Polish Citizenship by Descent

Which voivode decides your case

Art. 55 ust. 1 of the 2009 Act makes the competent authority the voivode for the place — or last place — of residence in Poland of the person whose citizenship is in question; only where there is no such basis does the case fall to the Masovian Voivode (Mazowiecki Urząd Wojewódzki) in Warsaw. Note whose residence: the person being confirmed, not necessarily the applicant, because art. 55 ust. 1 expressly allows a third party with a legal interest to apply. Either way there is no consulate-level decision: art. 57 ust. 1 says the application «składa się do wojewody», and a person living abroad «może» file it through the consul, who under ust. 2 passes it to the voivode «niezwłocznie». So the consular route is permitted, not compulsory — you may file directly with the voivode in Poland, and under art. 57 of the Prawo konsularne a party may act through a pełnomocnik (a natural person with full legal capacity, on a written power of attorney).

If you do use the consular route it must be the post whose district covers you. Prawo konsularne art. 53 ust. 1 makes a consul observe his own competence ex officio, and ust. 2 fixes it by your place of stay, your place of residence in the district, or the place where the triggering event happened — three alternative bases, not one. File with the wrong post and art. 54 ust. 1’s general rule is that he tells you which authority is competent and returns the application to you; forwarding under ust. 2 applies only where the competent consul is in the same receiving state. Every Polish post in the US is, so a US applicant does get forwarding — but that is the exception, and copy that states forwarding as the rule is describing a narrower statute than the one on the books.

Two fees, two governments

The consular fee is €100 — item 2.03 of the tariff annexed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs’ regulation as amended by Dz.U. 2025 poz. 1523, Part II, “Obowiązująca od dnia 1 stycznia 2026 r.” (it was €80 under Part I, for anything filed to 31 December 2025). The row prices “receipt and processing of an application for confirmation of holding Polish citizenship together with service of the decision”, and the unit, stated in words, is one application and one decision, for one person — the tariff itself prints no unit, so that comes from art. 106 ust. 1 of the Prawo konsularne (the party filing pays) read with arts. 55–56 of the 2009 Act (one decision, about one named person). It is paid before the act is performed (art. 106 ust. 2) and not refunded for the receipt and consideration of an application — art. 108 ust. 2, a flat statutory rule.

The $118 USD you actually hand over is that euro figure converted by the post, not a published dollar fee. No Dziennik Ustaw prints a dollar amount anywhere: art. 105 ust. 2 says consular fees are expressed in euro and art. 107 ust. 1 that they are collected in the receiving state’s currency, and §3 of the fee regulation (Dz.U. 2025 poz. 76) converts at the ECB reference rate on the last day of the previous month, rounded up to whole units, corrected every 1 January and on any quarterly move of 5% or more. So this figure can move without the law changing — confirm it against the post’s own published fee table before you pay.

What €100 buys, and what it does not: the tariff’s footnote to that row says no additional charges are made for consular acts performed in preparing the documentation “z wyjątkiem opłat za sporządzenie i poświadczenie lub sprawdzenie i poświadczenie tłumaczenia” — except translation, rows 6.08–6.11. Translation is the one thing billed on top. And art. 109 ust. 1 lets you ask for a discount: in exceptional situations, on the party’s request, the consul may charge 25%, 50% or 75% of the fee or waive it entirely, taking account of your material or personal circumstances. You have to ask for it.

