Any advantage to citizenship of Poland if already have EU residency?

I am an American citizen and my husband is a citizen of Ireland. My father was born in a part of Poland that is now Belarus. He fought in the underground resistance and was awarded a Virtuti Militari medal before emigrating to America shortly after WWII. My mother was born in Ukraine.

My husband and I have not been able to have children and are considering adoption. I would like to adopt an older child or sibling group from Poland since we have Polish speakers and Polish customs in our family and I would like to continue those traditions.

Since I have lived in Ireland and the UK with my husband before we settled in the USA, I have residency permission for the EU. I have often thought about applying for Polish citizenship due to my father's side of the family all being Polish, but as I already have permission to live or work in Poland due to my husband's citizenship I'm not sure if there's any point. Would it help with adoption in any way? We have no immediate plans to move back to Europe.

It's like with a green card vs. US citizenship -- no matter what, it's better to be a citizen (more rights, benefits, etc.) rather than just a permanent resident.

If you are a EU citizen, it actually does not matter. The only thing you as a EU citizen in Poland cannot do (if you have permanent residency) is vote in presidential and parliamentary elections.

Voting in local and European elections you can do (I use this right).
All other rights are the same as Poles would have.

The OP is American so EU regulations do not apply.

europa.eu/eu-life/index_en.htm

It's unlikely to hurt, but your chances of adopting from Poland are very very slim.

It certainly will. A Polish couple in my area waited for more than 2 years to finally take their little one home.
Adoption laws in Poland are some of the strictest in the world.
If you are a foreigner then it's even more complicated.
By the time you get to the eligibility process and background checks, considering that you have been quite normadic, you will most certainly give up.

The amount of paperwork is staggering to say the least.
You must provide both original and translated copies for all the documents required.
Dealing with Polish Government Departments while abroad is a nightmare and should be avoided.
In your case a very good lawyer would come in handy.
It is achievable but you will need to do a lot of research.
Good luck!

Not that easy.

I live in Poland for 7 years, been married to a polish women for that long too. And I can't get a credit at my bank because I don't have a Polish citizenship though it's agaisnt the law obviously. But in their paper, there is no room for my french ID number :-(

It was difficult at the beginning for me to get anything even if I'm a member of the EU. Getting better though.

You most certainly can get a loan from your bank, it's just that you need to be stubborn enough. However, it's easier to just go to another bank (one which does respect EU law).

I could have with the right number. I think it was an employee who didn't want to bother to find the right paper. So commun :-)

When I first arrived in Poland, the first bank I visited refused to open me an account. It was Lukas Bank. Now Credit Agricole. It's so weird as at that time Lukas Bank was already a member of Crédit Agricole. A french bank. ;-)

If I need a credit, I'll think of taking it in another bank. :-)

I want to add that in France it can be the same. Even worse. We left France with my wife because even though she has a better French than plenty of French people, bosses always seemed to find a problem to hire her.

IMHO there is no reason why a EU citizen in Poland with a permanent residence permit should obtain Polish citizenship. The only thing you could do with a Polish passport is . voting for the Sejm and the President. Besides of that? I don't see any obvious benefits.

Anyway out of curiosity a question...suppose you are a EU citizen getting Polish citizenship...You are still young...Could they draft you into the Polish army in times of emergency, being a Polish citizen?

Well here are a few things we could not accomplish without Polish citizenship/ passport.
Buy a house and land of our choice,
Buy a new car,
Buy a subsciption to recieve all the channels we wanted and the satelite reciever.
Get a mortgage.

You can buy a house and land. Only farms/forests are restricted and that restriction is temporary (and not hard to get round).


I did.


I did.


I know at least a dozen people who aren't citizens who have Polish mortgages.

I knew it wouldn't take you long Jon,
Like I have stated previously these have been OUR experiences, quite recently.
The house we now own does have agricultural and forestry land with it. Its why we chose the property, no immediate neighbours!
Mercedes in Katowice would not order my new car without a Polish passport.
Same for the local white goods shop we have spent a good deal of money in, he did offer to put the registration details in our Polish cousins name. He lost the sale of the full house home entertainment system by his condescending attitute.

Out of 14 banks our broker dealt with only 4 were prepared to offer a mortgage to British citizens, none of those without Polish citizenship as well.

I think you were unlucky there. I don't blame you for not buying from that shop. maybe he was holding out for a bribe. I must say I've never had such problems in Warsaw though. Usually I buy from Media Saturn or Euro RTV. I bought a new car (not a Merc though) with no problems from a main dealer.


conflicts a bit with you saying you couldn't:

No contradiction at all. If you read what I wrote NONE of the banks would lend without Polish citizenship.

Plenty of people without citizenship (but with their EU resident's card, several years here and a decent income/deposit) have got mortgages here. Was it during the height of the credit crunch that you applied?

BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Volvo, Chrysler, Jeep, Renault, Honda, Citroen, Jaguar, Saab and Toyota are all very happy, as I know from personal experience, to sell cars to foreigners. In fact they are so happy to sell to foreigners that they'll lend cars to English-language publications in Poland which are aimed at foreigners. So to claim one needs a Polish passport in order to buy a car here is downright bizarre.

Why do you both continually twist what has been written to suit your own agendas?

Jon, as you know we do not live or work in Poland, I have stated this before.
We were advised for tax reasons to get a mortgage, we applied for 250,000PLN. under 15% of the total cost of the property. We exchanged late last year so fairly recent.

Harry, I dont claim anything, what I have stated is a FACT, they (Mercedes Katowice) would not order a new car for me unless I could produce a Polish passport, they were quite happy to put the car in my wifes name. WE told them to get stuffed. This was in December last year.

Who 's twisting. You don't mention in this thread that you don't live or work in Poland.

In which case it makes sense to buy a car where you actually do live and pretty strange of you to imagine that a Polish bank would give you a mortgage here.

Is there more than one Mercedes dealer in Katowice? If so, which one were you at? I'd be happy to give them a call tomorrow (and then call an old contact at MB Poland HQ if needed). That might clear up this case of 'need a Polish passport to do that'.

Merged: Benefits and obligations of acquiring Poland's Citizenship (through mother) by Non-EU national

Dear members,

Thank you for viewing my post.

I recently contacted CK law firm in order to acquire my polish citizenship since my mother is Polish.

My questions are:

What benefits will i get and will i need to start paying taxes?

If i move to Poland, will i be asked to serve the Military service?

Will my children receive the Polish citizenship as well? and will they get benefits?

My mother moved to Lebanon after marrying my Father and cut off her relationship with her family due to conflicts, if i was able to get in contact with her brother/sister, or other relatives, will i be able to redeem her heirs? (if she wasn't renounced of them)