Poland

Polish citizenship passes by descent automatically and by operation of law. Under Article 14, point 1 of the Act of 2 April 2009 on Polish Citizenship (consolidated text Dz.U. 2025, item 1611, announced 7 November 2025), a child acquires Polish citizenship at birth if at least one parent is a Polish citizen, wherever the child is born. Most of the Act took effect on 15 August 2012; Chapter 5 (restoration) and Article 65 took effect three months earlier, on 15 May 2012. A descendant of Polish emigrants is therefore in many cases already a Polish citizen; the relevant procedure is not naturalisation but confirmation of possession of Polish citizenship (potwierdzenie posiadania obywatelstwa polskiego) under Articles 55–58. The confirmation decision is declaratory: it states that citizenship exists, it does not create it.

The routes relevant to people of Polish descent are:

• Confirmation (Articles 55–58) — for anyone who can show an unbroken chain of transmission from an ancestor who held Polish citizenship, with no loss event before the birth of the next generation. There is no residence, language or age requirement.
• Restoration (przywrócenie, Articles 38–45) — for a person who personally lost Polish citizenship before 1 January 1999 under one of the provisions in the closed list of Article 38(1): Articles 11 or 13 of the 1920 Act, Articles 11 or 12 of the 1951 Act, or Articles 13, 14 or 15 of the 1962 Act. Losses on other grounds — notably deprivation under the Act of 31 March 1938 — fall outside it. Restoration benefits only the former citizen, not descendants born after the loss; the Minister of the Interior and Administration decides.
• Presidential grant (nadanie, Articles 18–19) — fully discretionary; the President of the Republic may grant citizenship to any foreigner, with no statutory conditions. This is the fallback where a chain is broken.
• Recognition (uznanie, Article 30) — residence-based naturalisation before the voivode. The facilitated variant in Article 30(1)(7) covers a foreigner who has resided continuously in Poland for at least one year on a permanent-residence permit obtained on grounds of Polish origin or of the Karta Polaka; holding the permit or card while living abroad does not qualify. Article 30(2) requires Polish at level B1 or better, proved by a state certificate or by a school-leaving certificate from a school in Poland or from a Polish-medium school abroad, with certificates from a szkoła policealna — a post-secondary non-tertiary vocational school — excluded by Article 30(2a), which was added by the Act of 4 April 2025 (Dz.U. 2025, item 622) with effect from 1 July 2025.
• Repatriation — under the Act of 9 November 2000 on Repatriation (consolidated text Dz.U. 2026, item 90), citizenship is acquired by operation of law on crossing the Polish border with a repatriation visa. Article 9(1) sets three cumulative conditions for that visa: Polish origin; permanent residence, before the Act entered into force on 1 January 2001, in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan or the Asian part of the Russian Federation; and deportation or exile of the applicant or an ascendant to those territories by the authorities of the former Soviet Union on account of Polish origin. The third condition was added by Article 1(6) of the Act of 25 June 2025 (Dz.U. 2025, item 921) and governs every application made from 1 August 2025, applications pending on that date remaining under the former test; Polish origin without a deportation in the family no longer suffices. A spouse and descendants to the fourth degree may accompany the repatriate (Article 9(3)–(4)). Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, the Baltic states and European Russia are outside the scheme, unless the Council of Ministers extends it to further states by regulation under Article 10.

Since Poland joined the European Union on 1 May 2004, confirmed Polish citizenship carries EU citizenship with it.

The 2009 Act contains no generational cut-off. The anchor ancestor may be a parent, grandparent, great-grandparent or earlier, provided two things can be shown: that the ancestor held Polish citizenship — normally by falling within Article 2 of the Act of 20 January 1920 on Citizenship of the Polish State when it took effect on 31 January 1920, or by acquiring citizenship under the post-First World War treaties — and that citizenship then passed without interruption from generation to generation. Each link is tested against the statute in force at that person's birth, and the transmitting ancestor must still have held Polish citizenship on the day the next generation was born.

