UK born, want to move to Poland. Rules?

Hi guys. Can any tell me what rules and regulations are in place for me to emigrate to Poland? I am married to polish born guy, we want to buy land, house, and renovate while living in uk then move to Poland. Any advice or info is appreciated 😁

You have to make triple sure that you want to emigrate to Poland for ever. You have to know the pace of life, customs and everything else. If you are british there may be complications after Brexit. Make sure that everything is is both names and that you do not get conned by family members or friends.

Make sure it's not the Polish village, unless you are catholic of course..........otherwise the neighbours and the priest will make your life hell.

How often have you been to Poland? As I always say it can be a great place to live, but only if you can adapt to conditions that are pretty different from what you're used to.

Also, without pretty fluent Polish, life in Poland is not liable to be very interesting or convenient.
Also, region and demographic conditions are important, a small village in the east is liable to not be much fun while not too far from a major city is a better bet.

Does hubby have family in Poland? Who and where?

Having kind of done the same thing and to a village, I can offer some advice but I am a pre-Brexiter as the above say if our shambles of a government doesn't get their act together life will become much harder.

Ok so here is a rundown of all the mistakes I made so you can try to avoid them.

English thinking vs Polish thinking

English

I want to live in the middle of nowhere with a beautiful view far away from a road in a little cottage heated with wood fires ahhhh how romantic.

I will get a Job if the poles can live off 400 pounds a month so can I, We will have a house paid for and so I am sure we can live the simple life it will be nice to not be so consumerist.

I will get a job teaching English I am sure I can earn a decent wage whilst being self-employed and having more free time to relax.

Winter will be pretty Snow on the ground white Christmases sledding and horse riding in the snow.

Polish

You must be by the main road because in the winter how will you drive the 2 km of dirt track to your house. Beautiful view ha! but what about connections to electricity water and gas, I know the person who sold you the land said the would all be connected next year but I am sure he is lying. Wood heating are you crazy?!!! do you know how long it takes to chop stack and dry your wood, plus when you go out for the day, the fire will go out and all your pipes freeze, what will you do then you English idiot.

400 pounds a month, good luck with that English man, do you know how Kurva expensive Biedronka is??? One week's shop is gonna come to at least 80 pounds

Of course, you can teach English but remember that as you will be self-employed we will take 200 of your 400 pounds a month salary for Zus (National insurance) whether you earn money or not, because that is the law so just deal with it. Alternatively, work all the hour's god sends to enable you to live and work legally, or join the majority of Natives on the black market, but remember next time you have an argument with your neighbor he will report you to the tax office.

That white **** will ruin your life! Wake up every morning to shovel the f driveway and the path outside your house because if someone slips on the pavement outside your house even though you live on a forest road in the middle of nowhere, they will take you to court for not getting up at 6 instead of 7 and cleaning it so they could walk past your house in the middle of nowhere just for fun. O and forget driving home from December to Feb that's just not going to happen its a free gym everytime you come back from work hauling the 2 kgs of potatoes on your back through the forest.

Ok Rant over

A lot of that is tongue in cheek but there are definitely some things to watch out for. Be more specific and I would love to help you out

After the comedy version maybe now some practical advice.

So buying land as a foreigner you can buy up to a certain amount of building land (that is, land designated for construction) without any special conditions. I can't remember exactly the size but I do remember you would need to be building a massive hotel for it to apply.

No foreigner can buy "farming land" even if you are a pole you need to have finished farming school or be a priest so you want to be looking for land which is called "działka budowlana"

The next step will be doing admin like insurances buying a car getting electric etc things and for this, you will need a PESEL

Currently, the process is but again this is dependant on Brexit

To get a PESEL you will need to do the following

1. Apply for a residence card at the regional office of the place where you want to live not the town hall the regional office mine was Gdansk. For this, you will need to bring your Passport a marriage certificate if it is a Polish one it has to be dated within 3 months I think the same for an English one so you will need to get a copy and then you will need to have this translated by a recognized polish translator with a stamp. then after a month or so you will receive your residence card.

