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Can someone file my residence application for me? Proxy rules in Poland
No. Polish law requires you to sign and submit a residence permit application yourself in the MOS portal, and neither a proxy nor your employer can do it for you. A proxy (pełnomocnik) can represent you in the proceedings after that, if you give a power of attorney.
What only you can do
- Create your own MOS account (each account belongs to one person).
- Sign the application with a trusted profile, qualified signature or personal signature.
- Submit it in MOS and download the official receipt (UPO).
- Appear at the office to show your travel document, give fingerprints and a specimen signature, and collect the card.
- Exceptions: for a minor or incapacitated person, a parent, guardian or curator acts instead. Even then it is not a proxy.
What a proxy can do
- Represent you in the proceedings, if you attach a power of attorney with proof that the stamp duty on it was paid (17 zł for each power of attorney).
- Correspond with the office, answer requests to supplement documents and follow the case.
- Deliver paper documents to the voivode’s registry office when the summons allows it.
- Help prepare and, in appeals, draft your documents.
Special cases
- Family reunification for a person abroad: the family member living in Poland files the paper application on the official form with the applicant’s passport copy, photo and written consent (art. 106l). This is the sponsor filing their own request, not a proxy.
- Application to change a temporary residence and work permit: it is filed on paper on the official form (art. 120a). Ask the office whether a proxy may submit it before you rely on one.
- In family reunification cases (art. 168, 168a) the sponsor in Poland files for the family member abroad, with that person’s written consent on the official form. The consent also serves as a power of attorney to act for them in that case (art. 168(2)–(3), 168a(2)).
Certified copies
Under the Code of Administrative Procedure (art. 32–33), a party may act through a proxy, who can be any natural person with legal capacity, with a written power of attorney. Copies of documents can be certified as true by a notary, by a proxy who is an advocate (adwokat), legal adviser (radca prawny), patent attorney or tax adviser, or by an authorised employee of the voivodeship office who sees the original (art. 76a § 2). We are not one of those professions, so for certification you use a notary or the office’s registry desk.
How we work
With our Full Support package we prepare everything with you, guide you online step by step while you sign and submit in MOS, and then represent you as proxy in the proceedings: office contact, deficiencies and collecting the decision. With Document Prep we prepare the application and you submit it alone.
Sources
- MOS: Temporary residence and work permit
- MOS: Permanent residence permit
- Legal basis: Act on Foreigners art. 106d–106e (inserted by Dz.U. 2025 item 1794); Code of Administrative Procedure art. 32–33, 76a (Dz.U. 2025 item 1691); Stamp Duty Act art. 1 and annex part IV (Dz.U. 2025 item 1154); art. 106l, 120a, 168, 168a (Dz.U. 2025 item 1794)
Facts checked against the official MOS portal on 25 Oct 2026. Rules and amounts change, so check the source before you act.