Poland's Residence Permit Deadline Freeze: What the Provision Says and What to Do If Your Case Has Stalled

"The act is about assistance to Ukrainian citizens — I'm Belarusian, it doesn't apply to me." That is what almost everyone thinks on first hearing that the deadlines in their case are frozen. The logic is understandable: the title of the act speaks for itself.

The logic is wrong. On 25 July 2024 the Naczelny Sąd Administracyjny (Supreme Administrative Court) heard the Lower Silesian Voivode's cassation appeal in a case brought by a Belarusian national complaining of undue delay in his temporary residence permit proceedings. The court of first instance had sided with the foreigner. The NSA set that judgment aside and dismissed the complaint, holding that while art. 100c and art. 100d are in force — "w odniesieniu do wszystkich cudzoziemców", in relation to all foreigners — the time limit does not start to run, and the authority's cessation of action or delay in acting cannot ground remedies for undue delay (judgment of the NSA of 25.07.2024, ref. II OSK 716/24). The court issued three judgments to the same effect that same day: II OSK 644/24, II OSK 599/24, II OSK 206/24. The line was later confirmed in II OSK 1984/24 of 25.02.2025.

So yes — it applies to you, whatever your passport says. What follows is what the provision actually says, where its limits are, and what that means for you personally.

Where exactly the freeze is written down

Art. 100d(1) of the act of 12 March 2022 on assistance to Ukrainian citizens in connection with the armed conflict on the territory of that state (Dz.U.2025.0.337 consolidated text): in the period up to 4 March 2027, in proceedings conducted by the voivode, the time limit for handling cases "nie rozpoczyna się, a rozpoczęty ulega zawieszeniu na ten okres" — does not begin to run, and if begun, is suspended for that period.

Which cases are covered:

Note what is not on the list: national visas, Schengen visas, citizenship, the Karta Polaka, invitations, recognition of decisions. And appeals against a refusal are not there either — second-instance proceedings are untouched by the freeze.

Three consequences follow that the news coverage usually leaves out:

That is why the familiar sequence — a reminder (ponaglenie), then a complaint against inaction, then a fine on the authority — runs into a wall during the freeze: the legislature switched off not only the deadlines but the enforcement tools themselves.

Important: the freeze does not stop the work

The most common corollary of the first misconception is a second one: "if it's frozen, my file is just sitting there untouched."

Art. 100d(2) says the opposite: actions taken in the period referred to in ust. 1 remain effective. Proceedings continue. Applications are accepted, summonses go out, biometrics are taken, decisions are issued. What is suspended is the clock, not the work.

The practical point: your case is not in suspended animation, it is in a queue. A biometrics appointment can land at any time, and you have to attend — a missed appearance sets your file back regardless of any freeze.

Since when, and how many extensions

The freeze is not a one-off measure. It has been in force since 15 April 2022 and has been extended again and again, each time for a fresh period.

It is that repetition — rather than the freeze itself — that became the central legal argument against it. A one-off measure in an emergency and an indefinitely renewed state of affairs are, as a matter of proportionality, two different things.

The Commissioner for Human Rights (Rzecznik Praw Obywatelskich) put the objection precisely: the explanatory memoranda to the successive extension bills gave no reasons justifying the need to keep applying the provisions. The freeze is extended "niejako automatycznie" — more or less automatically, without a fresh assessment of the current workload each time (submission to the Ministry of the Interior, ref. XI.541.31.2021).

How big the problem actually is

Here the useful figures come neither from lawyers nor from the press, but from the state audit office.

Najwyższa Izba Kontroli audited five voivodeship offices in 2021–2023. The result:

Separately, on Mazowieckie: in 2023 it received over 147,000 legalisation applications — roughly a quarter of the national total; in 2024, about 106,000. According to the Commissioner, the office received no additional posts.

That is the factual picture behind the word "freeze": not bad faith, but a systemic shortage of staff that the legislature chose to offset by switching off accountability rather than by hiring. The Commissioner says it plainly: the problem "cannot be solved by depriving foreigners of the legal remedies available to them."

What the courts say: the case law has split

And here is the part that matters most if your case is stuck. There is no single position — there is what Polish lawyers call dualizm orzeczniczy, a split in the case law.

Note the date 30 June 2024. It is not arbitrary: it marks the end of the period the courts were willing to treat as a direct consequence of the 2022 emergency. After that date the "exceptional circumstances" argument began to lose its force, and that is precisely what successful complaints have been built on.

What this means in practice. A complaint against inaction during the freeze is neither hopeless nor a guaranteed win. It is an argument about whether the provision applies — an argument that has been won, in cases with citable references. The threshold is not "it's taking a long time" but "the authority did nothing for many months, and it is documented."

The part nobody mentions: the ministry itself is waiting for the CJEU

Now the unexpected turn in this story.

On 2 April 2025 the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Gliwice stayed proceedings and referred questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (order, ref. II SAB/Gl 19/25). The case is registered as C-254/25 Wojewoda Śląski and was published in the Official Journal of the EU (OJ C/2025/4033 of 28.07.2025). The applicant is a third-country national who applied on 17 April 2024 for a temporary residence permit for the purpose of studies.

