Residence Card Case Status in Poland — What the Portal Statuses Really Mean

A status in the voivode's portal is one sentence standing for a specific stage of the procedure and a specific deadline. The same entry means “wait two weeks” for one foreigner and “the case has been frozen for six months and will not move by itself” for another. You see the difference only once you compare the status with the date you filed and the date you completed the formal gaps. Check whether you can already file an urging motion.

Where to check your case

Since 27 April 2026 a temporary residence application is filed electronically only, so the first place that shows the course of the case is your account in the case-handling module, where summonses and letters from the office also appear. Alongside it, every voivode runs its own service: in Warsaw it is the foreigner portal inpol.mazowieckie.pl, and the status can also be heard at the Migrant Contact Center on 22 695 67 73, by keying in the case number.

In other regions the addresses differ, and this is the most common reason people “cannot find their case”: Łódź — wsoic.lodzkie.eu, Gdańsk — wsc.gdansk.uw.gov.pl, Opole — stansprawy.e-wojewoda.pl, Poznań — migrant.poznan.uw.gov.pl, Kraków — the case status search on the Małopolska Voivodeship Office site, Wrocław — przybysz.duw.pl for applications and kartypobytu.duw.pl to see whether the card is ready for collection. Katowice has no public status search — answers come from the hotline 780 100 935.

What you need in order to log in

All these services ask for two things: the case number (reference) and access data. The reference looks like a string of letters and digits from your filing confirmation, and you enter it exactly as printed, dots and hyphens included, because the offices' search engines do not correct the format. The access code arrives by text message or e-mail after filing; in Poznań you can request it yourself by giving your name, date of birth, citizenship and the type of application. If a lawyer runs the case, they have access to the file and do not have to guess the stage from one sentence on a screen.

The statuses you see most often, and what they really mean

The voivodeship portals use a similar list of stages. These are the ones that appear in almost every residence card case:

• analysis of formal gaps and a summons to complete them — the office has reviewed your documents and is waiting for you; this is the only stage where the clock runs against you rather than against the authority
• summons to give fingerprints and a scheduled biometrics visit — the case is moving on the merits, but no decision will be issued until the prints are taken
• opinion stage — the file has gone to the Border Guard, the voivodeship police headquarters and the Internal Security Agency, and the authority is awaiting replies
• analysis of the evidence — the substantive assessment of your documents; this is where cases sit longest and where plain queueing usually hides
• draft ruling or draft decision — the wording of the decision is ready and waiting for the signature of an authorised officer; from then on it is only paperwork
• awaiting documents for card personalisation, then personalisation and card ready for collection — the decision is positive and the office is waiting for the 100 PLN card fee and for your statement whether the registered address is to appear on the card

Statuses at which you must not simply wait

Four entries mean that there is effectively no procedure, or that it is ending differently from what you wanted. Each starts a short deadline of its own:

• application left unexamined — the formal gaps were not completed in time; the case will not be considered on the merits and the stamp no longer legalises your stay
• refusal to initiate proceedings or return of the application — the documents never entered circulation, usually because of the wrong procedure or the wrong authority
• suspension of proceedings — the authority is waiting for another case to be resolved; the clock stops and an urging motion changes nothing while the reason lasts
• transfer of the application to the competent authority — the case has moved to another voivode and starts there afresh, queue included

What the portal will never show

A status tells you where the file is, not what is inside it. You will not see which document the officer refused to accept, what the Border Guard asked, or whether a summons went to an address you have left. Nor will you see whether the authority has missed its deadline, because the portal does not count days. Those three things emerge only from the case file, and access to it belongs to the party and their attorney — which is the only way to see the whole case instead of guessing from one line.

When a status means it is time for an urging motion

The authority has 60 days from the completion of formal gaps to finish a temporary residence case (article 112a(1) of the Act on Foreigners). If more time has passed and the portal has shown the opinion stage or evidence analysis for weeks, that is not “the office is working” — it is inactivity or excessive length, and we describe the real waiting times in our text on how long a residence card takes in Warsaw.

The remedy is an urging motion under article 37 of the Code of Administrative Procedure, addressed to the Head of the Office for Foreigners through the voivode. We prepare it online for 199 PLN, and if you want the firm to take the whole case over, including correspondence with the office and a complaint about inactivity, that costs 1199 PLN. An urging motion does not jump the queue, but it stays in the file and forces the authority to take a position within a deadline.

How we run a case that has stalled

We start from the file, not from the portal: we check the filing date and the date the gaps were completed, read the summonses and establish whether the case is genuinely waiting for the services or merely lying still. Only then do we choose the tool — the urging motion itself, an evidentiary request, or a letter correcting the document the office refused. If your case is outside Warsaw, a separate text covers the offices in Łódź, Gdańsk, Opole and Poznań. The address of the office no longer decides the choice of lawyer, because correspondence goes to the firm and the second instance sits in Warsaw anyway.

If you would rather not refresh the portal every week, hand the case to us — the full scope of residence legalisation support is described on foreigners' cases in Warsaw.