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Staying beyond 3 months as Sp. z o.o founder and manager [22]
That's a 'zameldowanie', registered address, not residence permit. Two entirely different things.
De jure, certainly - but the zameldowanie is a de facto temporary residence permit too in terms how it functions for foreigners. I know it's not related to immigration, but to all extents, it does function as a 3 month residence permit. There is possibly an interesting legal argument in there - in that Poland (by having the law requiring registration within 4 days) could be breaking EU law in terms of freedom of movement. That may actually be the reason why they don't enforce it for EU citizens - but who knows?
And legislation to remove the zameldowanie is pending, and lack of one is no longer enforced. Three weeks ago I had to get the police to evict a tenant and they didn't bat an eyelid about me not having one.
Do you know what the latest is with the zameldowanie? The last I saw, the government had put it on the backburner because of a lack of consensus with what to replace it with.
But I wouldn't be surprised if a new government decided to enforce it again - possibly under the guise of 'FOREIGNERS TAKING OVER POLAND'. This is the only reason why I recommend people do it - what's happening now is no indication of what could happen tomorrow. It's not inconceivable that they might link the zameldowanie to much more - especially if they can't get rid of it.
But they haven't. And they can't deport to another part of the EU unless you're a terrorist, or your presence is prejudicial to the wellbeing of the country. Unless you want to vote or get a mortgage, they aren't an essential. I have a moblile phone subscription, and leasing contracts without one.
Are the contracts through a company (or self employment?) I was told by all the big mobile operators that they want the 5 year permit from anyone taking a contract privately. Most 'na raty' offers demand the 5 year permit too, and the banks as a whole are starting to see it as a requirement for any sort of lending.
The can't deport thing is a bit of a red herring - as far as I gather, they can actually deport you after 3 months if you don't have a valid reason to be in another EU country. But of course, they can't stop your return! I seem to recall this happening in France - Romanians were getting thrown out (well, 'encouraged to leave') - and they got straight back on the plane and went back. Stupid, stupid system.
But just because they're not doing something now doesn't mean that they won't do it in the future. Given the crazy new Gambling law that flies in the face of logic - anything could happen where residence permits are concerned. The shoddy implementation of the EU residence permit should tell you everything! ;)
No. If you're a member of the management board of a limited company, and you're frequently out of Poland, and not a Polish citizen, it is quite legal and correct to pay tax on your director's fees (so they should be your main source of drawings) at only 19% on a monthly basis, without taking account the 'próg' or any other taxable income. You still have to pay any dopłata at the end of the year, but what you do with the moohlah in the meantime is up to you.
Aha - I get you - I thought you were saying that you don't have to pay tax at all!
If someone really wants the Karta Obywatelstwa it takes a few days.
Plus the waiting :/ But the problem is often that if someone has anything but clear cut circumstances, they seem to particularly enjoy asking for obscure pieces of nonsense - my favourite was getting told that they can't just accept contracts with how many days worked - they also wanted a handwritten letter from me confirming how many hours I worked a week.
To register as self-employed took me four visits to offices, two days in all (mind you, I already had a NIP - that would be a small delay, but you can use the 'provisional' NIP quite correctly if need be). To register a limited company took a phone call to a lawyer and one visit to his office to have the Akt Notarialny (printed off the internet) witnessed.
Yep - I think a lot of the hype about the difficulty of these things is greatly exaggerated online. If you know what you're doing and can actually read, it shouldn't be a problem at all - when I registered as self employed, I just had three trips to make - twice to the Urząd Miasta and once to the Urząd Skarbowy.
Though somebody completely new to PL might (instead of trailing round govt. offices and being bled dry by lawyers setting a company up) do very well to use your service lindenia.net. Looking at the site, it seems a good idea, especially for non-EU nationals.
Even for EU nationals - we can probably (it does depend on time, if someone has complicated circumstances, we need to make sure that everything is right!) get them sorted out documents wise for less than 50PLN. I've heard of people paying over 100EUR for the same thing - which is nonsense, because most of the hassle just involves obtuse answers from the offices and having to guess what they actually want in the face of ridiculously badly written governmental websites. It certainly shouldn't in the vast majority of cases take more than an hour to sort out - and that includes checking documents for them.
The thing I'm trying to do is provide services at Polish rates, not at expat rates - I called a few of these 'foreigners services' in Warsaw and was getting quotes like 100PLN/hr (at a minimum of 1 hour) for translation at the Foreigners Office there for an English-speaking EU citizen - I had to struggle not to laugh down the phone! That kind of price is crazy - and just shows how much people can spend here if they're not careful. Obviously you might have to pay that for a high level professional interpreter - but for someone to turn up to the Foreigners Office? An English filology student would be more than enough for an EU citizen there!