The court asks Luxembourg, among other things:

• whether the Treaty principles of the rule of law, proportionality and the right to good administration preclude the prolonged and repeatedly extended exclusion of third-country nationals' right to an effective remedy against the authorities' failure to act — including in the light of art. 34(1) and (3) of Directive 2016/801;
• whether such exclusion — given that Polish nationals are not deprived of those rights in their own administrative proceedings — discriminates against third-country nationals under art. 18 TFEU and arts. 20 and 21 of the Charter, and whether it blocks genuine access to justice under art. 47 of the Charter.

And now the key point. In its official reply to the Commissioner for Human Rights, the Ministry of the Interior itself — the ministry whose voivodes apply the freeze — wrote that it is awaiting the ruling in C-254/25 and that the ruling "wniesie istotny wkład do dyskusji w zakresie obowiązywania art. 100c i 100d ustawy pomocowej": it will make a significant contribution to the discussion on whether these provisions are in force.

Consider what that means. The authority that invokes the freeze when replying to you does not tell the ombudsman that the question is settled. It calls the operation of these provisions a matter of discussion, and waits for Luxembourg.

For someone whose case is stuck, that changes the balance. "There is art. 100d, please wait" is not the end of the conversation and not a statement of settled law. It is one side's position in an argument that is still running.

What the freeze does not take away: the immigration consequences

Polish sources almost never write about this, because for them it is not the question. For you it is the first one.

Your stay remains lawful. If the application was filed within the deadline — and art. 108(1) of the act on foreigners ties the rule to compliance with the filing deadline and to the lawfulness of your stay at that moment, not to the expiry date on your card — your stay is deemed lawful until the decision becomes final. However long that takes. This covers people who applied while in Poland on a national visa or visa-free.

One important exception, in art. 108(2): the rule does not apply where proceedings are stayed at the party's own request. "Please suspend it, I'll bring the documents later" is particularly dangerous during the freeze: the clock is not running anyway, and you would lose the lawfulness of your stay.

The waiting time is not lost. It counts toward the record of lawful residence you will later need for permanent residence, EU long-term resident status and citizenship. A year in the queue does not drop out of your route — it is part of it. In that sense the freeze takes away predictability, but not time.

Travel outside Poland while you wait needs a separate assessment: it can complicate proving continuity of residence and affect your ability to re-enter. The rules depend on the title you hold and on whether you have a valid entry document. This is the case where generic advice from an article is useless and a look at your specific situation is essential.

What to actually do if your case has stalled

1. Check whether the proceedings have started at all. The most common cause of "silence" is not the freeze but the fact that proceedings were never set in motion: a missing document, no personal appearance, formal defects. Until those are cleared, art. 112a(2) does not start the clock in the first place. Your tools are your MOS account and a request on the state of the case.
2. Respond to the authority's summonses on time. Delay on your side adds to the wait and, more importantly, hands the authority an argument in any future dispute.
3. Build an evidence file. Keep everything: the filing date, every letter to the office, every reply and — above all — every non-reply. What works in court is documented total inaction over months, not a subjective sense that it is slow.
4. File a ponaglenie even knowing it may be rejected. Formally the authority will cite art. 100d(3)(1). But a rejected ponaglenie is a dated document showing that you tried. In the case that reached the Gliwice court, the applicant sent two reminders that were not even forwarded — and that became part of the picture the court saw.
5. If nothing has happened on your file for many months, discuss a complaint against inaction with a lawyer. The argument is built not on "it's slow for me" but on the disproportionality of repeated extensions, on art. 45(1) and art. 31(3) of the Constitution, and on the NSA line concerning whether the provision applies. The outcome is not guaranteed — the case law is split, and the Gliwice judgment is not final.
6. If a refusal arrived instead of silence, that is a different situation. Appeals are untouched by the freeze and the ordinary deadlines apply. Do not wait.

Frequently asked questions

Does the freeze apply only to Ukrainian citizens? No. Despite the title of the act, art. 100d refers to "cudzoziemcowi" with no qualification as to nationality, and the NSA confirmed that it applies to all foreigners (II OSK 716/24 of 25.07.2024 — the case of a Belarusian national). There was an earlier line of voivodeship court rulings limiting the act to Ukrainians who fled the war, but the NSA took a different path.

Until what date is this in force? Until 4 March 2027, under the current wording of art. 100d(1). The period has been extended repeatedly and a further extension cannot be ruled out.

Is there any point in filing a ponaglenie now? As a way to speed the case up — probably not: the authority will cite art. 100d(3)(1). As a way to put your position on record — yes, and it costs little.

My residence card expired while the case is pending. Am I now unlawfully present? No, provided the application was filed in time: art. 108(1) makes your stay lawful until the decision is final. The thing to watch is ust. 2: staying the proceedings at your own request switches that rule off.

Can I get compensation for years of waiting? Art. 100d(3)(2) expressly rules out awarding sums against the authority in favour of complainants for failing to decide in time during the freeze. That very question — the removal of remedies — is what is now before the CJEU in C-254/25.

Does the freeze extend to citizenship and visas? No. Art. 100d(1) lists three titles (temporary residence, permanent residence, EU long-term resident) plus amendment of the single permit and the Blue Card, and withdrawal of permits. Citizenship, visa and Karta Polaka cases are not on the list.