Two Routes, and Only One of Them Has Rules: the Voivode Applies a Test, the President Does Not Have To
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Uruguay on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
127 exceptions recorded across 48 countries · none match Uruguay to Poland · Becoming a citizen
The Ustawa o obywatelstwie polskim gives four ways to become Polish, and two of them matter to someone who moved here. Recognition as a Polish citizen is decided by the voivode on conditions the Act sets out: three years on settled status with a stable income and a legal title to a dwelling; or two years on settled status with three years of marriage to a Pole; or ten years of continuous lawful residence with settled status, income and housing; or one year on permanent residence obtained through Polish origin or a Karta Polaka. Certified Polish at B1 is required for all of them. Conferral by the President is the other route, and article 18 states it in nine words with no conditions at all. The Act then removes it from the ordinary legal system: article 10(1) says neither the Administrative Procedure Code nor the law on proceedings before administrative courts applies to a conferral case. The President may also call any file up to himself at any stage of the proceedings. Dual nationality is not forbidden; article 3 says a Pole who also holds another nationality has the same rights and duties as one who does not, and may not invoke the other nationality against Polish authorities.
At a glance
- Ways of acquiring Polish citizenship
- By operation of law, by conferral, by recognition, by restoration
Article 4 of the Ustawa o obywatelstwie polskim.
- Recognition, ordinary route
- 3 years on settled status, with income and a legal title to a dwelling
Article 30(1)(1).
- Recognition, married to a Pole
- 2 years on settled status, with 3 years of marriage
Article 30(1)(2)(a).
- Recognition, long residence
- 10 years of continuous lawful residence, with settled status, income and housing
Article 30(1)(6).
- Recognition, Polish origin or Karta Polaka
- 1 year on the permanent residence obtained that way
Article 30(1)(7).
- Language
- Certified Polish at B1, or a Polish school certificate
Article 30(2), which exempts only the two categories of minors in article 30(1)(4) and (5). Article 30(2a) excludes a post-secondary school certificate.
- Conferral by the President
- No statutory conditions; the President may confer citizenship on a foreigner
Article 18 states the power in a single sentence and article 25(1) says it is exercised by postanowienie.
- Review of a conferral decision
- Neither the Administrative Procedure Code nor the law on proceedings before administrative courts applies
Article 10(1), subject only to article 28(5) on service and article 53.
- Who decides recognition
- The voivode, on an application made to the voivode
Articles 32(1) and 34. Article 10(4) makes the interior minister the higher authority.
- Dual nationality
- Permitted, but the other nationality cannot be invoked against Polish authorities
Article 3(1) and (2).
- When you become Polish by conferral
- On the day the President issues the postanowienie
Article 26.
Requirements
- For recognition: settled status in Poland, for the period the ground requires
- For recognition: certified Polish at B1, or a Polish school certificate
- For recognition: for most grounds, a stable and regular income and a legal title to a dwelling
- For conferral: an application, and nothing else the Act states
Country-level policy
The Ustawa o cudzoziemcach almost never states an amount. Where it asks for money it asks for a "stable and regular source of income sufficient to cover the costs of maintaining yourself and the dependants in your family", and article 140(2) then fixes what sufficient means: a monthly income higher than the income qualifying for cash benefits under the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej, measured for the applicant and for each dependant. The same test is used for posted workers, for business activity, for family reunification, for the long-term EU resident permit and, in a slightly different form, for students, where housing costs are deducted first. The figure itself lives in article 8(1) of the social assistance Act, and that article prints 461 złoty for a single person and 316 złoty for a person in a family with a footnote attached to each saying that the current amount is announced by the minister responsible for social security. The amount in the statute is therefore not the amount in force, and no instrument read here states the one that is.
