Residence card in Katowice 2026 — office at Damrota 16, hotline 780 100 935, card pickup and fees

In Katowice residence cases are handled by the Department for Foreigners of the Silesian Voivodeship Office. Clients are served at ul. Damrota 16 — that is where you go for fingerprints and to collect your card — but letters are sent to ul. Jagiellońska 25. The application is filed electronically in MOS, and the rest of the case happens on site: a summons for fingerprints, an online booking to collect the card, and a call to the hotline, which is the only way to find out what is going on in the file. Below are the addresses, numbers, hours and accounts we checked on the office website on 6 October 2026. If you would rather have a representative run the case from the start, see residence legalisation online.

Damrota or Jagiellońska — where you go and where you write

Since 9 May 2024 foreigners in Katowice have been served in the building at ul. Damrota 16: entrance on the right-hand side of the building, a service hall, a registry desk in room 0.22 and a drop box in the waiting area. The correspondence address has not changed, though — letters, replies to summonses and powers of attorney go to Śląski Urząd Wojewódzki, Wydział Spraw Cudzoziemców, ul. Jagiellońska 25, 40-032 Katowice. Mixing up these two addresses is the most common Katowice mistake: a letter sent to Damrota wanders around the office while the deadline in the summons keeps running.

The Silesian voivode serves the whole province in three places: Katowice for most counties and cities, the branch in Bielsko-Biała for the Bielsko, Cieszyn, Pszczyna and Żywiec counties, and the branch in Częstochowa for the Częstochowa, Kłobuck, Lubliniec, Myszków and Zawiercie counties. Jurisdiction follows your place of residence, not convenience. How the offices in Kraków and Wrocław work is described in our article residence card in Kraków, Wrocław and Katowice.

Addresses, phones and hours — as of October 2026

• client service in Katowice: ul. Damrota 16, 40-022 Katowice — fingerprints, card pickup, information point, registry desk (room 0.22) and drop box;
• correspondence address: Śląski Urząd Wojewódzki w Katowicach, Wydział Spraw Cudzoziemców, ul. Jagiellońska 25, 40-032 Katowice;
• foreigners' hotline: 780 100 935, working days 7:30–15:30 — one number for Katowice, Bielsko-Biała and Częstochowa; e-mail cudzoziemcy@katowice.uw.gov.pl (Bielsko-Biała: cudzoziemcy.bielsko@katowice.uw.gov.pl, Częstochowa: cudzoziemcy.czestochowa@katowice.uw.gov.pl) — give your case number, first name, surname and date of birth in the message;
• office hours: Monday to Friday 7:30–15:30; on 28 December 2026 all locations are closed;
• regional branches: Bielsko-Biała, ul. Piastowska 40, and Częstochowa, ul. Jana III Sobieskiego 7 — both take fingerprints and issue cards for their counties.

The hotline will not tell you what decision was made — the consultant confirms the stage of the case and whether the card has physically arrived at the branch. Fees can be paid at the payment machine on the ground floor at Damrota 16, to the left of the entrance, both to the city account and to the voivodeship office account. We remind our clients of appointment dates and changes in office hours before every visit.

Collecting a residence card in Katowice step by step

In the Silesian province residence cards are issued only after a prior online booking and only at the branch that issued the decision. Katowice books through uw.bezkolejki.eu/suw4, Bielsko-Biała through uw.bezkolejki.eu/suw2, Częstochowa through uw.bezkolejki.eu/suw3. The office charges no fee for the booking.

• before you book, call the hotline 780 100 935 and confirm the card is physically at the branch — a booking for a card that is not there yet, or without an issued decision, is cancelled automatically;
• book one slot per person in the bezkolejki system; fictitious data or a double booking also end with the visit being cancelled;
• come in person with a valid identity document and proof of the 100 zł fee — a representative or employer cannot collect the card, and a minor comes with a legal guardian.

The most common pickup problem is not the booking system but the data: a typo in the surname, an outdated passport number or an old address in the file. A card with an error goes back to production, and you start the booking again. That is why we check the data in the decision before the card is personalised.

