Residence card in Łódź 2026 — office at Piotrkowska 103, hours, hotline and card pickup

In Łódź, residence cases are handled by the Department of Civil Affairs and Foreigners of the Łódź Voivodeship Office at Piotrkowska 103 — and that is where you go to give fingerprints and collect your card. The application is filed electronically in MOS, but the rest of the case happens on site: a ticket machine, phone lines open only at set hours, file-inspection bookings once a week. Below are the addresses, numbers and hours we checked on the office website on 2 October 2026. If you would rather have a representative run the case from the start, see our online residence legalisation.

Which department in Łódź handles your case

At the Łódź Voivodeship Office foreigners' matters are handled by two departments, both at Piotrkowska 103. The residence and work legalisation department handles work-related permits: temporary residence and work, business activity, the EU Blue Card, seasonal work and posted workers. The residence legalisation department handles the rest: residence with family, studies and other circumstances, permanent residence, EU long-term residence, replacement of residence cards, invitations and the Pole's Card.

The distinction matters in practice: each department has its own phone numbers, its own booking days and its own rules for inspecting case files. The Łódź voivode serves the whole province — outside Łódź there are service points in Piotrków Trybunalski, Sieradz and Skierniewice. How offices in other cities work is described in our article residence card in Łódź, Gdańsk, Opole and Poznań.

Addresses, phone numbers and hours — as of October 2026

• seat and correspondence address: Łódzki Urząd Wojewódzki w Łodzi, Wydział Spraw Obywatelskich i Cudzoziemców, ul. Piotrkowska 103, 90-425 Łódź;
• foreigners' hotline: 42 664 17 97, working days 8:00–16:00; e-mail callcenter@lodz.uw.gov.pl — the office asks for your first name, surname, date of birth and case number in the message;
• residence card pickup: Monday, Wednesday and Thursday 8:00–15:00, Tuesday 9:30–16:30, after taking a ticket from the ticket machine, no prior booking;
• information and filing point of the residence legalisation department (ground floor, desk no. 1, to the left of the entrance): Monday, Wednesday and Friday 8:00–14:00, Tuesday 9:30–16:00, closed on Thursday;
• the office cash desk where you can pay for the card: Piotrkowska 104, 3rd floor, room 319.

The booking numbers work only at the set hours — the office states plainly that phones are not answered outside them. Hours also change through notices on wsoic.lodzkie.eu: in 2026 the filing point was closed on several single days, and on 14 August the whole department was shut. We remind our clients of such changes before their visit.

Collecting a residence card in Łódź step by step

Since 9 March 2026 Łódź no longer takes phone bookings for card pickup. You collect the card after taking a ticket from the machine, and the office issues no more than 40 tickets a day — anyone who arrives after they run out comes back the next day. Residence cards are not issued on Fridays.

• wait for the information that the card is ready — cards are produced centrally after a positive decision, so extra time passes between the decision and pickup;
• pay 100 zł for issuing the card (50 zł with the reduced rate) to the account of the Łódź Voivodeship Office or at the office cash desk — the account number is below;
• come in person with your passport and proof of payment, preferably in the morning, take a ticket and wait for your number to be called.

The most common problem at pickup is not the queue 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 go back to the ticket queue. That is why we check the data in the decision before the card is personalised.

Fingerprints and inspecting the case file

After the application is filed in MOS, the office summons you to appear in person to give fingerprints — the case stands still until that visit, so the date in the summons is not worth postponing. Since 4 September 2026 the residence legalisation department additionally accepts applications to replace a residence card on Fridays at desk no. 2, 8:00–14:30, and takes fingerprints on the spot. This does not apply to residence and work permits or CUKR cards.

Inspecting the file is the only way to see what is really happening in the case. In the residence and work department bookings are taken on 538 635 973 on Fridays 10:00–11:00 for the following Friday, and in the residence legalisation department on 735 956 367 on Wednesdays 8:30–10:00 for the nearest Thursday. As the representative we inspect the file for the client — you do not need to take a day off work to find out what is missing.

Fees in Łódź: 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 Łódź City Hall at Bank Pekao S.A.: 50 1240 1037 1111 0011 0925 0073;
• fee for issuing the residence card — 100 zł — to the account of the Łódź Voivodeship Office at NBP O/O Łódź: 88 1010 1371 0097 0022 3100 0000, or at the office cash desk.

Since 5 March 2026 the stamp duty for a residence application 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 — the next application is paid for again.

Case status and an office that stays silent

Łódź does not run a separate public case search like some other provinces do. The stage of the application is visible in your MOS account, and details can be requested via the hotline or by e-mail. 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 stages mean.

The statutory time limit for a decision is 60 days from completing formal requirements (Article 112a(1) of the Act on Foreigners). Once it passes, you can file a ponaglenie (formal reminder), which goes into the file and obliges the office to respond. Also watch out for a trap the Łódź office announced on 27 July 2026: if a paper application filed before 27 April 2026 was completed after the deadline in the summons, the date of completion becomes the application date — and an application that thereby fell into the MOS period is left unexamined. A ready ponaglenie 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 Łódź and what it costs

Kancelaria Radców Prawnych Bartosz Krajewski handles cases before the Łódź voivode remotely. Our office is in Warsaw, but the application goes through MOS, correspondence comes to the firm's address, 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, file the application, answer summonses and watch the deadlines. You go to Piotrkowska 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 Łódź 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 — scope of our services.