A Union Regulation Decides the Visa, and Poland Keeps a Switch of Its Own
Whether a short visit to Poland needs a visa is not in any Polish instrument. Regulation (EU) 2018/1806 carries two annexes: nationals of the countries in Annex I need a visa to cross the external border, and nationals of the countries in Annex II are exempt for stays of no more than 90 days in any 180-day period. What the Ustawa o cudzoziemcach adds is the national layer. Article 23 says what a person crossing the border must be carrying. Article 25 says they must justify the purpose of the stay and, on demand, produce money for it and either Polish health cover or travel medical insurance of at least 30 000 euro. And articles 58a and 58b give the foreign minister power to switch the Union's visa requirement, or the Union's exemption from it, off by regulation for named third countries.
At a glance
- Who decides the visa
- A Union regulation, applied by Poland as it stands
- Visa-free stay
- 90 days in any 180-day period
Article 4(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1806.
- Where your nationality sits
- Annex I needs a visa, Annex II does not
- Travel medical insurance
- At least 30 000 euro, for entry on a national visa
Article 25(1)(2)(a) of the Ustawa o cudzoziemcach, which also accepts Polish statutory health cover instead.
- Money at the border
- Enough for the planned stay and the journey home or onward, or a document showing you can lawfully get it
Article 25(1)(2)(b). The Act states the test and leaves the amount to a regulation, which this record has not read.
- Two kinds of visa
- A Schengen visa or a Polish national visa
Article 58 of the Ustawa o cudzoziemcach, in one sentence.
- A national override exists
- The foreign minister may switch the Union exemption off for named third countries
Articles 58a and 58b, which implement article 6 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1806. Whether any such regulation is currently in force is not answered by the Act and was not read.
Requirements
- A visa, if your nationality is in Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2018/1806
- No visa, for a stay of no more than 90 days in any 180-day period, if your nationality is in Annex II
- A valid travel document, and the visa or other entry document where one is required
- A reason for the trip you can justify, and money for the stay and the journey home
- Travel medical insurance of at least 30 000 euro, where you are entering on a Polish national visa
Exceptions by origin
No Visa, and Ninety Days Measured Backwards from Any Day
Your nationality is in Annex II, so no visa is required for a stay of no more than 90 days in any 180-day period. The measure is the part that catches people: it is not ninety days a visit and not ninety days a year. On any given day the question is how many days you have spent in the area in the preceding 180. Poland's own Act writes a ninety-day limit of its own for one narrow group in article 24(2), and otherwise leaves the count to the Regulation. Five states in this corpus carry a footnote making the exemption conditional on an agreement with the Union, and this record does not say whether that agreement is in force. Two things do change at the Polish border whatever your annex: article 25 asks you to justify the purpose of the trip and to show money for it on demand.
A Visa Is Required, and Nothing About You Changes That
Your nationality is in Annex I, so a visa is required to cross the external border. The Regulation states this as a list and offers no test a traveller could pass instead: there is no income, no itinerary and no invitation that moves a nationality from one annex to the other. Poland can issue either kind of visa - a Schengen visa or a Polish national visa - and article 23 of the Ustawa o cudzoziemcach says the document must be in your hand at the border. A person entering on a national visa must also hold travel medical insurance of at least 30 000 euro, or Polish statutory health cover.
- A visa, obtained before travelling
- A valid travel document carrying it
- For a national visa: travel medical insurance of at least 30 000 euro, or Polish statutory health cover
What the law says
«Nationals of third countries listed in Annex I shall be required to be in possession of a visa when crossing the external borders of the Member States.»The visa requirement, stated as a list rather than as a test about the traveller.
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The Union's legal database. Publishes each act as adopted in the Official Journal and, separately, a consolidated version carrying every amendment to a stated date, identified as 0YYYYRNNNN-YYYYMMDD. The consolidated text marks each amended passage with the instrument that changed it.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A consolidated text is explicitly not authentic - EUR-Lex says so on the document - and only the Official Journal version has legal force. It also says nothing about how any member state applies the act: a regulation is directly applicable but the border practice, the evidence an officer may ask for and the national exceptions are in national law, which is published elsewhere.
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«Nationals of third countries listed in Annex II shall be exempt from the requirement set out in Article 3(1) for stays of no more than 90 days in any 180-day period.»The exemption and its measure. Ninety days in any 180-day period is a rolling window, not an allowance that resets on each entry.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Union's legal database. Publishes each act as adopted in the Official Journal and, separately, a consolidated version carrying every amendment to a stated date, identified as 0YYYYRNNNN-YYYYMMDD. The consolidated text marks each amended passage with the instrument that changed it.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A consolidated text is explicitly not authentic - EUR-Lex says so on the document - and only the Official Journal version has legal force. It also says nothing about how any member state applies the act: a regulation is directly applicable but the border practice, the evidence an officer may ask for and the national exceptions are in national law, which is published elsewhere.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Ustawa określa zasady i warunki wjazdu cudzoziemców na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej, ich przejazdu przez to terytorium, pobytu na nim i wyjazdu z niego, tryb postępowania oraz organy właściwe w tych sprawach.»The Act's own statement of what it covers. It does not include the visa lists, which are the Union's.
