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Polish Citizenship Confirmed: The Three Steps Left Before the Passport

October 19, 2026
Abitbol & Associés
Firm News

For most applicants, the decision of the Mazovian Voivode confirming possession of Polish citizenship (potwierdzenie posiadania obywatelstwa polskiego) feels like the finish line. It is not. The decision recognises a right; it produces no Polish civil-status record, no administrative identifier and no passport. Three further steps stand between that decision and an EU passport in hand, and they must be taken in a fixed order — which is precisely where most files stall.

I. A decision that recognises a right but issues no document

Confirmation is a declaratory administrative decision (decyzja administracyjna): it establishes that the applicant is a Polish citizen, and in most cases has been one since birth. It creates nothing. In practice, a person whose citizenship has just been confirmed is a Polish citizen who appears in no Polish register at all: their birth was recorded in Tel Aviv, London, New York or Paris, and the Polish administration has no knowledge of it.

Two consequences follow:

no Polish authority can issue an identity document to a person no register describes;
the consulate and the civil-status office may require a final (decyzja ostateczna) decision before the next steps; this should be checked with the post.

II. Step one: getting your records into the Polish civil-status register

The applicant first needs a Polish birth record, obtained by entering the foreign record into the national civil-status register — the transcription of the record (transkrypcja aktu stanu cywilnego), a procedure we have covered in detail in an earlier article. Where a name changed on marriage, the marriage record follows the same path. Without a Polish record, the chain stops here.

Two difficulties dominate:

the form of foreign records: sworn translation and legalisation, depending on the issuing country and the applicable conventions;
consistency of identity: foreign records often carry an anglicised, Hebraised or Frenchified name, while the Polish archives hold the original spelling.

III. Step two: allocation of the PESEL number

The PESEL number (numer PESEL) is the unique identifier assigned to persons recorded in the Polish population register. It is the technical key to the entire Polish administration: without it, many Polish procedures remain blocked.

A citizen living abroad does not apply for it directly at a Polish municipal office. According to the practice of the post, it is requested by the consul (konsul) in connection with the passport application, on the basis of the Polish birth record obtained at the previous step — and of the marriage record where the name used differs from the name at birth. Hence the importance of sequence: a consular appointment booked before the Polish record exists is an appointment wasted.

IV. Step three: the passport application

The application for a Polish passport (paszport polski) is filed with the competent consulate — the Polish consulate in Tel Aviv for Israeli residents, the Polish embassy in Paris or the competent consulate for residents of France, and the relevant post elsewhere. Several features shape the procedure:

appearance in person, by appointment: the passport is biometric, so fingerprints are taken at the counter;
collection in principle in person, with fingerprints verified on handover (postal delivery is possible with the consul’s agreement);
for a minor, the consent of both parents, with rules that vary with the child’s age;
the confirmation decision may be requested by the consul where the applicant has never held a Polish document.

Fees and processing times differ between consular posts and change over time; we do not state them here and verify them, for each file, with the post that is actually competent.

V. What actually stalls files at this stage

Recurring obstacles in files handled for clients abroad:

spelling of names: Polish diacritics (ą, ć, ę, ł, ń, ó, ś, ź, ż) absent from foreign documents, divergent transliterations, given names changed on arrival in the new country;
the chain of identity: the person born in Poland must be linked, document by document, to the person filing today;
deaths and divorces occurring in between, which call for further records and sometimes further transcriptions;
minors, whose position usually requires the parent’s file to be settled first.

VI. What the passport opens — and what it does not erase

A Polish passport is a European Union document: it opens free movement, residence, work and study across the Union, together with the rights attached to EU citizenship. It erases none of the obligations of the other nationality. On its own territory Poland treats a dual national as a Polish citizen, and each other state treats them as its own citizen. Military service, taxation and conditions of entry must be examined separately under each legal system.

Conclusion – Why work with a lawyer on Polish citizenship matters?

Between the Voivode’s decision and the passport there is not a formality but a chain of records, each conditioning the next and each exposed to questions of identity. A poorly sequenced file does not end in refusal: it stalls, sometimes for years, on a missing record or a misspelt name. ABITBOL & ASSOCIES builds and manages these files from end to end, working with correspondents in Poland for local procedural steps, and stays with its clients until the document is issued.

With this in mind, ABITBOL & ASSOCIES assists its clients at every stage of the path leading from confirmation of Polish citizenship to the issue of the passport. Our lawyers make sure your interests are protected and that each step is taken securely.