Temporary residence permit for the purpose of conducting business activity
Residency route facts
Identity
| Official name (local) | Zezwolenie na pobyt czasowy w celu prowadzenia działalności gospodarczej as of 2026-08-23[1][4] Recorded from the statutory chapter heading (Dział V rozdział 5) and the Office for Foreigners' own page heading, which use the same wording. Diacritics: – the correct published form carries them and is written into the value. |
|---|---|
| Official name (English) | Temporary residence permit for the purpose of conducting business activity as of 2026-08-23[4] Translation of the Polish statutory name; the Office for Foreigners' portal publishes English versions of this page under the same wording. Marked as a translation rather than an official English name – Polish is the sole language of the operative text. |
| Legal basis | Ustawa z dnia 12 grudnia 2013 r. o cudzoziemcach, art. 142-143a (consolidated text Dz.U. 2025 poz. 1079, as updated to 2026-04-07) as of 2026-04-07[1][4] |
| Instrument type | residence permit as of 2026-04-07[1] |
Who can apply
| Nationals not served by this route | EU, EEA, EFTA as of 2026-04-07[1] Art. 2 pkt 2: the Act on Foreigners does not apply to nationals of EU member states, of EFTA states party to the EEA Agreement, or of Switzerland, nor to their accompanying or joining family members. The bloc vocabulary has no value for Switzerland alone; 'efta' is used because the Swiss and the EEA-EFTA states are named together in the same provision, and the note carries the actual wording. |
|---|---|
| Minimum age | Not applicable Art. 142 imposes no minimum age. A minor's application is filed by a parent or court-appointed guardian under art. 105 ust. 3, which is a procedural rule rather than an age threshold. |
| Criminal-record condition | No as of 2026-04-07[1] |
Permit terms
| Initial duration | up to 3 years as of 2026-04-07[1] Art. 98 ust. 2: a temporary residence permit is granted for the period necessary to achieve the purpose of the stay, and for no longer than 3 years. The Act sets no floor, so the term actually granted is at the wojewoda's assessment of the purpose. |
|---|---|
| Renewable | Yes as of 2026-04-07[1] Polish law does not extend an existing temporary residence permit; a foreigner who wants to stay on files a fresh application for a further permit under art. 105 ust. 1, no later than the last day of legal stay. Recorded true because a further permit is available on the same terms, with this mechanism noted rather than presented as renewal. |
| Renewal duration | Not established from a qualifying source No separate renewal term exists – a further permit is granted under the same art. 98 ust. 2 ceiling of 3 years. |
| Work rights | own activity only as of 2026-04-07[1] |
Permanent residence and citizenship
| Counts toward permanent residence | Yes as of 2026-04-07[1] Art. 211 ust. 1 counts legal and uninterrupted residence towards the 5-year EU long-term resident qualification, and art. 212 ust. 2's list of stays that do not count, and ust. 1 pkt 3-4's list of stays counted at half, do not name the business-activity permit. |
|---|
Requirements
| Minimum capital | Recorded at the source, but not reducible to a single value as of 2026-04-07[1][3] |
|---|---|
| Business plan required | No as of 2026-04-07[1] Art. 142 names no business plan among the conditions. The nearest thing is art. 142 ust. 1 pkt 3 lit. b, which lets an applicant who cannot meet the income or employment test show that it has the means, or is taking steps, to meet it in future – the statute's examples being contributing to investment growth, technology transfer, beneficial innovation or job creation. That is a forward-looking showing, not a prescribed document. |
| Endorsement required | No as of 2026-04-07[1] No accelerator, incubator, evaluation committee or ministerial endorsement appears anywhere in art. 142; the wojewoda decides. Sourced absence on a closed enumeration. |
| Innovation criterion | No as of 2026-04-07[1] Innovation is not a criterion. „Wprowadzanie korzystnych innowacji” appears in art. 142 ust. 1 pkt 3 lit. b only as one of four illustrative examples („w szczególności”) of actions that may show the entity is working towards the lit. a test, so it is a way of satisfying an economic condition, not a condition of its own. |
| Jobs to be created | Recorded at the source, but not reducible to a single value as of 2026-04-07[1] |
| Own means requirement | 1 × social-assistance income criterion, single-person household per month as of 2026-04-07[1] Art. 142 ust. 1 pkt 1 lit. b requires a source of stable and regular income sufficient to cover the applicant's own maintenance and that of dependent family members; art. 142 ust. 4 applies art. 140 ust. 2 to that test, which sets the level as HIGHER than the social-assistance income criterion for the applicant and for each dependent. Multiplier 1 therefore states a floor to be exceeded, not met, and the applicable criterion is PLN 1,010 for a single-person household or PLN 823 per person in a family. Art. 142 ust. 1 also requires health insurance (lit. a), any professional authorisation required by separate law (lit. c) and secured accommodation in Poland (pkt 2), none of which this block has a field for. |