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.
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«Cudzoziemiec, który przekracza granicę, jest obowiązany posiadać: 1) ważny dokument podróży; 2) ważną wizę lub inny ważny dokument uprawniający go do wjazdu na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej i do pobytu na tym terytorium, jeżeli są wymagane;»What has to be in your hand at the border. The visa is conditional - "jeżeli są wymagane" - because whether one is required is decided elsewhere.
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
«Cudzoziemcy, o których mowa w art. 6 ust. 2 lit. a rozporządzenia Parlamentu Europejskiego i Rady (UE) 2018/1806 z dnia 14 listopada 2018 r. wymieniającego państwa trzecie, których obywatele muszą posiadać wizy podczas przekraczania granic zewnętrznych, oraz te, których obywatele są zwolnieni z tego wymogu (tekst jednolity) (Dz. Urz. UE L 303 z 28.11.2018, str. 39, z późn. zm.9)), zwanego dalej „rozporządzeniem 2018/1806”, są zwolnieni z obowiązku posiadania wiz, gdy ich całkowity pobyt na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej nie przekracza 90 dni.»The Act naming the Regulation and giving it a short form it then uses throughout. The footnote marker "9)" sits inside the sentence in the published text and is kept here.
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 wjeżdżający na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej jest obowiązany: 1) uzasadnić cel i warunki planowanego pobytu; 2) posiadać oraz okazać na żądanie:»Two duties on entry, and they are not the same as holding a visa: the purpose has to be justified to the officer.
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
«dokument potwierdzający posiadanie ubezpieczenia zdrowotnego w rozumieniu przepisów ustawy z dnia 27 sierpnia 2004 r. o świadczeniach opieki zdrowotnej finansowanych ze środków publicznych (Dz. U. z 2024 r. poz. 146, z późn. zm.10)) lub posiadanie podróżnego ubezpieczenia medycznego o minimalnej kwocie ubezpieczenia w wysokości 30 000 euro,»The insurance condition and its amount. The provision ends by limiting it to entry on a national visa.
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
«b) środki finansowe wystarczające na pokrycie kosztów planowanego pobytu oraz podróży powrotnej do państwa pochodzenia lub zamieszkania lub kosztów tranzytu do państwa trzeciego, które udzieli pozwolenia na wjazd, albo dokument potwierdzający możliwość uzyskania takich środków zgodnie z prawem.»The money test, stated as a sufficiency rather than as a figure. The alternative - a document showing the money can lawfully be obtained - is the part most summaries drop.
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 można wydać wizę Schengen lub wizę krajową.»Poland issues two kinds of visa, and the national one is what a long stay runs on.
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
«Minister właściwy do spraw zagranicznych, w porozumieniu z ministrem właściwym do spraw wewnętrznych, może, w drodze rozporządzenia, ustanowić wyjątki od obowiązku wizowego lub od zwolnienia z obowiązku wizowego wobec cudzoziemców, o których mowa w art. 6 ust. 1 rozporządzenia 2018/1806.»Article 6 of the Regulation lets a member state make exceptions for categories such as diplomatic passport holders and crew; this is Poland taking that power.
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
«Minister właściwy do spraw zagranicznych, w porozumieniu z ministrem właściwym do spraw pracy oraz ministrem właściwym do spraw wewnętrznych, może, w drodze rozporządzenia, ustanowić wyjątki od zwolnienia z obowiązku wizowego wobec cudzoziemców, o których mowa w art. 6 ust. 3 rozporządzenia 2018/1806.»The same power again, aimed at people who come visa-free to work: the labour minister has to agree to it.
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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.
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Practical notes
Being exempt from a visa is not a right of entry. The Schengen Borders Code sets the conditions an officer applies at the external border, and this record does not reach it.
The same two annexes govern every Schengen state, so the answer this record gives for Poland is the answer the Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch and Belgian records give.
Whether the foreign minister has made any regulation under article 58a or 58b was not checked: the Act creates the power, and the exercise of it is published separately.
- consolidatesRegulation (EU) 2018/1806, consolidated version
EUR-Lex, Publications Office of the European Union · consolidated to 2025-12-30
Known to be out of date. A consolidated text is not authentic. Only the Official Journal version of each amending regulation has legal force, and an annex can be amended between consolidations.
About this source
The Union's legal database. Publishes each act as adopted in the Official Journal and, separately, a consolidated version carrying every amendment to a stated date, identified as 0YYYYRNNNN-YYYYMMDD. The consolidated text marks each amended passage with the instrument that changed it.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A consolidated text is explicitly not authentic - EUR-Lex says so on the document - and only the Official Journal version has legal force. It also says nothing about how any member state applies the act: a regulation is directly applicable but the border practice, the evidence an officer may ask for and the national exceptions are in national law, which is published elsewhere.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- consolidatesUstawa 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