US citizen looking to live in Poland for 6+ months like a long-term tourist

I just got back from a trip to Germany (mainly around Berlin) and Poland (Gdansk area). In 3 years when my youngest child starts college, my wife and I have been considering selling our house here and living in either Poland or the Czech Republic for 6 months or so.

My work allows me to be remote, so I do not need a job there. I just need to be able to be in the country for 6 months, get health insurance, rent a place to live, and probably lease a car while we are there. I would think this would be a positive for another country as I would not be taking up a job and spending my money there .. like a long term tourist.

With those parameters, would I need a work permit as I would be working for a US company still?

We really enjoy Eastern Europe and would like the opportunity to immerse ourselves there for some time.

Thanks

you don't need work permit; mind though your visa would be for 90 days assuming you're US citizen and it wouldn't be easy without local job to extend it ( I think)

I should have been more clear, I am a US citizen. I am glad I would not need a work permit, but I would probably like to stay longer than 90 days. I guess I can look to extend it. Our purpose of temporarily moving there is to really immerse ourselves in the culture, study the history of the area, and pick up the language. I do not think 90 days is long enough to do that considering I would still be working 8 to 10 hours a day during the week.

Does that mean you would work in Poland, but with a foreign contract for a company not registered in Poland? So officially you would only be residing here and not working?

In this case, as another poster pointed out, it will be impossible to live here for six months.

you are only allowed to stay for 90 out of 180 days in any Schengen country; I heard you could extend your stay but for few days, maybe weeks; better search "extending Schengen visa"...you may overstay with not much problems yet once you leave you'd be banned from Schengen for long time. Your best option would be to get some volunteering or perhaps job or any other papperwork proving you'd have reason to stay for longer then tourist permit. It can be done yet better for you would be to have it all settled before the trip. Once you land here on tourist visa it might get difficult to change your status.

Yes, I have a job in the US with a US company, however my job allows me to work remotely ... I actually go into the office at most 6 times a year and can cut that down to twice a year if I want to.

So, it does not matter if I am working from my house in Texas,an apartment in Poland, or a base on the Moon. The only reason I am not doing this now is my youngest child is still in High School

To get around the 6 months, I suppose we could stay 3 months .. return home or go to some other non-EU country for some period of time, then come back again for another 3 months. Obviously that adds an additional expense of more plane tickets.

Not impossible. But it will certainly be difficult, time consuming and a major pain in the arse to get all the paperwork sorted out.


If that is all you want to do, just have lots of Polish lessons in the US. Seriously, moving to Poland is not easy, going through all that hassle for just six months would be bordering on insane.

That is a good idea, even though I work in the computer field, I do have a degree in European History ... if both my wife and I got jobs/volunteered to do English tours at a museum or something like that, are you saying that would increase our chances of staying longer?


My thought was to just bring ourselves and some clothes, laptops over there and leave our stuff in the US in storage and rent a furnished apartment there. The language part is moreso to make life there easier ... it is mainly the culture and being in Europe for a long period of time that holds the most appeal.

We have been saying we would be selling our house around this time, so it seems like the best time to do it as we would not have many ties here, I have somewhat done this before, only it was moving to a different state in the US and living in an apartment for some period of time before settling in.

Yes, but being in Europe requires getting a certain amount of paperwork sorted out. Trust me, it's not worth the hassle for an extra 90 days.


Not in the slightest: you'd still need to get residency permits and would still face the problem of convincing the local foreigners office that you can support yourselves in Poland. And that's even assuming that "a museum or something like that" would be in the slightest bit interested in working with you full time (I somehow doubt they would).

Yes, I suppose a museum would have no interest in someone working for free with a degree in their subject matters giving English tours ... and as mentioned, I have a job in the US that I can work at in Poland that is sufficient to pay for a family to live pretty nicely in the US ... supporting myself is no problem and I can provide tons of documentation that it is not.

Poland National D-type visa from: msz.gov.pl/en/travel_to_poland/visa/

If you intend to stay in the territory of Poland for a total of more than 90 days (at least 91 days) during one or more visits within a half-year period calculated from the date of first entry, you need to apply for a national D-type visa.

The national D-type visa entitles the holder to:
- stay in the territory of Poland throughout the period of its validity;
- additionally move within the territory of other Schengen states for up to three months within a half-year period.

What documents do you need when submitting a D-type national visa application?

1. Travel document:
2. Completed and signed visa application form.
3. Biometric photo.
4. Visa fee.
5. Health insurance.
6. Supplementary documents confirming:
- the purpose of the visit,
- possession of sufficient funds to cover the cost of entry, stay and departure from theterritory of Poland;
- the necessity of staying in the territory of Poland for more than 90 days within a half-year period.

The types and number of supplementary documents may differ depending on the consular office. In this connection we advise you to contact the relevant consulate to obtain full information concerning the documents needed when submitting a visa application.

Thank you, I appreciate the help

You can't apply for a D-visa from outside Poland if you're eligible to enter on a tourist 90 day visa waiver.

