At the stage of preparing the application

Late start of preparations for submitting the application

The Act on Foreigners imposes on a third-country citizen, as a rule, the obligation to personally submit an application for a temporary residence permit, a permanent residence permit, a residence permit for a long-term resident of the European Union and an application for the extension of a national visa. This obligation must be fulfilled by the foreigner within a specified period – specifically, at the latest on the last day of their legal stay on the territory of Poland. Failure to comply with that period, with a few exceptions, shall result, depending on the type of application, in the refusal to grant an authorisation, irrespective of the fact that the requirements for granting that authorisation are met, or in the refusal to initiate such proceedings, which may entail the need to leave the territory of Poland.

Currently, all departments competent in matters of foreigners in voivodeship offices have adopted a system of electronic appointment for a visit in order to submit an application. The waiting time for the visit may be, depending on the burden of a given voivode with the number of incoming applications, even several weeks. Therefore, it is recommended not to leave the issue of preparing the application and its submission to the last minute, but to plan these activities well in advance. It is in the interest of the foreigner to appear at the office during their legal stay and to present all the required documents at the time of submitting the application – their submission will eliminate the risk associated with the occurrence of formal deficiencies and prevent the need to supplement the evidence during the proceedings.

If the foreigner does not start the task of booking the visit early enough, it may turn out that the only way to avoid the need to leave the territory of Poland before the end of the allowed stay in visa-free travel or on the basis of the residence title held, is to send an application for a permit / extension of the visa via the postal operator. This will involve the need to wait for the authority to be summoned to appear in order to fulfill the obligation to submit the application in person and give fingerprints, under pain of leaving the application unexamined.

If, on the other hand, the foreigner leaves the issue of collecting the necessary documents at the last minute, it may turn out that they are not able to obtain documents before the date of submitting the application. Obtaining documents may involve in certain cases, m.in, the need to go to the country of origin (e.g. to obtain a travel document, civil status documents), completion of certain time-consuming procedures (e.g. to provide information to the starost about the inability to meet the employer's staffing needs on the local labor market) or exchange of correspondence.