I bet that many of you forgot to register in the Poland's municipality office

I bet that many of you forgot to register in the municipality office :)

So what is this "zameldowanie for foreigners" all about? And what happens when you forget about it?

I wrote a detailed instruction for expats from Kraków, but most of the article should be helpful to any foreign resident in Poland. Check it out here:

just ask poland/zameldowanie-for-foreigners

I am British, (British residency)but go frequently to Poland on holidays,(anything from 20-36 days at a time) and I stay/reside in my own flat. Do I need to have 'zameldowanie'? Will 'zameldowanie' help after Brexit?

But, Terri you're Polish aren't you? I always thought you were. Poland will always consider you a Polish citizen regardless of your British residency/citizenship. Why would you have to register as a foreigner??

If only things were that simple. Simply put:
I do not have a Polish dowod osobisty, PESEL or passport. I was born in Krakow but have lived in England since 1969.
In 2003 I had 2 processes/cases go through the Country Court in Krakow (Sad Regionowy) and we were preparing for further processes. I then had to find my ex-husband (divorced in 1985 from him) to ask him if he would be willing to sign some papers. Poland joined the EU so I left everything. Recently I went back to Urzad and was told that I have to apply for 'confirmation of my (Polish) nationality'. I am currently gathering all supporting evidence.I am doing it all this year before Brexit becomes final.

So life isn't as simple as one might think.

Sorry to hear about your difficulties Terri.

I registered long ago, recently in my expat FB group I saw another Brit who's been living here for 20 years insist on not registering because he and I quote: "doesn't have to".

No matter how many Poles told him it's written in the law and even born citizens have to register he was adamant that because he hadn't needed to go to the Urząd in the past 20 years, he sure as hell wasn't going to do it now. I really hate the ignorance of my countrymen sometimes. My own included.

Meanwhile Terri here is in straits.

I saw that too. Quite funny actually, especially as there's a high chance that the Schengen countries will announce that legal residency without formality post-Brexit will only be given to those already registered as of the date of the announcement.

Still, if he's lived here for 20 years, I wonder how he avoided registering pre-2004.


Terri, just a thought - have you tried applying for a dowód? You've got the address to register yourself to, you've got an entry in the Polish USC, it might just be as simple as that.

terri,

Thank you for sharing your ordeal. Technically, you must petition for a decision on "confirmation of Polish citizenship or it loss". Despite the fact that you were born in Poland, and Poland must have a record of this, your case has gone on for 14 years now. Some on this forum choose not to believe that this is possible, but the Polish bureaucracy is something to behold. The process is far easier for those returning from the East, than for Polonia in the West. That process reflects a desire for the cheap labor of the East, and a disdain for Polonia in the West returning. Otherwise, it would have been changed.

That simply isn't true, and I'm not sure why you keep pushing this myth.

I lived several years in Poland before registering (things were different in the early 90s a lot of laws were in a weird limbo where no one knew whether to apply/follow them or not).

I finally did only because I had to in order to get a visa. They yelled at me at the office (a different one back then) but didn't do anything else...

I've got to say that that particular claim doesn't pass the sniff test: a valid maldunek was (and still is) a pre-requisite for an application for residency.

The only thing I can think of was that he was doing border runs for years, but all that to avoid a little bit of bureaucracy?

If he lived close to a border (especially German, Czech or Slovak) then it might have been completely normal and easy. Did he say where he lived?

Kraków, at least now, so at least a tedious 2-3 hour journey each way to Łysa Polana.

But now, at least for EU citizens, the process is so simple and straightforward that there's no reason not to do it.