Separately, PLN 277 (~$74 USD) of opłata skarbowa is owed in Poland — Część I item 27 of the annex to the ustawa o opłacie skarbowej, “Decyzja w przedmiocie potwierdzenia posiadania lub utraty obywatelstwa polskiego”, at that rate since 1 August 2025. It is charged per official act, so per decision, so per person (art. 5 ust. 1, with joint and several liability on a joint application under ust. 2), and it is not paid to the Voivode: art. 12 ust. 1 makes the tax authority the wójt, burmistrz or prezydent miasta, and ust. 2 pkt 1 picks the one for the seat of the office that performed the act — for a Masovian Voivode decision, the City of Warsaw, paid at its cashier or into its account (art. 8 ust. 1). Two official sources disagree on when: the Act says liability arises “z chwilą dokonania zgłoszenia lub złożenia wniosku” (art. 6 ust. 1 pkt 1, payable at that moment under ust. 2), while the Masovian Voivode’s own procedure page says it “powstaje w dniu wpływu wniosku do Mazowieckiego Urzędu Wojewódzkiego w Warszawie” — the day of arrival. For a package posted to a consulate those are weeks apart; we publish both and act on the Voivode’s, because that is the office that will ask for the money. Refund is narrow (art. 9 ust. 1 pkt 1 — only if the act was never performed), so a refusal keeps the 277 zł, and there is no exemption for a descent claim: art. 2 ust. 1 pkt 1 lit. i covers only citizenship acquired by repatriation.

How the posts say they take payment — this is the authority describing its own practice, not law, and it is exactly the kind of thing that changes without a Dziennik Ustaw entry. On its US consular-fees page (read 2026-09-11, page headed “Updated January 1, 2026”) the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that fees are accepted at Washington DC, Chicago, Houston and New York only by credit or debit card, cash, money order or cashier’s check; that Los Angeles takes only cash, money order or cashier’s check with no card option; and that in matters handled by mail, only a money order or cashier’s check is accepted and personal checks are not. Confirm with your own post before sending anything.

Processing time

6 months statutory (extendable), actual queue not published. Art. 10 ust. 3a of the 2009 Act gives the voivode six months “od dnia wpływu wniosku do organu właściwego do wydania decyzji” — from the day the application reaches the office competent to decide, which is the voivode and not the consul, so time in the post and in transit sits outside it. KPA art. 35 § 4 is what lets the Act set its own term; KPA art. 35 § 5 excludes periods of suspension, mediation, statutory periods for your own steps and delays caused by you; and KPA art. 36 § 1 obliges the office, on any overrun, to notify you, state the reason, name a new date and tell you about the ponaglenie. No Polish authority publishes an actual queue length, so six months is a legal standard rather than a prediction. If you file through a consul, note the separate earlier clock: Prawo konsularne art. 58 ust. 1 gives him 30 days, art. 60 ust. 1 extends that to three months, and art. 61 requires him to tell you the expected date of disposal when he forwards the case to Poland.

The form, and the documents that go with it

The form is prescribed and it has a title, not a number: “WNIOSEK o potwierdzenie posiadania lub utraty obywatelstwa polskiego”, set by the annex to the Minister of the Interior's regulation of 7 August 2012 (Dz.U. 2012 poz. 925) on the authority of art. 58 of the 2009 Act. Poland does not number it the way Canada numbers CIT 0001, so any “form number” you are quoted for this application does not exist. Page 1 says “Wniosek wypełnia się w języku polskim” — it is completed in Polish. Art. 56 ust. 1 fixes the scope: the application carries the data of the person being confirmed and of that person's ascendants to the second degree, plus the material circumstances. Art. 56 ust. 2 requires supporting documents “chyba że uzyskanie tych dokumentów napotyka trudne do przezwyciężenia przeszkody” — unless obtaining them meets obstacles difficult to overcome, which is the provision to cite where a record genuinely cannot be found.

US-issued vital records need an apostille and a Polish translation; Polish-issued records need neither, because a Polish record filed with a Polish authority is a domestic document already in the required language. A tłumacz przysięgły is a statutory office under the ustawa o zawodzie tłumacza przysięgłego, held by named individuals on a register the Ministry of Justice publishes — “certified translator” is not a protected term in the US and carries none of that. The consul is the other route with a price you can look up rather than quote: rows 6.08–6.11 of the consular tariff cover preparing and certifying a translation, or checking and certifying one you supply. See the per-generation guides below for a full document checklist.