How intermediate generations transmitted citizenship changed over time. Until 19 January 1951, children born in wedlock took the father's citizenship and children born out of wedlock the mother's (Article 5 of the 1920 Act); a claim through a married Polish grandmother and a foreign grandfather therefore generally fails for births before that date. From 19 January 1951 transmission ceased to depend on the father's line, but not unconditionally: Article 8(1) of the Act of 8 January 1951 gave Polish citizenship to a child of one Polish and one foreign parent only where the child was born in Poland, and Article 9 extended that rule to children born abroad only if the foreign state's law applied the same principles to children born in Poland to parents of different nationalities. For births abroad between 19 January 1951 and 20 August 1962 — the ordinary diaspora case — that reciprocity condition has to be checked against the foreign law of the time. From 21 August 1962, Article 6(1) of the Act of 15 February 1962 gave the child Polish citizenship with no territorial or reciprocity limit. Under both statutes the parents could jointly opt for the foreign parent's citizenship within one month of the birth (Article 8(1) of the 1951 Act) or within three months (Article 6(1) of the 1962 Act); a child who lost out that way could elect Polish citizenship personally, after the age of 13 under Article 8(3) of the 1951 Act, or between the age of 16 and six months after majority under Article 6(3) of the 1962 Act. Since 15 August 2012, Article 14, point 1 of the 2009 Act applies with no opt-out.

Ancestors who emigrated before 31 January 1920 did not automatically become Polish citizens, and the decisive words of Article 2 are easily missed: citizenship attached to a person settled in, or born in, the territory of the Polish State only "in so far as she is not entitled to the citizenship of another state". An emigrant who had already naturalised in the United States, Brazil, Germany or elsewhere before 31 January 1920 therefore fell outside Article 2 however well registered he remained, and could come in only under Article 3, which required return to Poland, proof of Polish descent, a declaration of intent and renunciation of the foreign citizenship. For those who had not naturalised, Article 2 did treat registration as equivalent to presence in three of the four limbs — entry, or the right to entry, in the permanent population registers of the former Congress Kingdom; the right of pertinency (Heimatrecht) in a commune of the former Austro-Hungarian territories; registration in a municipal or rural commune or in one of the estate organisations on former Russian-Empire lands. The Prussian-partition limb is different: it requires settled residence in the territory, by virtue of German citizenship, already before 1 January 1908, and offers no registration alternative. These cases turn on archival evidence and are assessed individually.

Four principal statutes govern whether an ancestor was a Polish citizen at a given time:

• Act of 20 January 1920 on Citizenship of the Polish State (Dz.U. 1920 No 7, item 44), in force 31 January 1920 to 19 January 1951. Article 2 defined the initial body of citizens by settlement, registration or birth in the territories taken from the three partitioning empires, subject to the proviso that the person was not entitled to another state's citizenship; the Minorities Treaty signed at Versailles on 28 June 1919 and the Treaty of Riga of 18 March 1921, which allowed options between Polish and Soviet citizenship, supplemented it. Acquisition was by birth (Articles 4–5: father's line for marital children, mother's for non-marital), by legitimation, recognition or adoption (Article 6), by a foreign woman's marriage to a Polish citizen (Article 7), and by grant (Articles 8–9). A wife's and minor children's citizenship followed the husband or father (Article 13).
• Act of 8 January 1951 on Polish Citizenship (Dz.U. 1951 No 4, item 25), in force 19 January 1951 to 21 August 1962. It removed the father's-line rule, subject to the territorial and reciprocity limits of Articles 8 and 9, and replaced automatic loss on foreign naturalisation with a permission requirement. Its Article 4 excluded from citizenship persons who had held it on 31 August 1939 but lived permanently abroad and either had acquired another citizenship under a border-change treaty, or were of Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Latvian or Estonian nationality, or of German nationality unless the spouse was a Polish citizen living in Poland.
• Act of 15 February 1962 on Polish Citizenship (Dz.U. 1962 No 10, item 49), in force 21 August 1962 to 15 August 2012. It continued the 1951 model: birthright transmission through either parent (Articles 4–6), loss by permitted change of citizenship (Article 13), by an accepted declaration of a woman who acquired a foreign nationality on marriage (Article 14), or by deprivation (Article 15). Article 19 separately provided that persons who had acquired Polish citizenship under Articles 2a or 3(2) of the 1920 Act as amended were not Polish citizens if they held a foreign citizenship and lived abroad — a statutory interruption effective 21 August 1962.
• Act of 2 April 2009 on Polish Citizenship, in force since 15 August 2012. In preventive review at the President's request the Constitutional Tribunal held Article 30 of the Act consistent with Article 137 of the Constitution, the President's prerogative to grant citizenship (judgment Kp 5/09 of 18 January 2012); the review reached neither the rest of the Act nor any other constitutional standard.