2. You will need to register where you live if it is your home this will be fairly easy if it is not you will need a legal rental agreement and the permission of your landlord most landlords will not allow you to do this so you need to check before you rent a place whether or not this will be ok. They don't like it as it makes it much harder to kick you out if you don't pay rent

3. After that, you will have a 5-year permit which after this period you can transfer to a permanent one again this may all change.

The Pesel is the key to being a citizen here so once you have this the rest is easier.

You will need to learn Polish trust me life here is almost impossible without the language.

Again give me specific and I will try to help you out more

Sometimes it is far better to buy a house or a flat already built. At least then you know exactly how much it will cost you. When building a place yourself you will pay 2 times more than originally anticipated and lose your mind with the stress of builders, plumbers, joiners and the paperwork for permission, building inspections and agreements. It is extremely stressful.

Almost half the active members on here are Brits who moved to Poland. They know quite a bit about this move.

As a PolAm (Polish born and raised, living in US) I can tell you a few things are key:

1) learn as much Polish as possible. While many youth speak English, most signs, government offices, various institutions only use Polish. In the cities English is fairly common amongst younger people, the Poles who lived abroad and moved back, etc. but nonetheless Polish still is the dominant spoken language by far. If you live in a more rural area there will be very few English speakers.

2) Be very careful when purchasing property in Poland and deal only with reputable agencies. Many foreigners get preyed upon in business and property transactions because they're ignorant of the regulations. Also, there's a new law that prevents foreigners from buying farm land.

3) If you need to get a job start looking early. Don't plan on getting by teaching English. Even though it's probably the easiest job to get, the pay is awful. The average wages in the cities are around 4,000 zloty a month (around $1,100), teachers tend to earn below that. There's a few international recruiting companies that can help you. If you an IT pro, you'll find a good job quickly. I'd recommend using a renowned international recruiting company and targeting multinational and transnational firms directly.

If you're planning on retirement, make some investments to get cash flow going. I would NOT recommend opening up a small business in Poland for a foreigner if they're putting up their own capital. You can try something small out like a service based business that doesn't require a lot of start-up capital, but still I'd shy away from it. Better to invest elsewhere. The Polish stock market is quite volatile too and has a limited amount of companies listed I believe only around 500. Better to buy on US or British exchanges imo.

4) Real estate is FAR FAR cheaper in Poland than in UK - especially compared to London. For example, there's several brand new town homes on the Wroclaw outskirts about 10 minutes drive from the city center that are start at 400k zloty - about $110k+.

Honestly I would recommend renting before you buy though to make sure you like living in Poland. You can get a nice place in a city for around 3.5k zloty.

5) Take care of all the legalities i.e. PESEL, car registration, etc.

Cough cough. Again, have to take issue with you there Dirk. A lot of housing in Polish cities is suddenly inflated beyond rhyme and reason. I'm moving back to England and there is a lot of stock in the scenic area I am looking at around the Uk equivalent of zl 700k. Here in Gdynia you get a gated new build (M3) flat in a condo for that money, and you can hear the old biddy next door going to the toilet, the walls are so thin.

And the view is of.....another condo. A prison.
Horses for courses and all that...

Compared to uk cities especislly london, poland is still far cheaper but yes it is getting more expensive due to increased wages locally, Poles bringing their fortunes from abroad including uk amd rising population of ukranians, Indians and increasingly western expats and retirees. A simple row house can easily cost 500k pounds plus in middle/upper middle class area of london, and with a place like kensington even a 2 bedroom goes for 1 mil and up. For those kinds of prices you could build yourself a small palace from scratch or buy a big 3 bedroom in a nice building.

In skytower in wroclaw a nice spacious condo cost a bit over 1 min zloty which is grossly overpriced all things considered and they sell slowly, but a similar unit in say london you'd pay double, triple even 5x, 10x as much if you're looking at certain areas like kensington. Even in Newcastle it's not that easy to find a spacious 2 3 bedroom for 250 300k pounds unless you go to a ****** area.

Besides, the op shouldn't buy a property until she and her husband know they want to stay for sure, whether in poland or any other country.

I recently looked at a one bedroom flat, new construction in centrum of Gdansk. After all the "additions", and completion costs it would have been more than a one bedroom flat in Manhattan. I literally laughed in the developers face before walking out.

As an American living in Poland, I can say I was grossly under prepared for the communication issues. Not only did I not know enough of the language, but communication styles are very different.

