Dual citizen non-Polish resident studying in Poland

Hi all! :)

I don't know if this has been covered in another thread. I'm a dual citizen and I'm going off to the Medical University of £ódź at the end of September (travelling with both passports) but my permanent residency is in Canada.

My question is, will I need to zameldować się when I get there? I'll be staying in a dorm room the entire time and not a private residence.

Also, will I need to get a dowód osobisty? I know that I can open a bank account there using only my Polish passport and I won't be doing stuff like voting in Polish elections or buying a car, etc.

>>>Also, will I need to get a dowód osobisty? ...I don't understand why you think you should even be considering this?

>>>I know that I can open a bank account there using only my Polish passport...Believe me, I opened my bank account (and not one) using only my British passport with no trouble at all.

Legally every citizen is required to have a dowód and they won't issue you with one without a zameldowanie, but I got by using just my passport for ages.

>>>Legally every citizen is required to have a dowód.
...Do you mean a Polish citizen or a dual-nationality citizen? I am still not clear when one is a Polish citizen and when a dual-nationality one.

I am still arguing with 'them' (the powers that be, that know sweet nothing), as miraculously they say I have dual nationality, but will not issue me with a dowod.

Where do I go from there?

Yes, every Polish citizen. Poland doesn't recognise dual nationality. Why won't they issue you with a dowód?

As far as I understand it, the general regulations insist that when in Poland, you are solely Polish and other citizenship isn't recognised. Given that Poles must have one when resident in Poland, there's no choice in theory.

But would they even allow someone to use university accomodation as a registered address?

Mind you, having one is useful if you can get it without too much fuss - having a recognised travel document valid throughout the EEA is priceless in terms of having it in credit card sized form.

Get one if you can, they're not expensive and are a much more preferable option to carrying around a passport!

Thank you for the response:

>>>>As far as I understand it, the general regulations insist that when in Poland, you are solely Polish and other citizenship isn't recognised...

...if that is the case, then I (stupidly, I know) think that I am entitled to a dowod and a Polish passport. Problem is they don't seem to get that. When I went to St. Sebastian St someone told me...that 'perhaps' the fact that I was born in Krakow 'may entitle me' to Polish citizenship, but she wasn't sure.

I will take the case up when I'm in Poland next time and after that I'm going to the papers-I'll get one of the better journalists to investigate my case.

>>>you are solely Polish...
...I simply cannot be, as I do not have any documents to prove the fact. How can someone call me Polish and then refuse to give me a Polish dowod or a Polish passport?

Get an official odpis of your Polish birth certificate and you've eliminated a whole bunch of headaches. Confirmation of your citizenship is issued by the wojewoda of wherevery you live, but if you don't have an official address in Poland it's issued by Warsaw. I suspect that to get a Polish passport you'll have to go through the Polish consulate in the country you're a citizen of though - I went through London and once I had the birth certificate sorted, it went pretty quickly.

Then you can apply for a dowod.

Dual citizenship means that you officially hold the citizenship of 2 countries (from what you say, you don't have the paperwork for Poland - being born here might not automatically give you that right and you need to get it confirmed). Not recognising dual citizenship means that a dual-national can't claim to be (e.g. British) when he/she gets in trouble (e.g. with the police) or has to deal with some form of official bureaucracy - the Poles consider you as Polish only and treat you as they would any other Pole.

>>>Get an official odpis of your Polish birth certificate and you've eliminated a whole bunch of headaches. ...I already have my Polish birth certificate, written in Polish.

>>>Not recognising dual citizenship means that a dual-national can't claim to be (e.g. British) when he/she gets in trouble (e.g. with the police) or has to deal with some form of official bureaucracy - the Poles consider you as Polish only and treat you as they would any other Pole.

...I'm sorry, they just CANNOT pull that one, you cannot treat me as Polish (when I get into trouble), but not Polish when it comes to recognizing the entitlement to my citizenship. I'm either Polish or I'm not, if I am I have the right to a dowod/passport, if I'm not then I'm British and if I get into trouble I'm British.

Just out of interest I will get round to solving this - I have tried before, (in 2002/3 at a cost over 6,000 PLN and still got nowhere)

good luck!

hi terri:

Not clear from your post whether you formally applied for confirmation of citizenship in 2002/03. You can do so through the consulate in the UK or directly from Warsaw using a lawyer or other Polish resident (consulate will not tell you this) who has been so empowered through a valid power of attorney. Expect to wait about 18 -24 months for submissions through the consulate. "Direct" submissions will take about 12 - 15 months.

Have you checked out this site? (administrator won't let me post link to site...google polishforums immigration to Poland part 1) Enormous amount of information is available regarding confirmation of Polish citizenship. Look for curiousgeorge's posts in part-1, he summarizes the entire process extremely well (posted on August 31, 2006) which I believe can be found on page 3.

My trip to Poland this summer relates to the confirmation of citizenship process.

I'm not Polish, so I'm not familiar with how it's passed on - is being born in the territory of the RP enough to give you citizenship, or do you have to have a link from parents/grandparents? If you were born in Krakow to at least one Polish parent, then as far as I can work out, you're entitled to it. But if neither of the parents were Polish, then you wouldn't be entitled.

Polish citizenship is passed through "Jus sanguinis" (Latin for "right of blood") not "jus soli" (Latin for "right of soil").

Many nations have a mixture of jus sanguinis and jus soli, including the United States, Canada, Israel, Germany (as of recently), Greece, Ireland and others.

terri
I 'd like to help you with confirmacion Polish citizen. . Plese write to me.