Amendment to the Foreigners Act

Directive (EU) 2021/1883 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 October 2021 on the conditions of entry and residence of third-country nationals for the purposes of highly qualified employment and repealing Council Directive 2009/50/EC required Member States of the European Union to adopt legal arrangements governing entry, rights and residence permits for the purposes of employment in occupations that require higher professional skills – EU Blue Cards, as well as entry, residence conditions and rights of their family members. In order to comply with the above obligation, it was necessary to introduce amendments to the Foreigners Act, among which the following should be mentioned as the most important:

• changing the definition of higher professional skills to include qualifications stemming from both higher education and professional experience;
• new entitlements for the EU Blue Card holders related to the new institutions: short-term and long-term mobility, which permit the EU Blue Card holder to move to another EU Member State on preferential terms; additionally, the stay of the EU Blue Card holder in another EU Member State as part of the above-mentioned mobility will count as a stay entitling to obtain the EU long-term resident status;
• a special family reunification procedure for family members of foreign nationals benefiting from long-term mobility of the EU Blue Card holders;
• the right for the EU Blue Card holders to conduct business activity on the same terms as Polish citizens;
• new notification obligations imposed on the EU Blue Card holders concerning
  • a change of the entity entrusting the performance of work, or 
  • a cessation of meeting the requirements for granting the EU Blue Card, 
  • or the start of long-term mobility.

Currently, applications for temporary residence permits, permanent residence permits and long-term EU resident permits should be submitted in writing, during personal appearance at the voivodeship office. The above procedure will be changed by allowing an electronic submission of these applications with a use of an online service via the Case Handling Module (in Polish: Moduł Obsługi Spraw – MOS).

The obligation to appear in person will be maintained, among others in order to take fingerprints and present documents necessary to confirm the data contained in the application, requested by the voivode. The stamp in the foreigner’s passport, which currently serves as a confirmation of the application submission, will be replaced by a confirmation certificate.

Under the currently applicable provisions, the validity period of travel documents issued to beneficiaries of international protection, i.e. foreigners who have been granted the refugee status or subsidiary protection in the territory of the Republic of Poland, is 2 years, and the validity period of residence cards depends on the type of protection granted. Foreign nationals who have been granted the refugee status are issued residence cards for a period of 3 years and persons eligible for subsidiary protection – for a period of 2 years, while other Member States generally apply longer validity periods. In view of the growing number of beneficiaries of international protection in Poland, it was considered justified to extend the validity period of travel documents and residence cards issued to foreigners who have been granted the refugee status in the territory of the Republic of Poland. According to the proposed regulations, travel documents would be issued for a period of up to 5 years. In turn, residence cards for foreigners who granted subsidiary protection in the territory of the Republic of Poland would be issued for a period of up to 3 years.

The planned amendments to the provisions of the Foreigners Act should be viewed as positive: improving the actions of the authorities and facilitating the foreigners’ everyday life in the Polish social and economic reality. Employers and foreigners are recommended to monitor the progress of legislative work on the amendment so that they could take advantage of the planned improvements as soon as they enter into force.