Polish law splits a working migrant's case between two authorities and two Acts. Residence is decided by the voivode for the place where the foreigner is staying, by administrative decision, under the Ustawa o cudzoziemcach. The work permit is decided under the Ustawa o warunkach dopuszczalności powierzania pracy cudzoziemcom, also by administrative decision, with the labour minister as the higher authority; the voivode issues the permit for work with a Polish employer, and the starosta deals with seasonal work and may delegate it to the district employment office. Since 1 June 2025 the work side is electronic by law and not by preference: the application and its documents go through the ministry's IT system, an application filed any other way is left unexamined, and an appeal filed any other way is inadmissible. Citizenship splits differently again - recognition goes to the voivode, conferral goes to the President, and the Act takes the conferral route outside the administrative procedure code altogether.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Uruguay
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«Obywatelstwo polskie nabywa się: 1) z mocy prawa; 2) przez nadanie obywatelstwa polskiego; 3) przez uznanie za obywatela polskiego; 4) przez przywrócenie obywatelstwa polskiego.»The four routes, and the second and third are the two a migrant uses.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Prezydent Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej może nadać cudzoziemcowi obywatelstwo polskie.»The whole of the President's power, stated without a single condition.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«W sprawach o nadanie obywatelstwa polskiego i wyrażenie zgody na zrzeczenie się obywatelstwa polskiego nie stosuje się, z zastrzeżeniem art. 28 ust. 5 i art. 53, przepisów Kodeksu postępowania administracyjnego oraz przepisów ustawy z dnia 30 sierpnia 2002 r. – Prawo o postępowaniu przed sądami administracyjnymi»What makes the first route unlike anything else on this site: the Act excludes both the administrative procedure code and the law on administrative court proceedings.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Wojewoda, konsul i minister właściwy do spraw wewnętrznych przekazują wniosek o nadanie obywatelstwa polskiego bezpośrednio Prezydentowi Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w każdym przypadku, gdy Prezydent tak zadecyduje, bez względu na stadium postępowania.»The President may take a file at any point, and the officials have no say in it.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Prezydent Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej nadaje obywatelstwo polskie lub odmawia jego nadania w formie postanowienia.»The form of the act. A postanowienie, not a decyzja, and the Act attaches no reasons requirement to it.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Za obywatela polskiego uznaje się: 1) cudzoziemca przebywającego nieprzerwanie na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej co najmniej od 3 lat na podstawie zezwolenia na pobyt stały, zezwolenia na pobyt rezydenta długoterminowego Unii Europejskiej lub prawa stałego pobytu, który posiada w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej stabilne i regularne źródło dochodu oraz tytuł prawny do zajmowania lokalu mieszkalnego;»Recognition opens with "uznaje się" - the voivode recognises, rather than decides whether to. The three years run on settled status, not on residence generally.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«cudzoziemca przebywającego nieprzerwanie na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej co najmniej od 2 lat na podstawie zezwolenia na pobyt stały, zezwolenia na pobyt rezydenta długoterminowego Unii Europejskiej lub prawa stałego pobytu, który:»Two years, and they run on settled status rather than on residence generally. The point breaks across a page of the consolidation and is quoted here in two parts.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«a) pozostaje co najmniej od 3 lat w związku małżeńskim zawartym z obywatelem polskim lub b) nie posiada żadnego obywatelstwa;»Three years of marriage, or statelessness, on the same footing.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«cudzoziemca przebywającego nieprzerwanie i legalnie na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej co najmniej od 10 lat, który spełnia łącznie następujące warunki: a) posiada zezwolenie na pobyt stały, zezwolenie na pobyt rezydenta długoterminowego Unii Europejskiej lub prawo stałego pobytu, b) posiada w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej stabilne i regularne źródło dochodu oraz tytuł prawny do zajmowania lokalu mieszkalnego;»The ten-year route, which counts lawful residence of any kind and then asks for settled status on top.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«cudzoziemca przebywającego nieprzerwanie na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej co najmniej od roku na podstawie zezwolenia na pobyt stały, które uzyskał w związku z polskim pochodzeniem lub posiadaną Kartą Polaka.»One year, and only for someone whose permanent residence came from descent or a Karta Polaka.