Temporary residence permit for a volunteer
Residency route facts
Identity
| Official name (local) | Zezwolenie na pobyt czasowy dla wolontariusza as of 2026-04-07[1] Recorded from the statutory chapter or article heading; the Office for Foreigners' own procedure page uses the same wording. Diacritics as published. |
|---|---|
| Official name (English) | Temporary residence permit for a volunteer as of 2026-08-24[3] Working translation of the Polish statutory name. Poland publishes no official English text of the Act on Foreigners, so this is marked a translation, not an official English name. |
| Legal basis | Ustawa z dnia 12 grudnia 2013 r. o cudzoziemcach, art. 157g-157k (consolidated text Dz.U. 2025 poz. 1079, as updated to 2026-04-07); dyrektywa (UE) 2016/801 as of 2026-04-07[1] |
| 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] |
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| Minimum age | Not applicable Art. 157g imposes no minimum age. A minor's application is filed by a parent or 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 1 year as of 2026-04-07[1] Art. 157h ust. 1: the permit is granted for the period needed to perform the volunteering agreement and for no longer than 1 year. |
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| How the initial term is set | length of the programme |
| Renewable | Yes as of 2026-04-07[1] |
| 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][6] The permit exists for participation in the European Voluntary Service programme with the approved host organisation. Art. 3 ust. 1 of the Act of 20 March 2025 does not list art. 157g among the free-access grounds. |
Permanent residence and citizenship
| Counts toward permanent residence | Yes as of 2026-04-07[1] Art. 212 ust. 2 does not name this permit among the excluded stays, so the time counts, subject to the 1-year ceiling. |
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Requirements
| Job offer required | Yes as of 2026-04-07[1] Art. 157g ust. 1 pkt 2: a written volunteering agreement with the organisation, describing the volunteering, its duration, the conditions and supervision, the hours, the funds covering maintenance and accommodation and the minimum pocket money, and the training the volunteer needs. Art. 157g ust. 1 pkt 3 requires the organisation to be approved by the Minister of Interior. This is an agreement rather than a job offer, and the field is recorded true because the agreement is a condition of the grant. |
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| Labour-market test | No as of 2026-04-07[1] Art. 157g states the conditions exhaustively and imposes none. Sourced absence on a closed enumeration. |
| Qualification requirement | none as of 2026-04-07[1] Art. 157g imposes no educational or professional qualification; the only substantive condition on the person is participation in the European Voluntary Service programme. |
| Employer sponsorship | Yes as of 2026-04-07[1] The host organisation must be approved by the Minister of Interior. |
| Own means requirement | 1 × social-assistance income criterion, single-person household per month as of 2026-04-07[1] Art. 188 ust. 6 / art. 144 ust. 1a / art. 151 ust. 1a / art. 157a ust. 3 / art. 157g ust. 2 all set the same level: the monthly funds for maintenance, after deducting the funds needed for accommodation costs, must be HIGHER than the social-assistance income criterion for the applicant and for each dependent family member. 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. Accommodation costs are defined as at least the fixed charges for the dwelling divided by the number of occupants plus energy, gas, water and waste charges; the deduction is not made for nationals of states named in the regulation under art. 113b (Dz.U. 2020 poz. 1688). |
| Paid in-country | No as of 2026-04-07[1] The arrangement is volunteering. Art. 157g ust. 1 pkt 2 lit. e requires the agreement to state the funds covering the volunteer's maintenance and accommodation and a minimum amount of pocket money (kieszonkowe), which is not remuneration. |
| Job-search route | No as of 2026-04-07[1] Not a job-search route. |
Process
| Where to apply from | in-country only as of 2026-04-07[1][3] 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. The pending amendment carried in the consolidated text rewrites art. 105-106a and moves filing into the Office for Foreigners' electronic Moduł Obsługi Spraw (MOS); the Office's own procedure pages already describe electronic filing through MOS. The entry-into-force date is to be announced by communique under art. 17 of the Act of 21 November 2025 (Dz.U. 2025 poz. 1794). |
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| 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 – a formally complete application and (until the pending amendment removes it) the applicant's personal appearance – 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 |
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| 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. |
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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. This route is not one of the bases in lit. a-d or f-i that carry no waiting period. |
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| 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 permit on this route. |
| Family members' work rights | full as of 2026-08-07[6] Art. 3 ust. 1 pkt 17 of the Act of 20 March 2025 on the conditions for the admissibility of entrusting work to foreigners: a holder of a temporary residence permit granted under art. 159 ust. 1 of the Act on Foreigners has free access to the labour market (swobodny dostęp do rynku pracy) – no work permit, no employer tie, no hours cap. |
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.
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Verification
| Sources cited | 6 |
|---|---|
| of which official (tier 1) | 6 |
| Oldest as-of date | 2026-04-07 |
| Newest as-of date | 2026-08-24 |
| 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] Zezwolenie na pobyt czasowy — praca: katalog zezwoleń
Urząd do Spraw Cudzoziemców — Moduł Obsługi Spraw · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-24 - [4] Akt prawny: ustawa o cudzoziemcach (Dz.U. 2013 poz. 1650) — metadane ELI, w tym wykaz aktów wykonawczych i aktów zmieniających
Kancelaria Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej — API ELI · official portal · Tier 1 · Accessed 2026-08-24 - [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