NextSpring

Marrying a Pole Asks for No Money and No Waiting; Joining a Foreigner Asks for Two Years of Their Residence First

Answer

The general rule applies to you

No exception is recorded for citizens of Grenada 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 Grenada to Poland · Residency through marriage

Polish law splits family migration in two, and the halves are not alike. Article 158 of the Ustawa o cudzoziemcach grants a temporary permit to the spouse of a Polish citizen in a marriage recognised by Polish law, and attaches no income condition, no accommodation condition and no waiting period. Article 159, for joining a foreigner, attaches all three: the sponsor must hold permanent residence, long-term EU resident status, refugee or subsidiary protection status, one of several named permits, or two years of successive temporary permits with the current one issued for at least a year, and the applicant must show health cover, a stable and regular income and somewhere to live. Permanent residence for the spouse of a Polish citizen comes at three years of marriage plus two years of continuous residence on the marriage permit; citizenship by recognition comes two years after that permanent residence, with three years of marriage behind it.

Verified with official sourceMonitor - can change2026-10-10

At a glance

Spouse of a Polish citizen, income condition
None in article 158 of the Ustawa o cudzoziemcach, which states only the marriage

Compare article 159(1)(2)(b), which does impose one for joining a foreigner.

Spouse of a Polish citizen, waiting period
None in article 158
Joining a foreign sponsor
The sponsor needs settled status, or 2 years of successive temporary permits with the current one for at least a year

Article 159(1)(1)(e) of the Ustawa o cudzoziemcach.

Joining a foreign sponsor, money
A stable and regular income sufficient for you and your dependants

Article 159(1)(2)(b), measured by the article 140(2) test against the social assistance threshold.

Permanent residence through marriage
3 years married and 2 years continuously resident on the marriage permit

Article 195(1)(4) of the Ustawa o cudzoziemcach, which counts the two years immediately before the application.

Citizenship through marriage
2 years on settled status, with 3 years of marriage behind it

Article 30(1)(2)(a) of the Ustawa o obywatelstwie polskim, plus certified Polish at B1 under article 30(2).

If the marriage ends
A further permit on divorce, separation or widowhood, granted once for up to 3 years

Article 158(2) and (3). Divorce or separation needs an important interest of the foreigner; widowhood does not.

EU or EEA spouse of a Polish citizen
Permanent residence after 3 years rather than 5

Article 43a of the Act of 14 July 2006, which also covers a non-EU family member of a Polish citizen.

Requirements

  • For the spouse of a Polish citizen: a marriage recognised by Polish law, and nothing further in article 158
  • For joining a foreigner: a sponsor in one of the categories article 159(1)(1) lists, or two years of successive temporary permits
  • For joining a foreigner: health cover, a stable and regular income for you and your dependants, and somewhere to live
  • For permanent residence: three years married and two years continuously resident on the marriage permit

Country-level policy

Almost Every Money Test in Polish Immigration Law Points at One Figure, and the Act That Holds It Prints an Out-of-Date Number

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.

One Voivode Decides Your Residence, a Different Office Decides Your Work, and Since 2025 the Work File Has to Be Electronic

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 Grenada

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

Text layer - verbatim verifiedUstawa z dnia 12 grudnia 2013 r. o cudzoziemcach, consolidated text · Article 158(1) · consolidated to 2026-04-07
«Zezwolenia na pobyt czasowy dla członka rodziny obywatela Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej udziela się cudzoziemcowi, gdy: 1) pozostaje w uznawanym przez prawo Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej związku małżeńskim z obywatelem Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej albo 2) jest małoletnim dzieckiem cudzoziemca pozostającego w uznawanym przez prawo Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej związku małżeńskim z obywatelem Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej i posiadającego zezwolenie na pobyt czasowy dla członka rodziny obywatela Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej lub zezwolenie na pobyt stały udzielone w związku z pozostawaniem w związku małżeńskim z obywatelem polskim.»

The whole ground. There is no third paragraph adding money or housing, which is the point of comparison with article 159.