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Cudzoziemiec ubiegający się o uznanie za obywatela polskiego, z wyłączeniem cudzoziemca, o którym mowa w ust. 1 pkt 4 i 5, jest obowiązany posiadać znajomość języka polskiego potwierdzoną urzędowym poświadczeniem, o którym mowa w art. 11a ustawy z dnia 7 października 1999 r. o języku polskim (Dz. U. z 2024 r. poz. 1556 oraz z 2025 r. poz. 622), na poziomie biegłości językowej co»The language condition, and it has to be certified: a conversation with an official is not what the Act asks for. The sentence breaks across a page of the consolidation and is quoted here in two parts.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«najmniej B1, świadectwem ukończenia szkoły w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej lub świadectwem ukończenia szkoły za granicą z wykładowym językiem polskim.»The level, and the two alternatives to a certificate: a Polish school certificate, or a foreign school certificate where the language of instruction was Polish.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Cudzoziemcowi odmawia się uznania za obywatela polskiego, w przypadku gdy: 1) nie spełnia wymogów, o których mowa w art. 30; 2) nabycie przez niego obywatelstwa polskiego stanowi zagrożenie dla obronności lub bezpieczeństwa państwa albo ochrony bezpieczeństwa i porządku publicznego.»Two grounds of refusal and no others, which is what makes recognition a test rather than a discretion.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Wniosek o uznanie za obywatela polskiego składa się do wojewody.»Where the recognition application goes, and therefore which route is reviewable.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Obywatel polski posiadający równocześnie obywatelstwo innego państwa ma wobec Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej takie same prawa i obowiązki jak osoba posiadająca wyłącznie obywatelstwo polskie.»Poland does not require renunciation. It requires that the other nationality be invisible to its own authorities, which article 3(2) spells out.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The two routes are not alternatives running in parallel. Article 23 discontinues a pending recognition or restoration case when a conferral application is filed, and article 35(1) discontinues a recognition case when a conferral case is already running.
The exclusion in article 10(1) is expressed as a disapplication of two statutes rather than as a statement that the President's decision is final. This record quotes the disapplication and does not go further than it.
Article 11 lets the voivode and the interior minister omit part of the reasons for a decision under the Act where defence, state security or public order require it.
Nothing here is about citizenship by birth or descent at birth, which is a different question from naturalisation and was not read.
- consolidatesUstawa o obywatelstwie polskim, Chancellery of the Sejm consolidated text
Internetowy System Aktów Prawnych / ELI service, Kancelaria Sejmu · consolidated to 2025-11-27
About this source
The Chancellery of the Sejm's statute collection. The same corpus is served at three addresses and they do not behave alike. isap.sejm.gov.pl is the public web front end; dziennikustaw.gov.pl, run by the Rządowe Centrum Legislacji, serves the Dziennik Ustaw as published; and api.sejm.gov.pl/eli is a machine interface over the same material, giving each act an ELI of the form DU/YYYY/N with its status, its entry into force, its repeal date, the acts that amended it, the consolidated texts announced for it, and the amendments made after each of those. Every act is served in up to four editions: O, the text as published in the Dziennik; T, the announced consolidated text; and U, the Chancellery's own tekst ujednolicony, which carries every amendment and prints on every page the date it was generated and, at its head, the list of Dziennik positions it was built from. The U edition also marks pending amendments in the body: words still in force are in square brackets and the wording that will replace them is in angle brackets, with a marginal note naming the amending Act and its commencement.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **isap.sejm.gov.pl cannot be read by this project at all, and it fails without saying so.** A request for a document page answers HTTP 200 with an Imperva interstitial headed "Pardon Our Interruption"; a request for a PDF answers HTTP 200 with `Content-Type: application/pdf` and an Incapsula JavaScript challenge in the body, so a naive client stores an HTML page under a .pdf name and a PDF tool reports the file as corrupt rather than as blocked. The same documents come back intact from api.sejm.gov.pl, which is why every citation here uses that address. The tekst ujednolicony is the Chancellery's own consolidation and is not an official text; the Dziennik Ustaw as published governs. Its angle-bracket marking cannot be relied on to say what is in force today: the consolidation of the Ustawa o kierujących pojazdami generated on 1 October 2026 still marks a change to article 11(1)(5) as taking effect on 3 September 2026. It may not be cited for the amounts in instruments that delegate them - the Ustawa o pomocy społecznej prints 461 and 316 złoty with a footnote saying the current figures are announced by the minister - nor for anything the Chancellery does not publish: the district lists of occupations closed to work permits are kept in a register under article 31(6) of the 2025 employment Act and are not here, and ministerial announcements under article 9(7) of the social assistance Act are published in Monitor Polski.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source