Process
| Where to apply from | in-country only as of 2026-04-07[1][4] Art. 105 ust. 1: the foreigner files the application in person, no later than the last day of their legal stay in Poland. There is no consular stage for this permit; a foreigner outside Poland enters on a visa or visa-free and applies from inside. |
|---|---|
| Statutory processing time | 60 days as of 2026-04-07[1] Art. 112a ust. 1: the decision is issued within 60 days. Art. 112a ust. 2 starts the clock at the last of the qualifying events – the applicant's personal appearance and a formally complete application – so it is not a 60-day clock from lodging. |
| Observed processing time | Not established from a qualifying source No official observed-duration statistics were located for this permit; the Office for Foreigners publishes the statutory deadline, not outturn times. |
| Fees |
|
| Quota |
|
Physical presence
| none stated | to keep the permit as of 2026-04-07[1] The Act on Foreigners attaches no minimum-presence or maximum-absence condition to holding a temporary residence permit. What it does attach, in art. 101, is withdrawal where the purpose of the stay ceases or the conditions of the grant are no longer met – a purpose test rather than a day count. The 6-month and 10-month absence limits recorded at country level under permanent_residency.absence_rules bite on the qualification for the EU long-term resident permit, not on this permit. |
|---|
Family inclusion
| Family members may be included | Yes as of 2026-04-07[1] Art. 159 ust. 1 pkt 1 lit. e: a family member may be granted a temporary residence permit for family reunification where the sponsor has resided in Poland for at least 2 years on successive temporary residence permits and holds, immediately before the application, a permit granted for a period of not less than 1 year. A business-activity permit holder qualifies once those conditions are met. |
|---|---|
| Eligible relations | spouse, minor child as of 2026-04-07[1] Art. 159 ust. 3: a spouse in a marriage recognised by Polish law, and minor children (including adopted children) of the foreigner, of the spouse, or of either where dependent and under their actual parental authority. Minority is assessed at the date the application is filed (ust. 3a). |
| Family may apply at the same time | No as of 2026-04-07[1] The lit. e sponsor condition requires 2 years of prior residence on successive temporary permits, so family members cannot apply together with a first business-activity permit. |
| Family members' work rights | full as of 2026-08-07[6] |
Your next step
Read the requirements above considering your own situation: the income multiple, the absence limits, who you can bring. Check the country record for the reference figure those amounts are calculated from, and for anything that has changed recently.
The next step is your own case. That assessment is legal work. Create profile for our assistance in this.
Profile benefits
- A 30-minute call with our consultant, who reads your profile first.
- An offer for legal support built around your case, covering the whole process.
Verification
| Sources cited | 6 |
|---|---|
| of which official (tier 1) | 6 |
| Oldest as-of date | 2026-04-07 |
| Newest as-of date | 2026-08-23 |
| Reviewed on | 2026-08-26 |
| Schema version | 1.1 |
Sources
- [1] Ustawa z dnia 12 grudnia 2013 r. o cudzoziemcach — tekst ujednolicony (Dz.U. 2025 poz. 1079)
Kancelaria Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej · statute · Tier 1 · Published 2025-08-07 · Accessed 2026-08-23 · Amended by pl-aliens-act-amendment-2025-1794, pl-work-admissibility-act-2025 - [2] Rozporządzenie Ministra Spraw Wewnętrznych i Administracji z dnia 26 lipca 2022 r. w sprawie opłat pobieranych w Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej od cudzoziemców za wydanie i wymianę dokumentów (Dz.U. 2022 poz. 1583)
Kancelaria Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej · fee schedule · Tier 1 · Published 2022-07-26 · Accessed 2026-08-23 - [3] Obwieszczenie Prezesa Głównego Urzędu Statystycznego z dnia 19 listopada 2025 r. w sprawie przeciętnego miesięcznego wynagrodzenia brutto w gospodarce narodowej w województwach w 2024 r. (M.P. 2025 poz. 1201)
Główny Urząd Statystyczny / Monitor Polski · gazette · Tier 1 · Published 2025-11-21 · Accessed 2026-08-23 - [4] Zezwolenie na pobyt czasowy w celu prowadzenia działalności gospodarczej
Urząd do Spraw Cudzoziemców — Moduł Obsługi Spraw · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-23 - [5] Ustawa z dnia 16 listopada 2006 r. o opłacie skarbowej — tekst ujednolicony (Dz.U. 2025 poz. 1154), załącznik część III
Kancelaria Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej · fee schedule · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-23 - [6] Ustawa z dnia 20 marca 2025 r. o warunkach dopuszczalności powierzania pracy cudzoziemcom na terytorium Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej — tekst ujednolicony (Dz.U. 2025 poz. 621, 1794, z 2026 r. poz. 203, 473, 734)
Kancelaria Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej · statute · Tier 1 · Published 2025-05-16 · Accessed 2026-08-24