Residence card in Warsaw

Who decides your application in Warsaw

Residence permit cases for people living in Warsaw are handled by the Mazowieckie Voivode, that is the Mazowieckie Voivodeship Office in Warsaw. What counts is your place of residence, not your place of work or your employer's registered address.

This distinction causes a lot of confusion. If you live in one voivodeship and work in another, the office competent for your place of residence decides. If you move while the case is pending, competence can change and this has to be reported.

Data checked on the authority’s own pages on 6 September 2026: https://www.gov.pl/web/uw-mazowiecki/wydzial-spraw-cudzoziemcow

How the application is filed

Since 27 April 2026 applications for a temporary residence permit, a permanent residence permit and EU long-term resident status are filed exclusively through the Case Handling Module (MOS). This applies to every voivodeship office, so as far as filing goes the procedure is the same regardless of the city. A few kinds of temporary residence application are still filed on paper - we will check whether yours is one of them.

Despite the electronic route, at some point in the case you must appear in person in Warsaw - to give fingerprints and a specimen signature and to show your original passport. How the date is set depends on the office: in some voivodeships the office sets it in a summons, in Poznań you book the visit yourself in the case status panel and the calendar stays open only for a limited time. We keep track of that deadline for you. Everything else we handle remotely.

What makes the Warsaw office different

The Mazovian Voivodeship Office runs your case across three systems at once, each for a different purpose. You file through MOS, the office corresponds through e-Doręczenia, and you track the case in inPOL. The department asks explicitly that documents sent through e-Doręczenia are not duplicated by post.

• You collect the residence card in person only, after taking a ticket marked “E” from the machine.
• A child over 13 must be present when the card is collected; for younger children a legal representative collects it.
• Correspondence handed in personally goes to the Client Service Point on pl. Bankowy, with a daily limit of 100 tickets marked “C”.

The statutory deadline for a decision on a temporary residence permit is 60 days from a complete application. The office does not publish actual waiting times, so nobody can honestly give you a date - us included.

Do you have to travel to the firm

No. The firm is based in Białystok but handles cases across Poland, including Warsaw. The consultation is held online, we agree how to send documents once the case is accepted, and we file the application electronically.

What we do

• Choosing the residence basis before an application exists.
• Assembling the documents and filing through MOS.
• Running the case before the authority competent for Warsaw.
• Answering official requests and keeping track of deadlines.
• Appealing a refusal to the Head of the Office for Foreigners.

The content of this page is informational and is not legal advice in an individual case.