Three further instruments decide status for identifiable groups: the Act of 26 September 1922 on the option of Polish citizenship by former Austro-Hungarian citizens (Dz.U. 1922 No 88, item 791), the Act of 31 March 1938 on deprivation of citizenship (Dz.U. 1938 No 22, item 191), in force 1 April 1938 to 19 January 1951, and the Decree of 13 September 1946 on the exclusion of persons of German nationality from the Polish national community (Dz.U. 1946 No 55, item 310), in force 8 November 1946 to 31 December 1948. All were repealed or superseded by 19 January 1951, but their effects on individuals survive.

Each citizenship statute contained a version of the same rule on multiple nationality: Article 1 of the 1920 and 1951 Acts and Article 2 of the 1962 Act said a Polish citizen cannot simultaneously be, or be recognised as, a citizen of another state. In judgment II OSK 2095/21 of 19 December 2022 the Supreme Administrative Court held that Article 1 of the 1920 Act was a rule about how Poland treats its citizens, not a prohibition on holding a second nationality, so dual nationality as such never broke a chain.

Before 19 January 1951 citizenship was easy to lose. Under Article 11 of the 1920 Act loss followed from acquisition of a foreign citizenship — the statute says simply "by acquiring a foreign citizenship", the requirement of voluntariness being a later judicial gloss — and from accepting public office or entering military service in a foreign state without the consent of the Polish Government. Under Article 13 a man's loss extended to his wife and to his children under 18. A Polish woman who acquired her husband's nationality by marrying a foreigner lost Polish citizenship; Article 10 let her recover it only if, after the marriage ended, she settled in Poland and made a declaration before the administrative authority of her place of residence — a route closed to women who stayed abroad. Two further grounds sit outside Article 11 and are routinely missed: deprivation under the Act of 31 March 1938, aimed at citizens abroad who had acted to the detriment of the Polish State, had lost their connection with Polish statehood after five continuous years abroad, or had failed to return when summoned, which extended to the wife and children under 18 living abroad; and the Decree of 13 September 1946 on persons of German nationality. Article 15(1) of the 1951 Act deprived the 1938 orders of effect only where they had been issued before 1 September 1939, and then only against persons domiciled in Poland when the 1951 Act took effect; for those still abroad, and for any order issued on or after 1 September 1939, the loss stood unless the Council of State restored citizenship under Article 15(2), and a 1938-Act deprivation is outside the closed restoration list of Article 38(1) of the 2009 Act.

The most important counter-rule for descent claims is the proviso to Article 11 of the 1920 Act: persons obliged to active military service could acquire a foreign citizenship only after obtaining the consent of the Minister of Military Affairs, and failing that were still to be regarded as Polish citizens. Administrative-court case law reads "obliged to active military service" broadly, as covering men within the universal military obligation, and holds that the concept of military service must be construed by reference to the Polish military-duty statute in force on the relevant date (Supreme Administrative Court, II OSK 1778/11 of 11 October 2012). Those ceilings moved: under the Act of 23 May 1924 the obligation ran to the end of the calendar year in which a man turned 50, and to the end of the year of the 60th birthday for officers of the pospolite ruszenie; from 1 September 1938 Article 12(1) of the Act of 9 April 1938 set a single ceiling of the end of the calendar year in which a man turned 60, for all men; from 28 May 1950 the Act of 4 February 1950 returned the general ceiling to 50, with 60 for officers up to the rank of colonel and 65 for generals. The 1938 Act also allowed the Minister of Military Affairs, acting of his own motion with the concurrence of the Minister of the Interior, to release individuals or whole groups who had already acquired a foreign citizenship without consent (Article 11(6)), so the protection cannot be assumed. Where it holds, adult male emigrants who naturalised in the United States, Canada or elsewhere within the military-duty age before 19 January 1951 remained Polish citizens in the eyes of Polish law — the standard basis on which their descendants confirm citizenship today. The proviso protects only against loss through naturalisation: on the dominant line of case law, entry into foreign military service before 19 January 1951, including conscription and reserve service, and specifically service in the Israeli forces in 1948–1951, caused loss under Article 11(2).

