Moving to Poland from UK

Hi,

We are moving from UK to Poland as a family my wife is Polish (I'm Irish) and my son speaks more Polish than English 😀.

One question we have is around the physical moving of possessions. I understand the theory but I'm interested in the practice.

So as I understand it if you are moving permanent residence you can effectively import things tax free, you just need a content list and there are certain provisos about some things.

The catch here is I assume you can only do this once. We may want to store something in the UK and move at a later date etc.

My question is how does this work in reality the only physical customs border is at Calais or wherever there are no border checks in Poland so what's to stop you sending multiple small vans across for example.

Second question another joy of Brexit is suddenly house plants are a biohazard so unless you have a phytosanitary cert (unlikely for many house plants) you can't bring them.

But surely customs don't inspect every van that goes through. So what's the reality here, has anyone moved their contraband Geraniums and got away with it?

Love to hear your thoughts....

Move is happening so I'm sure there will be more posts.

When you import stuff from outside of Schengen then there is a excise duty from customs dept(Uzad Celny).
There is a provision that if you are moving to Poland permanently its called Transfer of residence( I dont know whats it called in Polish).The catch is everything that you own like car, household stuff like washer dryer refrigerator etc has to be owned by you for 2 years atleast or they will hit you with customs duty.Usually Custom officers can judge how old the stuff is,you cant cheat on car as it has proven paperwork.They let you slide on other things provided you dont over do it.

Since you want to do it twice,you can once do it on your wifes name and other time on your name when you have a resident permit.I know a couple who did like that from States last year.I hope you understand that you need knowledge of Polish B! level to get permanent resident card even though you are married to a Polish citizen or have to renew your resident card every cpl or 3 years.

You can also move stuff temporarily for 2 years as some of my friends posted in the embassy bring there cars,excercise equipment etc,but it has to be exported out of the country after 2 years until you ask for a written permission for another 2 years.I do that with my cars like that to avoid duty and drive with US number plates.

The OP is not British - he just lives there. He's Irish so he can live in Poland without the language requirement as he's an EU citizen. As an EU citizen he automatically gets permanent residence after five years.

@Charliesy, what part of Poland are you moving to? Do you have a job lined up? Best of luck with everything.


You'll have to learn to call them Pelargonia from now on :)

Hmmm....... Why?

Because in Ireland and the UK people incorrectly refer to pelargonia as geraniums. The geraniums the OP is referring to are actually the pelargonia that you see in window boxes and flowerbeds.

"The naming problem occurred in the 17th century when the first pelargoniums were brought to Europe and were called geraniums, due to their similarity to the perennial plant, and so the name geranium has been used ever since!"

Hmmm. Why do we assume that his geraniums are pelargonias and not geraniums??? In my family house parents never kept pelargonias but geraniums for their pleasant scent. .

Geraniums in the UK do not smell pleasant, they stink. I made this mistake when I gave one to a Polish friend. She was thinking of the lemon scented Pelargonium Citronella which has a lovely lemony smell. What Poles think of as geraniums are not the same variety we have here in the UK.

They don't really smell of anything much. They just smell sort of organic. They're certainly not something you buy for their scent though. They're usually planted just for their colourful display and because they're very hardy. They don't need much care and the flowers last right through into the late autumn in the British Isles.


Because he's Irish and if an Irishman talks about geraniums he means pelargonia :)

I like the lemon scented ones.

In France, they use them when cooking (I think) gooseberries. There's a chemical reaction between things in each which create a specific flavour.

I see the matter is far more complex and even complicated than I thought before. I`d better give up now to avoid a headache.


That`s Orwellian double thinking. :):):)

Don't give up. Have pride. You are a Slav - ingenious, imaginative, and passionate. If these people can understand Geraniums, so can you!

I am such but not because I am of Slavic origin - it is because of my pawianism. However, even the latter has its limits. Geraniums, let alone pelargonias, don`t excite me at all. I prefer growing potatoes and other stuff. Right now I am observing how leek and broccoli seedlings go up on the window sill.

Oh, but Pawian... geraniums are amongst the most beautiful of all! Is this because your are lazy, or you are unwilling to advance in the horticultural skills through some other impediment?

Geraniums, guess where?

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I think both of you have gone way off topic.....

Hey, it is my job to provide riddles to members!!!

Of course it is the Countess`s Castle in Kielce where her unfaithful husband was locked up in the tower for his betrayals and eventually was devoured by mice.

Is it Paulina's castle?

No. Why should it be???

Kraków. Wawel Royal Castle.

PS:Cheated answer.

Because all queens have a castle. :-)

@Cargo pants
Thanks useful info, yes I did thing about shipping once in my wife's name and once in mine... slightly different surnames probably helpful 😀

I'm Irish as Atch points out so no tests for me ha, I speak some polish my stumbling point is grammar mostly and laziness!

@Atch
Thanks Moving to Wrocław, my wife's family are based around there and we have been back and forth for the past 10yrs so know it fairly well. It's also got quite a few international schools which might help with our son learning English... I know it sounds odd but I am effort to bring him up Bi Lingual we nailed the polish side but not the English side ha.

No job in Poland probably going to commute to London, 3 days there 4 in Poland sort of thing appreciate technically I can't work 2 days out of 5 remote but that's a tbc. Probably a topic for another thread, or a bump for some of the others on the same topic.

The Geranium thing seems to have grown into a thread of its own 😀 I guess that's appropriate as they tend grow like crazy also 😂

@Atch
Completely fair 😂 I know a wee bit about mushrooms... flowers and plants not so much... leave that to the wife. But now I know a little more about Pelargonias so thank you all.

Well, I'm Irish myself so when I came to Poland I had to suffer the trauma of discovering that my granny's beloved geraniums were in fact 'pelargonia' :)


Do you not speak English with him yourself? No kid of an Irishman should need an international school to teach him English - you'll have to go back home for a week and dangle him over the Blarney Stone.

And what about the Cúpla Focail?? And him not knowing no focail at all :)

youtube.com/watch?v=XoDDfPuAB0Y

I grow different stuff - beautiful but practical. Pelargonias are completely useless.

https://polishforums.com/life/poland-climate-gardening-84849/3/#msg1865275


Ooosp. I thought it was Bishop`s Palace in Jasna Góra.

The flowers are I think edible and the leaves can be used in a few traditional recipes.


Cheap as chips if you're sure of dates and can buy well in advance.

The only flowers I eat come on patison squash.

Patisony. I like those pickled. Nice and crunchy. I think they're called pattypan squash though I'd never seen them before moving to Poland.

@Atch
We tried to keep to Polish in the house so he picked it up but it worked too well 😀. Yeah introducing English now... he has already picked up a few of the Anglo Saxon words from me ha... luckily his pronunciation is poor!

As for dangling him over he Blarney Stone certainly times I feel like dangling over a castle wall haha... he is a wee Divil as we say... but he does it all with a smile on his face so fair enough I reckon 😂.

Moving on from pot plants...

We are now at the stage of organizing a removal company. The polish company we are working with seem to want every document under the sun -although they seem to have relented on the one that says we are alive - I think they are just parroting everything that's possible to be submitted. This for vat free import of house contents.

The main stumbling block is a residence permit, we will be moving under my wife's name, she is a polish citizen with a pesel number etc.

My understanding is you simply need to prove you have made arrangements to live in the country, so a rental agreement, internet bill etc or a residence permit.

They are saying no you need to be in the country and get the residence agreement first and if it's delayed we can always store your stuff (for a price I guess 😀).

It seems like you ask three removal companies and you get three different answers! So any insight anyone has here would be welcome. I do understand the need to register after 3 months in the country but this different.