The first time always looks the same. There is a strong candidate, there is time pressure, and there is someone in the business saying “I think we need to file something with an authority.” Nobody is quite sure what, so the search begins — and an hour later you know less than when you started, because every source describes a different route.
The difficulty is not that the rules are complex. It is that there are several routes, the choice is made at the very beginning, and it depends on facts nobody asks a candidate at interview.
Here are the five questions, in the order they need answering. The order matters: the answer to the first determines whether the next three are relevant at all.
Question 1: what is their citizenship?
Not “where are they from” — what passport do they hold. For people who have lived outside their country of origin for years, those are different facts.
Citizenship drives everything downstream: whether a visa is needed at all, whether a simplified route exists, whether working on a visa-free basis is permissible, and how long the consular stage will take.
An EU citizen needs neither a visa nor a work permit. If that is your situation, the rest of this article does not apply to you — ordinary employer obligations are all that remain.
Question 2: where is the person right now?
This splits the process into two very different scenarios.
Already in Poland. They hold some basis of stay — a visa, a residence card, visa-free presence, a stamp confirming a filed application. You need to establish which, because it determines whether they may take up work and on what terms.
Abroad. The process is longer and has a fixed sequence: the employer obtains the document authorising work, then the candidate applies for a visa at a Polish consulate, then they travel. This cannot be reordered or meaningfully run in parallel.
This is where the most expensive planning error happens. Companies calculate a start date from the administrative processing time and forget the consular stage entirely. Appointment availability at a consulate is frequently a longer bottleneck than the permit procedure itself.
Question 3: what will they work on the basis of?
There are several bases and they are not interchangeable.
Work permit — issued by the regional governor on the employer’s application. Tied to a specific employee, employer, position and set of conditions. The type depends on the capacity in which the person will work; the most common covers ordinary employment with a Polish employer, with a separate type for board members.
Declaration of entrustment of work — a simplified route for nationals of selected countries, entered into a register by the district labour office. Faster, but limited in duration and scope.
Notification — a separate simplified procedure applying to Ukrainian nationals covered by special arrangements.
Single permit for temporary residence and work — one document covering both layers, applied for by the foreign national who is already in Poland.
Exemption from the permit requirement — exists for defined categories and situations, but is often conditional. Never assume an exemption without identifying the specific ground and being able to evidence it.
Question 4: is a labour market test required?
For some permits you need a statement from the district governor confirming that local recruitment could not meet the need. In practice: you advertise the role through the labour office and wait to see whether any registered jobseeker takes it.
This step adds weeks. Exemptions exist — for certain occupations, certain situations and certain nationalities. Checking beforehand takes fifteen minutes. Discovering it after filing means starting again.
Question 5: what happens once the document arrives?
Obtaining the permit is the middle of the process, not the end. Still outstanding:
- A written contract, concluded before work begins, on terms no worse than those stated in the permit. Divergence between permit and contract is one of the first things an inspector checks.
- A translation of the contract into a language the employee understands, presented before signing.
- Registration for social insurance on general terms.
- Pre-employment medical checks and health and safety training — the same as for any employee, with the language barrier accounted for during training.
- Copies of the legalisation documents in the personnel file, retained for the whole period of employment.
- Notification obligations — on starting and ending work, and on changes to conditions. The deadlines are short and counted in days.
Three things nobody mentions at the start
A permit has one expiry date and residence has another. The document authorising work and the residence title expire independently. Lawful employment requires both, continuously. This is the single most common cause of unintentional breach in companies that did everything correctly a year earlier.
The permit belongs to the employer, not the employee. It is not a document the person carries with them. A change of employer means a new procedure.
Changing the terms of employment can invalidate the document. A promotion, a change of position, a change in working hours, or pay falling below the level stated in the permit — each of these requires a check that the document still matches reality.
How long does it take?
The honest answer is that nobody can promise you a date.
Processing time depends on the region, the caseload of the particular authority, the completeness of the application, and whether a request to supplement the file arrives partway through. Differences between regions are substantial and they move over time.
What can be said honestly: a complete, correctly filed application is the only variable on your side. Formal deficiencies are the most common reason a case takes twice as long as it should — not because the authority is slow, but because the clock effectively restarts.
What not to do
Do not let someone start “just for now, until the paperwork arrives.” One day of work without a basis is a full breach. There is no grace period and no allowance for good intentions.
Do not copy a solution from a peer in your industry. The route depends on citizenship, location and role. What worked for someone else, with a different combination of those three, may simply be wrong for you.
Do not rely on what the candidate tells you. Not from distrust — the distinction between the right to reside and the right to work defeats Polish HR departments regularly, and there is no reason a candidate would grasp it.
Polish rules on employing foreign nationals change several times a year. Always verify the current position on a specific case before acting.
Start here
Before filing anything, fill in five fields for your candidate: citizenship · where they are now · intended position · intended start date · whether they already hold any residence document.
That is the minimum data set needed to choose a route. Without it, every answer you find online is an answer to somebody else’s question.
Have the five fields and no idea what follows from them? Get in touch — we will tell you which route is yours and what it requires.