Between 19 January 1951 and 31 December 1998, loss required an individual permission of the Polish state to change citizenship, coupled with acquisition of the foreign citizenship (Article 11 of the 1951 Act; Article 13 of the 1962 Act), a woman's accepted declaration on acquiring a foreign nationality through marriage (Article 14 of the 1962 Act), or deprivation (Article 12 of the 1951 Act; Article 15 of the 1962 Act). The Council of State decided under both statutes (Article 13 of the 1951 Act; Article 16 of the 1962 Act) until it was abolished in 1989; the President's power to grant citizenship and to consent to renunciation was then written into Article 41 of the Constitutional Act of 17 October 1992 with effect from 8 December 1992, and into Article 16 of the 1962 Act itself by the Act of 24 July 1998 with effect from 1 January 1999. Two general resolutions of the Council of State — No 37/56 of 16 May 1956 on emigrants to Germany and No 5/58 of 23 January 1958 on emigrants to Israel — purported to give blanket permission to whole categories of emigrants. The dominant view of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court, from the Supreme Court's judgment III RN 56/01 of 17 September 2001 onwards, is that a general resolution could not replace the individual permission the statute required; isolated judgments have gone the other way, so these files still receive close scrutiny. On the same reasoning, the one-way travel document issued to Jewish citizens leaving around March 1968 did not by itself effect loss of citizenship, which had to be established through the statutory permission procedure. Bilateral conventions with socialist states could also produce loss, but they did different things: the Polish–Soviet convention of 21 January 1958 ran an option campaign for existing dual nationals, while the Polish–Soviet convention of 31 March 1965 (in force 30 January 1966) was preventive, and the Polish–Czechoslovak convention of 17 May 1965 (in the Polish legal order from 20 May 1966 to 20 May 2001) contained an option mechanism. Denunciation was authorised by Acts of 18 November 1999, and the conventions ceased to have effect between the end of 2000 and 30 April 2002. Since the Constitution of 2 April 1997 took effect on 17 October 1997, a Polish citizen may not lose Polish citizenship except by his own renunciation (Article 34(2)). The only route out today is renunciation with the consent of the President of the Republic (Articles 46–47 of the 2009 Act), which is discretionary. Nothing a citizen does on or after 1 January 1999 — foreign naturalisation included — breaks the chain for that citizen's later-born children.

The 2009 Act contains a restitution-type route: restoration under Articles 38–45, available since 15 May 2012, for foreigners who lost Polish citizenship before 1 January 1999 on one of the grounds listed in Article 38(1). It is barred to those who between 1 September 1939 and 8 May 1945 voluntarily joined the armed forces of the Axis states or their allies, or accepted public office in the service of those states, to those who acted to the detriment of Poland, in particular of its independence and sovereignty, or took part in violations of human rights, and to those whose restoration would threaten the defence or security of the state or public order (Article 38(2)–(3)). Article 65 separately declares void from the outset, and without legal effect from the moment they were adopted, the Council of Ministers resolutions of 26 September 1946 depriving General Władysław Anders, and the generals and officers who joined the Polish Resettlement Corps, of citizenship, together with those of 21 November 1947 concerning Stanisław Mikołajczyk and of 19 February 1949 concerning Stanisław Bańczyk, Tomasz Kołakowski and Stanisław Wójcik. Where a doubt arises about the citizenship of a person covered by the first two resolutions, or of a descendant of such a person, the authority competent to issue an identity card or passport refers the matter to the voivode, who must decide within 30 days; that accelerated route does not extend to the persons named in the later two resolutions.

Ethnic-origin routes exist alongside descent. Repatriation under the Act of 9 November 2000 confers citizenship by operation of law on crossing the border with a repatriation visa and is free of charge, but since 1 August 2025 it reaches a narrow group: the applicant must be of Polish origin, must have lived permanently before 1 January 2001 in one of the eight named Asian republics of the former Soviet Union or the Asian part of the Russian Federation, and must show that the applicant or an ascendant was deported or exiled to those territories by the Soviet authorities because of Polish origin (Article 9(1)). The Council of Ministers may open the scheme to further states by regulation under Article 10. The Karta Polaka under the Act of 7 September 2007 (consolidated text Dz.U. 2026, item 76) is not citizenship, but leads to a permanent-residence permit and, after a year of continuous residence in Poland, to recognition as a citizen under Article 30(1)(7) of the 2009 Act.

