One Movement Regime Reaches Poland, and It Has an Act of Its Own
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Haiti 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 Haiti to Poland · Residency under a regional treaty
The only free-movement regime that reaches Poland is the European Union's, and Poland transposed it into a separate statute rather than into the Ustawa o cudzoziemcach. The Act of 14 July 2006 governs entry, residence and departure for nationals of Union member states, of EFTA states party to the EEA Agreement, of Switzerland, and of the United Kingdom within the Withdrawal Agreement, together with their family members. Up to three months there are no residence conditions at all; a jobseeker gets a further six months, extendable while they are actively looking and have a genuine chance of work. Beyond three months the right exists on one of four grounds - worker or self-employed, sufficient resources with health cover, study with the same, or being the spouse of a Polish citizen - and registration becomes compulsory. Permanent residence comes after five continuous years, or three where the spouse is Polish.
At a glance
- Who this Act covers
- EU, EEA EFTA and Swiss nationals, and UK nationals within the Withdrawal Agreement, with their family members
Article 1 of the Act of 14 July 2006.
- Stay with no conditions
- Up to 3 months
Article 15(1)(1).
- Jobseeker
- A further 6 months, and longer while actively looking with a genuine chance of work
Article 15(1)(2). Article 15(1a) starts the six months from registration at the district employment office where that happens within 14 days.
- Beyond three months
- Worker or self-employed; sufficient resources with health cover; study with the same; or spouse of a Polish citizen
Article 16, which lists four grounds and no others.
- Registration
- Compulsory beyond 3 months, and a residence card for a non-EU family member
Article 20(1). Article 20(2) exempts the jobseeker.
- When to register
- In person, no later than the day after the three months run out
Article 21(2), which then lists exceptions.
- Permanent residence
- 5 years of continuous residence, or 3 where you are the spouse of a Polish citizen
Articles 42 and 43a. Article 43 gives the same five years to a non-EU family member.
- Work
- No permit; the employment Act gives free access to family members and to holders of the right of permanent residence
Article 3(1)(1) to (5) of the Ustawa o warunkach dopuszczalności powierzania pracy cudzoziemcom.
Requirements
- Nationality of an EU member state, an EFTA state party to the EEA Agreement, or Switzerland
- A valid travel document, or another document proving identity and nationality, for the first three months
- Beyond three months, one of the four grounds in article 16
- Registration of residence beyond three months, or a residence card for a non-EU family member
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Haiti
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
«Ustawa określa zasady i warunki wjazdu na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, pobytu oraz wyjazdu z tego terytorium: 1) obywateli państw członkowskich Unii Europejskiej, 2) obywateli państw członkowskich Europejskiego Porozumienia o Wolnym Handlu (EFTA) – stron umowy o Europejskim Obszarze Gospodarczym, 3) obywateli Konfederacji Szwajcarskiej,»The scope. Everything in this record belongs to these nationalities and to nobody else.
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
«Bez konieczności zachowania warunków pobytu określonych w niniejszym rozdziale na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej może przebywać: 1) obywatel UE i członek rodziny niebędący obywatelem UE – przez okres do 3 miesięcy; 2) obywatel UE, który wjechał na to terytorium w celu poszukiwania pracy – przez okres niedłuższy niż 6 miesięcy od upływu okresu, o którym mowa w pkt 1, chyba że po upływie okresu 6 miesięcy wykaże, że aktywnie kontynuuje poszukiwanie pracy i ma rzeczywiste szanse na zatrudnienie.»Three months unconditionally, then six more for a jobseeker, then a test the jobseeker has to keep passing.
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
«Obywatelowi UE przysługuje prawo pobytu przez okres dłuższy niż 3 miesiące, w przypadku gdy spełnia jeden z następujących warunków: 1) jest pracownikiem lub osobą pracującą na własny rachunek na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej;»The first of the four grounds. The remaining three are sufficient resources with health cover, study with the same, and being the spouse of a Polish citizen.
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
«Jeżeli pobyt na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej trwa przez okres dłuższy niż 3 miesiące, obywatel UE jest obowiązany zarejestrować swój pobyt, a członek rodziny niebędący obywatelem UE jest obowiązany uzyskać kartę pobytową.»Registration is an obligation on the Union citizen and a separate document for the family member who is not one.
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 UE nabywa prawo stałego pobytu po upływie 5 lat nieprzerwanego pobytu na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, podczas którego spełniał co najmniej jedną z przesłanek prawa pobytu określoną w art. 16, art. 17, art. 19 ust. 1 lub 3 lub art. 19a.»Five years, and the years only count while one of the grounds was being met.
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 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.»Three years for the spouse of a Pole, which the Directive does not require and Poland chose to give.
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
No other movement regime reaches Poland. Mercosur, CARICOM, the Andean Community and the CA-4 are agreements among other states and have no effect here, which is why this record is about one Act.
The Act is the national transposition of Directive 2004/38/EC. Where it says more than the Directive - the three-year permanent residence for a spouse of a Polish citizen, the jobseeker's six months counted from registration - that is Poland's own text and it is quoted as such.
Registration is a formality with a deadline attached, and the Act puts the deadline the day after the three months end.
- consolidatesUstawa o wjeździe na terytorium RP obywateli państw członkowskich UE, Chancellery of the Sejm consolidated text
Internetowy System Aktów Prawnych / ELI service, Kancelaria Sejmu · consolidated to 2026-08-21
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