I have a few American friends that live in Lublin in the south east which is an hour or so drive from the Ukranian border. They basically just cross the border every 90 days and then come back and that does the trick. Quite an easy solution as no flying or high priced tickets involved.

^ No it doesn't do the trick. Since Poland joined the Schengen zone border runs for 90 day stamps have been utterly pointless at best.

Harry, can you explain this one? Does it have to do something with that D-visa
By the way (but I am wandering off)..do you also have as me a permanent residence permit (I think it is only issued to EU citizens), and the flimsy salmon-pink piece of paper that goes with it?

Almost certainly they wouldn't. There isn't the same sort of tradition of 'working for free' that you get in English-speaking countries and remember - if they actually agreed, you may well be taking work from someone in a country with high unemployment and not much welfare. Community spirited?

It is true that voluntary work is still not popular in Poland. In Flanders civic society is built on the work of 10 of 1000's volunteers. I have been active in volunteer work all my life.

Although it is gaining ground in Poland as well.


I am asking this, because I recently was at Długa 5 (hadn't been there for ages, the EU section completely deserted, you might have thought all EU citizens have left Warsaw :) )

Anyway, one of the staff there told that there was a plan to replace that piece of paper with a proper plastic one, not unlike a Polish ID.

That would be a great improvement.

It is. Apparently it has the lowest levels in the EU - I think it's almost unheard of once people finish studying. There are some cases, such as people volunteering at festivals - but nothing like in Western Europe.

Although for example the Palace in Wilanów, £azienki and Muzeum Narodowe actively recruit volunteers, and also do mention this on their websites.

that's actually not a bad thing IMHO. you'll find there's this trend in most western countries where they use the terms "volunteering" and "internship" broadly as some sort of modern day slavery. I'm happy to see that volunteer work in Poland is (still) true to its meaning.

I meant that it is possible to get a residency permit here without being an EU citizen and without working or studying: I know people who have done it. The problem is that the whole thing is a very severe pain in the arse.


They would have zero interest in you working for them full-time as a non-EU citizen. The days of 'Hi, I'm a native speaker of English; give me your finest job' finished in the mid 1990s. There's no shortage of EU citizens who have history degrees and speak fluent English.


I was there last month to collect my 'confirmation of right to reside' (because clearly an EU passport isn't enough to prove one has the right to reside in Poland) and asked about photo ID: they said nothing is available and that nothing will be being made available any time soon.

To give the OP some idea about the amount of red tape in Poland (as he clearly has no idea): my car registration recent expired (Poles can register their cars for an unlimited time, foreigners cannot). I own my car, I own my flat, I live entirely within Polish law and I pay lots of tax in Poland. In order to do something as simple as updating my car registration (no details at all had changed), I have so far needed to visit six separate places (a total of seven times, as one place required two visits and in another office the clerk point blank refused to do what the poster on the wall in his office said he would do) to get various bits of paper stamped and have waited six weeks so far; I still need to make one more visit to the car registration office in two weeks' time to collect another stamp. Oh, and the police came to visit me twice to check I live where I live (I wasn't home either time so on the second visit they went downstairs and spoke to the nice old lady who lives below me and asked if she could confirm that I live in the flat which I own and where I am registered as living). You might want to note that the process was simpler and faster because I'm an EU citizen.

Harry honest question, have you thought about getting dual citizenship? EU expat here, seriously considering it.

Not going down that route unless I absolutely have to (it might well affect at least one of my other citizenships).

A huge improvement, but I think the problem is that Poland has taken the law too literally in this sense - they aren't allowed to discriminate against EU citizens, so the cheapest way to do it is to give a crappy piece of paper. Given that ID cards are now free for Polish citizens, they could really give us the same...


The one issue with dual citizenship is that you no longer have consular protection from the Polish authorities...

(having said that, those of us with British passports know that the protection is worthless anyway as they'd rather just hide in their 40 million pound bunker...)

On my karta pobytu (which strictly speaking isn't one, because it is nowhere written on it) is clearly mentioned: "Dokument potwierdzający prawo stałego pobytu"

I have never heard about the document you needed.
Apparently not too many people have this document, but quite a few times people (bank, police, post office) looked at it very suspiciously. Last time in my local Citibank branch, I was asked if it was a photocopy....

That's the document now given to EU citizens for the first five years before applying for permanent residency.

Another piece of paper, except this one comes in different colours according to where you reside and is completely useless as it doesn't mention your PESEL on it.

you're quoting the wrong person, Harry said that not me. hehe


correct. and Poland is not the only EU country requiring it.

Maybe the mod can move the discussion about karta pobytu to a separate thread, such as not confuse with the OP's posting?

It's the zaświadczenie o zarejestrowaniu obywatela unii europejskiej and it's pretty much a joke: no photo, no PESEL number, no address, not even a passport number. Pinted on a bit of A5 sized paper, no watermarks or holograms or security features at all

I cannot wait to try and use it as ID.


So why are EU citizens forced to pay to have their cars re-registered when Poles do not?