Global Trade Alert

On 27 December 2013, the Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski signed a new immigration law that went into effect on 1 May 2014. Under the new law, foreigners are able to register for work and residence permits in a single procedure. Temporary residence permits are now granted for three years (previously two) and their extension can now be sought without any time limit (under the previous law, extension applications had to be made at least 45 days before the permit's expiry date). Foreign graduated students are allowed to stay in the country for a year in order to seek employment.
EU nationals are largely unaffected by the new law due to the fact that they already enjoy free movement within the community. Official reports of migration into Poland reveal that, by a wide margin, the non-EU country responsible for the largest number of migrants into Poland is Ukraine, hence it is listed here as an affected trading partner. Smaller numbers of immigrants have come from Belarus, China, and Vietnam.