There is no registration deadline for children born abroad: citizenship by descent arises at birth by operation of law and cannot lapse through failure to register. The qualifications on that principle are historical, and there is more than one: the father's-line rule of Article 5 of the 1920 Act for births before 19 January 1951; the reciprocity condition of Article 9 of the 1951 Act for births abroad between 19 January 1951 and 20 August 1962; and the parental opt-out declarations available from 19 January 1951 to 14 August 2012 for children of mixed marriages, one month under the 1951 Act and three months under the 1962 Act. Where such a declaration was made the child did not acquire Polish citizenship at birth, but could elect it personally later under Article 8(3) of the 1951 Act or Article 6(3) of the 1962 Act, and a line broken at that link may have been repaired that way.

Poland tolerates multiple citizenship in every route relevant to descent. Article 3 of the 2009 Act provides that a Polish citizen who also holds another citizenship has the same rights and obligations towards Poland as a person holding Polish citizenship alone, and may not invoke the other citizenship, or rights and obligations flowing from it, with legal effect before the Polish authorities. No renunciation of the other nationality is required of applicants for confirmation, restoration, a presidential grant or recognition, and acquiring a foreign citizenship today does not cause loss of Polish citizenship. The practical corollary, as Polish consulates advise, is that dual nationals should enter and leave Poland on a Polish passport or identity card.

The same tolerance, read backwards, matters for historical chains: in judgment II OSK 2095/21 of 19 December 2022 the Supreme Administrative Court confirmed that even under the 1920 Act there was no general prohibition on holding a second nationality — the loss rules of Article 11, not dual nationality itself, decided whether citizenship survived.

An application for confirmation is made on the form prescribed by the Regulation of the Minister of the Interior of 7 August 2012 (Dz.U. 2012, item 925) and must state the applicant's personal data, the data of ascendants to the second degree (parents and grandparents), and the facts relevant to acquisition and possible loss. Under Article 56(2) of the 2009 Act the applicant must attach documents proving what the form asserts, unless obtaining them meets obstacles difficult to overcome — a lower threshold than impossibility, and the provision relied on where archives were destroyed. In practice the file has two strands:

• The civil-records chain: birth and marriage certificates for every generation from the anchor ancestor down to the applicant, plus the applicant's identity document. Under Article 12 of the 2009 Act, foreign-language documents must carry a translation into Polish made or certified by a sworn translator or a Polish consul; for documents from EU member states a multilingual standard form under Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 can replace the translation. Consulates additionally instruct that foreign civil-status documents be apostilled (Hague Convention states) or legalised by a Polish consul.
• Proof of the ancestor's Polish citizenship and of no loss: pre-war Polish passports, identity cards, military service books, certificates from the permanent population registers, voter rolls, consular registrations, or extracts from Polish state archives and civil registry offices. Where an ancestor naturalised abroad before 19 January 1951, the office needs the naturalisation date, the ancestor's date of birth and sex — the Article 11 proviso turns on whether he was still within the Polish military-duty age on that date — and evidence of whether he performed foreign military service. Where the applicant's parent was then a minor, the father's documents govern.

A positive decision does not by itself produce identity documents. To obtain a PESEL number and a first Polish passport, the applicant's foreign birth certificate and, where applicable, marriage certificate must first be transcribed into the Polish civil register, at any Polish registry office or through a consulate.

The competent authority is the voivode of the applicant's place of residence in Poland or last place of residence in Poland; for applicants who have never lived in Poland — the vast majority of descent cases — it is the Masovian Voivode in Warsaw (Article 55(1) of the 2009 Act). A person living abroad may file directly with the voivode, by post or in person, including through an attorney-in-fact, or through the Polish consul for their place of residence, who forwards the file to the voivode without delay (Article 57). The person concerned may apply, as may anyone showing a legal interest or a duty to obtain the decision (Article 55(1)), and proceedings can also be opened ex officio (Article 55(2)). The consular channel is optional for confirmation but mandatory for restoration: under Article 42(1) a foreigner living outside Poland files the restoration application through the consul competent for their residence.

