Law /
British in travel. Many trips to Poland within a year - do I need to register? [9]
I'm renting a flat here, so in that sense I'm "resident" (I don't know if that changes anything), but then I also have a home in the UK. To me, this is just a very long temporary stay (or series of stays).
You shouldn't worry about the flat - it doesn't make any difference.
I'm not intending to work here. However I'll almost certainly be here more than 183 days in the year, which presumably will make me tax-resident. In a way I'm less worried about that, though, as it's something my accountant can deal with.
Not that I'm advocating tax evasion or anything like that (of course...), however they can't prove you're actually in country or haven't popped over the border elsewhere in Schengen etc and I really really wouldn't complicate stuff by involving the Polish tax office. They are a pain in the proverbial at every level.
I just looked at my last post and one bit wasn't clear. If you want to vote etc, you do need to register, however there's no legal instrument by which they can make you register as resident nor is there anything they can do to you if you don't.
You can however work without registering, however you'd need to apply for a tax reference number (NIP) and they
may have started asking for the card people get when they register since the days when I applied for mine. I was able to open 2 businesses though, one as a registered sole trader and one as a limited company (as well as half a dozen bank accounts over the years) without being registered as resident, and in fact there are tax advantages in not being resident.
If it sounds contradictory and a bit confused, don't worry - you've probably figured out by now that Poland is a land of contradictions, conflicting advice and regulations, anomalies and surprises - most of them nice ones.