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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

Text layer - verbatim verifiedUstawa z dnia 12 grudnia 2013 r. o cudzoziemcach, consolidated text · Article 159(1)(1)(e) · consolidated to 2026-04-07
«co najmniej przez okres 2 lat na podstawie kolejnych zezwoleń na pobyt czasowy, w tym bezpośrednio przed złożeniem wniosku o udzielenie mu zezwolenia na pobyt czasowy dla członka rodziny – na podstawie zezwolenia udzielonego mu na okres pobytu nie krótszy niż 1 rok,»

The two-year rule, and the second half of it is a trap: the current permit must itself have been issued for a year or more.

Read it at the source
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

Text layer - verbatim verifiedUstawa z dnia 12 grudnia 2013 r. o cudzoziemcach, consolidated text · Article 195(1)(4), first part · consolidated to 2026-04-07
«pozostaje w uznawanym przez prawo Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej związku małżeńskim z obywatelem polskim i pozostawał w tym związku małżeńskim przez co najmniej 3 lata przed dniem, w którym złożył wniosek o udzielenie mu zezwolenia na pobyt stały, i bezpośrednio przed złożeniem tego wniosku przebywał nieprzerwanie na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej przez okres nie krótszy niż 2 lata na podstawie zezwolenia na pobyt czasowy udzielonego»

Two clocks running at once, and only one of them is the marriage. The provision breaks across a page of the consolidation and is quoted here in two parts.

Read it at the source
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

Text layer - verbatim verifiedUstawa z dnia 12 grudnia 2013 r. o cudzoziemcach, consolidated text · Article 195(1)(4), continued · consolidated to 2026-04-07
«w związku z pozostawaniem w związku małżeńskim z tym obywatelem polskim lub w związku z uzyskaniem statusu uchodźcy, ochrony uzupełniającej lub zgody na pobyt ze względów humanitarnych, lub»

The rest of the sentence, and the part that matters: the two years must have been spent on the marriage permit specifically, not on residence of any kind.

Read it at the source
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

Text layer - verbatim verifiedUstawa z dnia 2 kwietnia 2009 r. o obywatelstwie polskim, consolidated text · Article 30(1)(2), opening words · consolidated to 2025-11-27
«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:»

The two years run on settled status, not on residence generally. The point breaks across a page of the consolidation and is quoted here in two parts.

Read it at the source
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

Text layer - verbatim verifiedUstawa z dnia 2 kwietnia 2009 r. o obywatelstwie polskim, consolidated text · Article 30(1)(2)(a) and (b) · consolidated to 2025-11-27
«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 source
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

Text layer - verbatim verifiedUstawa z dnia 14 lipca 2006 r. o wjeździe na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, pobycie oraz wyjeździe z tego terytorium obywateli państw członkowskich Unii Europejskiej i członków ich rodzin, consolidated text · Article 43a · consolidated to 2026-08-21
«Obywatel UE lub członek rodziny niebędący obywatelem UE będący małżonkiem obywatela Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej nabywa prawo stałego pobytu po upływie 3 lat nieprzerwanego pobytu na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, podczas którego spełniał co najmniej jedną z przesłanek prawa pobytu określoną w art. 18, art. 18a, art. 19 ust. 2 lub 3 lub art. 19a.»

Poland's own addition to the free-movement regime: three years rather than five where the spouse is Polish.

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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

Practical notes

Article 158 is about the family of a Polish citizen and article 159 is about the family of a foreigner. Reading one for the other is the commonest mistake available here, because the conditions differ in kind and not merely in degree.

Article 159(2) and (2a) waive the income and accommodation conditions for the family of a refugee or a beneficiary of subsidiary protection who applies within six months, which is a different rule again.

Nothing was read about how the authorities test whether a marriage is genuine. The Act's words are "uznawanym przez prawo Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej", which is about recognition of the marriage, not about its purpose.

Sources2 · all accessed 2026-10-10
  • consolidates
    Ustawa o cudzoziemcach, Chancellery of the Sejm consolidated text

    Internetowy System Aktów Prawnych / ELI service, Kancelaria Sejmu · consolidated to 2026-04-07

    Known to be out of date. The Chancellery's consolidation prints two versions of several provisions: the words in force in square brackets and, in angle brackets, wording that takes effect later, with a marginal note naming the amending Act. Everything quoted here is taken from the text in force.

    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

  • consolidates
    Ustawa 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