Fingerprints, e-Delivery and certifying documents

Since 27 April 2026 applications for temporary residence, permanent residence and EU long-term residence are filed only electronically through MOS — no booking and no queue. The office issues a separate summons for fingerprints, a signature specimen and the original passport, on a date it sets itself. The Katowice office asks everyone with a MOS case to have an e-Delivery (e-Doręczenia) mailbox — that is where summonses and appointment dates arrive. Anyone without a mailbox gets a paper letter and learns the date later. In spring 2026 the office had to postpone some scheduled appointments for technical reasons and sent the new dates by post.

There is one more Katowice rule few people know about: in cases handled electronically, evidence must be electronic documents, and a scan of a paper document has to be certified electronically — by a notary, or by a legal counsel or attorney acting as the representative in the case. As the representative we certify scans of contracts, certificates and decisions ourselves, inspect the file and receive correspondence at the firm's address — you do not need to take a day off to find out what is missing.

Fees in Katowice: two accounts and a rule that changed in 2026

A residence case involves two different fees paid to two different accounts, and a transfer to the wrong account is one of the more common formal defects:

• stamp duty for the permit — 340 zł for temporary residence, 440 zł for temporary residence and work, 640 zł for permanent residence or EU long-term residence — to the account of Katowice City Hall at PKO BP: 52 1020 2313 2672 0211 1111 1111, with a title such as “opłata za zezwolenie na pobyt czasowy i pracę dla [first name and surname]”;
• residence card fee — 100 zł (50 zł for persons under 16 and students) — to the account of the Silesian Voivodeship Office at NBP O/O Katowice: 67 1010 1212 0053 4022 3100 0000.

Proof of both fees is attached to the MOS application as an e-confirmation, a scan or a legible photo. In January 2026 the office announced that failure to pay the stamp duty by the day of the visit at the latest means the application is returned, and since 5 March 2026 the stamp duty is not refunded if the case ends in refusal or discontinuance. A wrongly chosen legal basis therefore costs not only months but also 340, 440 or 640 zł.

Case status and the office's silence

The Silesian Voivodeship Office has no public case-status search, and the office itself notes that MOS does not show the status of the proceedings. What remains is the hotline 780 100 935 or an e-mail to the relevant branch with the case number, name, surname and date of birth. That shows the stage, but not what is missing from the file or whether the official is preparing a refusal. What each stage means is explained in our article residence card case status — what the statuses mean.

The statutory term for a decision is 60 days from the completion of formal defects (Article 112a(1) of the Act on Foreigners). The Katowice office, however, relies on Article 100d of the Ukrainian special act and claims that the running of deadlines in residence cases remains suspended until 4 March 2027, so it cannot be accused of inaction. After the phase-out act of 5 March 2026 part of the special act ceased to apply, and other offices take the view that the deadlines run again — which is why we assess each case separately and say honestly whether a ponaglenie makes sense in it. A ready ponaglenie (formal reminder) signed by a legal counsel costs 199 zł with us, and handling the case together with a complaint about inaction costs 1199 zł; see the online ponaglenie.

How we handle cases in Katowice and what it costs

The law firm Kancelaria Radców Prawnych Bartosz Krajewski handles cases before the Silesian voivode remotely. Our office is in Warsaw, but the application goes through MOS, correspondence comes to the firm's address and e-Delivery mailbox, and the appeal authority for the whole country is the Head of the Office for Foreigners in Warsaw. We determine the legal basis of stay, assemble documents from phone photos, certify scans, file the application, answer summonses and watch the deadlines. You go to Damrota only for fingerprints and to collect the card. We handle residence legalisation for 2200 zł, or 1900 zł at the promotional rate in online mode; official fees are paid separately.

Already have a summons from the Katowice office, or has your case been stuck for months? Send us the letter — usually one conversation is enough to know what to do next. The full scope of our help is described on the page foreigners' cases — lawyer for foreigners.