GMI Legal Update: Fast Track in Residence Processes for Citizens of Certain Countries

After several months of announcements, the long-awaited draft of a bill amending the Act on Foreigners has been released. It is intended to introduce a so-called tacit termination of the proceedings for citizens of selected countries.

What is tacit consent?

This is the recognition of an application for a temporary residence permit as approved (as requested by the party) if the voivode does not issue a decision within 60 days from submitting the application or from completing the formal deficiencies. The foreigner must still meet certain criteria, such as not being outside of Poland on the date of submission of the application, if their data has been included on the list of foreigners whose stay on the territory of the Republic of Poland is undesirable, or if their entry and stay could pose a threat to national defense or security.

Citizens of which countries can benefit from tacit consent?

The draft bill indicates specific criteria that countries must meet:

• Citizens of this country must be eligible for visa-free regime – 90 days in any subsequent 180 days;
• The country is a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development;
• The GDP per capita at purchasing power parity exceeds 50,000 international dollars;
• The rate of decisions requiring the return of citizens of a given country, as specified in the draft law, must be sufficiently low (no more than 2% of the arithmetic mean of the annual rates in the following three years).

The list of countries will be published by September 30th of each year by regulation of the Council of Ministers. Currently, the justification for the draft law indicates that the following countries meet these requirements:

• Commonwealth of Australia,
• Japan,
• Republic of Korea,
• United States of America,
• United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Validity of permits concluded with tacit consent

As a rule, permits will be valid for 2 years, but there are certain exceptions. For example, for students, it will be 15 months, for internships – 6 months, and for volunteers – 1 year.