The sequence is: assemble the documentary file; submit the form with the stamp duty paid; the voivode examines acquisition and every potential loss event generation by generation, may request supplements and may query Polish archives; the voivode then issues an administrative decision confirming possession of Polish citizenship, confirming its loss, or refusing. There is no oath, no interview and no language or civics test in the confirmation procedure. An adverse decision can be appealed within 14 days to the Minister of the Interior and Administration, lodged through the voivode who issued it, and thereafter to the Voivodeship Administrative Court in Warsaw and the Supreme Administrative Court. With the confirmation decision in hand, the applicant transcribes the civil records, obtains a PESEL number and applies for a Polish passport at a consulate or passport office. The parallel routes end differently: restoration takes effect when the Minister's decision becomes final (Article 39(2)), with a request for reconsideration to the same Minister within 14 days as the internal remedy, and a presidential grant is an act of the President that is outside the Code of Administrative Procedure and cannot be appealed.

Since 1 August 2025, Article 10(3a) of the 2009 Act, inserted by the Act of 25 June 2025 (Dz.U. 2025, item 921), sets a term of 6 months from receipt of the application for all cases other than those in Article 10(1) and (2). Confirmation, recognition and restoration are all covered; only presidential-grant and renunciation cases, which sit outside the Code of Administrative Procedure, have no statutory decision deadline, and presidential grants routinely exceed a year. The term can be extended in justified cases on notice, and periods spent waiting for documents from other authorities, periods of suspension and delays caused by the applicant do not count, under Articles 35 § 5 and 36 of the Code of Administrative Procedure. These are targets rather than a description of practice: the Masovian Voivode's office, which concentrates nearly all diaspora cases, is reported by practitioners in mid-2026 to be running at roughly 20 to 24 months on a queue of over 20,000 files, and filing through a consulate adds transmission time. No official statistic on waiting times is published.

Government charges only. Euro equivalents are at the National Bank of Poland mid rate of PLN 4.31 to EUR 1 on 21 August 2026; consular fees are set in euro and collected in the currency of the receiving state.

• Confirmation decision: stamp duty PLN 277 (approx. EUR 64) for applications filed from 1 August 2025, the obligation arising on the day the application reaches the office; plus PLN 17 (approx. EUR 4) for a power of attorney, exempt where it is granted to a spouse, to any ascendant or descendant, or to a sibling. The Masovian Voivode's office states the duty is due whatever the outcome, including a refusal or a discontinuance, while the Ministry of the Interior's own guidance says a refund may be applied for in those cases. Confirmation of citizenship acquired by repatriation is exempt.
• Filing through a consulate: consular fee of EUR 100 for receiving and working up a confirmation application and serving the decision, under the tariff in force since 1 January 2026 (USD 118 in the United States, GBP 88 in the United Kingdom). This is in addition to the PLN 277 stamp duty, which attaches to the voivode's decision and is listed alongside the consular fee by the Ministry of the Interior; the individual consular pages describe only the consular act.
• Restoration: stamp duty PLN 1,000 (approx. EUR 232) since 1 August 2025 where the application is filed directly with the Minister; consular fee EUR 50 for the mandatory consular filing from abroad.
• Presidential grant: PLN 1,669 (approx. EUR 387) for the voivode's acceptance of the application since 1 August 2025, the same amount as for a renunciation application; EUR 450 through a consulate. Recognition as a citizen: PLN 1,000 (approx. EUR 232) since 1 August 2025, with decisions under Article 30(1)(4) and (5) — minors with one Polish parent, and minors whose parent has had citizenship restored — exempt.
• Follow-on documents: transcription of a foreign civil-status record PLN 50 (approx. EUR 12) in Poland or EUR 60 at a consulate; a 10-year adult passport PLN 140 (approx. EUR 32) in Poland or EUR 140 at a consulate. Consular translation costs EUR 120 per page begun where the consul prepares and certifies it, EUR 60 per page where the consul checks and certifies a translation the applicant supplies; consular legalisation of a document is EUR 40.

Acquisition of citizenship by repatriation is free of charge. The figures above are state stamp duties and consular tariff charges only.

This page is not updated regularly, and it may not reflect the current position. It is a general account of Polish citizenship law: statutes are amended, time limits expire, and the practice of the competent authorities moves without the legislation moving with it. Nothing here is legal advice, and nothing here is an assessment of your own family’s position.

Whether there is a claim in your case turns on names, dates and documents that no general page can take into account. The questionnaire is where we ask about them, and a lawyer in our citizenship team reads the answers.