. Across the database, the period 1 October 2025–27 September 2026 contains 1,427 positive and 56 negative outcomes — 96.2% of 1,483 merits decisions. Cases requiring review, negative procedural outcomes and cases without a merits decision are excluded. This describes the collected dataset, not all residence proceedings or an individual’s chances.
The judicial route has a paradoxical effect in Pomerania, though. Once the file has been sent to the court, the office may suspend further steps until it is returned. The practice is not the same in every voivodeship. That is why one of our demands is that the office keep a working copy of the file and continue every step that does not require the originals.
Favourable rulings are not limited to Gdańsk. We have collected and analysed over 4,000 rulings of the voivodeship administrative courts and the Supreme Administrative Court in residence cases from across Poland. Most published entries can be checked independently in the Central Database of Administrative Court Rulings; cases from the Warsaw court come from that court’s own register, are absent from that database, and are clearly marked as such on our site.
See the nationwide statistics and the rulings database
Article 100d: the gap between legislation and judicial practice
The data also show a clear gap between the statute in force and the case law of the courts. The Supreme Administrative Court refused to apply a further extension of the suspension of time limits, finding it incompatible with the constitutional right to a court. From October 2025, the rulings we analysed came to be dominated by a line consistent with that case law, under which art. 100d is not treated as an automatic bar to finding inactivity or undue delay. In our database, 96.2% of cases examined on the merits since that point ended in the complainant’s favour.
Despite this settling line of case law, art. 100d remains in the statute and is formally to apply until 4 March 2027. This means the courts are restoring protection against inactivity in individual cases, while the legislature keeps in force a provision meant to remove that protection.
How art. 100d works and what follows from the court’s rulings
Legal sources and context checked on 27 September 2026: RPO / MSWiAPL🌐 Translate; art. 100dPL🌐 Translate.
Certificates: a document needed before the decision
Delays also affect documents needed before a case is concluded. It is important to distinguish two types of certificate. A certificate requested under Article 217 of the Code of Administrative Procedure (KPA), for example confirming an application date or that proceedings are ongoing, should be issued without undue delay and within 7 days at the latest.
Since 27 April 2026, there has also been a separate MOS certificate under Article 108, 206 or 222a of the Act on Foreigners. It replaces the passport stamp and confirms residence status once the statutory conditions are met. Part VII of the KPA, including its seven-day deadline, does not apply to it. Without a required document, a person may have difficulty demonstrating their situation to a bank, ZUS or a municipality.
How to obtain the right certificate and respond to a delay
Legal sources and context checked on 27 September 2026: KPA, art. 217–219PL🌐 Translate; MOS — art. 108, 206, 222aPL🌐 Translate.
472 → 273 days — the change in Wrocław
The official average duration of proceedings in Lower Silesia fell from 472 days in 2024 to 273 days in 2025. The Lower Silesian Voivodeship Office also reported an 84.7% drop in the cost of judgments and compensation, a 16.1% fall in the number of complaints to the court, and a reduction of the backlog from 2022 and earlier to 507 cases.
Source: Lower Silesian Voivodeship OfficePL🌐 Translate
Pomerania compared with Lesser Poland and Lower Silesia
In 2025, Lesser Poland and Lower Silesia received more temporary residence applications than Pomerania and still achieved shorter official average times. That does not mean one solution can simply be transferred from one office to another. It does show that the number of applications alone does not explain the whole difference, and that how work is organised, what resources exist, how it is supervised and how the oldest cases are handled all matter.
See the comparison of Pomerania, Lesser Poland and Lower Silesia
The main directions of change
1. An official plan and open data
An official, publicly available backlog-reduction plan presented by the Pomeranian Voivode, with concrete deadlines and monthly targets. Full information on the number, age and processing time of cases, and regular publication of real waiting times.
2. Efficient organisation of proceedings
Adequate staffing, an account of what the FAMI project achieved, carrying out administrative steps without delay once an application is registered, beginning examination on the merits without a further wait once the required conditions are met, stating a realistic date for concluding the case when asking for formal defects to be remedied, coordinating the cases of members of one family, continuing whatever work is possible after the file has gone to the court, and handling formal correspondence on time.
3. Accountability of the administration and an efficient digital process
Repeal of art. 100d and restoration of the administration’s responsibility for issuing decisions on time, fast procedures based on objective features of the case rather than nationality, simplifications for recurring and family cases, and integration of MOS 2 with ST POBYT, EZD, voivodeship systems and state registers.
Read the full 15 demands, with reasoning
Sources and further reading
One step we took was the Gdańsk protest on 7 September 2026. Learn about the initiative on the About us page and follow subsequent actions in Publications.