Residence Card Extension in Poland 2026 — Deadlines and What to Do If It Expired

A residence card ends on the date written in the decision — and on that same day your legal stay ends, unless you have already applied for the next permit. We explain the deadline, what the MOS confirmation gives you, what to do when the card has already expired, and why Ukrainian citizens hold cards valid for longer than the plastic says. If you want a lawyer to prepare and file the application with you — see our online residence legalisation.

A residence card is not extended — you apply for the next permit

People talk about “extending the card”, but no such procedure exists in Polish law. The residence card is only a document confirming the permit, and the permit expires on the date stated in the decision. To stay longer, you must apply for the next permit — temporary residence, temporary residence and work, permanent residence or EU long-term resident — and go through the whole procedure again, with documents valid on the day of filing.

Since 27 April 2026 the application is filed only electronically, through the case handling module (MOS), signed with a trusted profile or a qualified signature. A paper application handed in at the office does not start the procedure. The next permit does not have to have the same purpose as the previous one — it is a good moment to check whether after several years you already qualify for permanent residence or EU long-term resident status, which ends the cycle of renewing the card every two or three years.

Deadline: the last day of legal stay at the latest

Under Article 108(1) of the Act on Foreigners, your stay is legal from the day the application is filed until the day the decision becomes final — provided that the application was filed during legal stay and has no formal defects, or they were remedied on time. This one sentence gives four practical rules:

• the last day to file is the last day of validity of the permit written in the decision and on the card — the next day is already too late and no explanation will fix it
• a last-minute application is effective but risky: a trusted profile outage, a rejected photo file or a missing signature push the filing to a day when your stay is already illegal
• an unremedied formal defect ends with the application being left unexamined, and then the protection of Article 108 disappears as if the application had never existed
• cases for the next permit realistically take many months, so file with a margin — so that your contract and certificates are still current when the official starts reading them

What the confirmation of filing gives you

After filing in MOS you download a confirmation that replaced the old stamp in the passport. It confirms that you stay in Poland legally until the final decision. It is not a travel document, though: it does not entitle you to return to Poland after leaving or to move freely in the Schengen area — details are in our article on whether you can leave Poland while your residence card procedure is pending.

If you work and the next application was filed on time and concerns work for the same employer on the same terms, your work continues without a break until the decision becomes final. A change of employer, position or working hours during the procedure needs a separate analysis — it is one of the easiest ways to end up in illegal employment without realising it.

Your card has already expired and you did not apply

From the day after the last day of validity, your stay is illegal, and an application filed late does not legalise it retroactively. This can end with a return decision and even an entry ban recorded in the SIS. Visa-free travel under the 90/180 rule helps only citizens of visa-exempt countries holding a biometric passport, and only if the day limit is not already used — more in our article on how to keep legal stay after your visa or permit expires.

Do not assume that nothing happened because the office is silent. A Border Guard check, a visit to the office or leaving the country reveals the gap in legal stay at once. Every day of delay narrows the options, so such a case has to be analysed immediately — before you file anything on your own.

Ukrainian citizens: cards valid by law until 4 March 2027

Ukrainian citizens benefit from an exception. Under Article 42(5a) and (8) of the Act of 12 March 2022 on assistance to citizens of Ukraine, as amended by the Act of 23 January 2026 (Journal of Laws 2026, item 203), temporary residence permits and residence cards of Ukrainian citizens whose validity ended after 24 February 2022 are extended by law until 4 March 2027. In practice:

• the extension works automatically — no application, no decision and no UKR status, because the provision speaks of a citizen of Ukraine, not of a person under temporary protection
• the plastic card is not replaced (Article 42(9)) — the old date stays on it, which you must be able to explain during a check or to an employer, ideally with an official confirmation in hand
• during the extension the card does not entitle you to cross the border (Article 42(10)) — you can travel only on a biometric passport under the visa-free regime
• 4 March 2027 is a horizon, not a permanent basis — anyone who wants to stay longer must apply for the next permit before that date, and in the last weeks before it the offices will be flooded with applications

How this extension relates to temporary protection and the PESEL UKR number is explained in a separate article: how long UKR status and temporary protection last.

How much the next permit costs

Official fees are the same as for the first application: 340 PLN stamp duty for a temporary residence permit or 440 PLN for a temporary residence and work permit, and after a positive decision 100 PLN for issuing the residence card — two different fees, paid to two different accounts at two different moments. Handling the case for the next permit at the Bartosz Krajewski Law Firm costs 2200 PLN, and in online legalisation mode, where you send documents as photos through the client panel, 1900 PLN at the promotional price.

How we handle a case for the next permit

We start with the date: we establish the last day of legal stay and plan the filing so that it does not fall on the last minute. Then we check whether the current basis is still the best one — after several years in Poland it may already be permanent residence or EU long-term resident status. We build the document list for your situation, file the application in MOS together with you, and have the office's correspondence sent to the law firm, so no summons gets lost at an old address.

The full scope of our residence legalisation help, also for people whose card has already expired, is described on the page foreigners' cases in Warsaw.