That said, once settled in and figuring things out, if you understand and are accustomed to the Polish way of life, traditions, and other unique qualities, it is a great place to live and work.

Sorry, I need to point out some mistakes here;

The law doesn't restrict EU citizens from buying farmland. What matters is that they have the right education, which isn't only farming. For instance, you can be a graduate of horticulture, and it's classed as a "qualified" person.

The law on the PESEL changed as of the 1st January 2018, and now you simply have to go and register your address at the town hall, and the PESEL will be issued at the same time. It's no longer required to obtain valid residency documents to get it. This change is due to the tax situation, as the PESEL is mandatory for submitting a tax return.

You don't need the permission of your landlord. It's enough to have a rental agreement to register these days. There's no difference in law if someone is registered there or not, so nothing to worry about. If someone doesn't have a valid contract with the landlord, they can simply apply to the Interior Ministry and get them removed. However, there are other issues relating to kicking someone out, but that doesn't apply here.


Yes, and the blue chip stocks are really subject to government interference. Most of the WIG20 is controlled either directly or indirectly by the government, so it's not a good idea unless you've got your eye on a particular Polish stock. I'd especially steer clear of any investments in energy companies, because the government has a timebomb looming with electricity prices. All Polish governments are guilty of it, so it's not like things will be better if the government changes.

If you have an appetite for risk, are a day trader or have a diversified portfolio where the wig stocks are the risky portion, then the wig 20 is okay. Still though, there's much better stocks to invest in outside of poland. The lon is only an hour behind too so you won't miss out on news if you're day trading.

Re farmland purchases I read that religious organizations are mostly exempt from the new laws.

Religious organizations for the purposes of tax are counted as 'charities' and do not pay tax on anything.
Dreams of owning a country estate in the wilderness, near a forest are o.k. but you have to adjust to the Polish way of life. Not many can do this.

Yes that's pretty much true in all developdd countries (except israel) but what I'm getting at is that religious institutions can purchase farmland without the requirements of residing in the area for 5 years and being a farmer by trade/education. So theoretically couldn't a person form a church and buy farmland if they don't meet the other requirements, especially if theyre looking to mostly purchase a farm for personal and not commercial reasons?

If the op moves to a rural area especially in the east I have a feeling she'll get sick of poland quickly and want to move back to uk. It'll be hard to communicate with anyone without knowing polish. Forget about finding recreation let alone a good job.

Imo the suburbs and villages on the outskirts of larger cities have the best of both worlds. You have the privacy and open land but are still connected to the infrastructure and are close close to the city for things like work, shopping, nightlife, etc.

One of our polish workers, a hardcore goral through and through, has a place in karkonosze. I stayed there for a week during the winter and was bored out of my mind. A foot of snow fell and everything slowed to a crawl. I couldn't even leave there till it melted and theres of course no plows. Eventually I just said screw it and started hiking to the closest town which was almost a whole day of walking.

I don't know why you're complaining :-) Digging yourself out of the snow as well as walking for a day saved you loads on gym membership.

The hike was the most interesting part actually. There's a hill close by that has a strange effect where if you put a bottle on it it rolls upward instead of downward, but unfortunately I couldn't test it for myself as there was too much snow.

What I'm saying is that while the idea of living in a remote area certainly sounds romantic there's a lot of things people don't consider until they're in that situation and then it's too late. Like let's say I had to drive somewhere or catch a plane or whatever. Well good luck with that unless you're going to walk because there's no snow plows. If someone is retired, doesnt have kids, etc and can spend their days tending their land and knows how to live off the resources around them then it's doable. But otherwise I don't think so. Then you'll be cursing backward ass poland and hopping on the next plane back to Heathrow.

All I'm saying is the decision to live in a rural/remote area should be carefully considered especially in a foreign country. If someone wants to live in a place where they have the privacy, nature, small town feel the suburbs and villages even as little as 5 10 minutes from the city borderline is a good middle ground because you atleast have the infrastructure. For example from wroclaw city center or rynek within a 10 15 km drive you're already hitting rural villages. You can even catch a train or bus going from most of these villages to wroclaw like zajaczkow, szewce, etc. Where the population is a few hundred to a thousand.