The number of foreigners with residence permits in Poland has more than tripled in a year to reach 1.66 million, new data show. The majority of that increase is accounted for by the arrival of Ukrainian refugees, though other forms of migration to Poland have also been rising rapidly.
There are now 1.36 million Ukrainians with valid residence permits (constituting around 3.5% of Poland’s population), Jakub Dudziak, spokesman for the government’s Office for Foreigners (UdSC), told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
The next most numerous national groups are Belarusians (66,200), Georgians (18,400), Russians (18,400), Germans (18,000), Indians (13,800), and Vietnamese (12,500).
Według danych Urzędu do Spraw Cudzoziemców ważne zezwolenia na pobyt w Polsce posiada 1,66 mln cudzoziemców, z czego największą grupę stanowią obywatele Ukrainy.https://t.co/5b9RfVQFq1
— PulsHR.pl (@pulshr_pl) December 18, 2022
The majority of the 1.66 million are in Poland on the basis of temporary protection granted in accordance with an EU decision in response to the mass displacement of people from Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, notes Dudziak.
There are 954,000 people in Poland with such status, 950,000 of them Ukrainian citizens (around 90% of whom are women and children).
Poland has been the primary destination for those fleeing Ukraine. Millions have crossed the border this year, and in October it was estimated that around one million Ukrainian refugees remain in the country. There was already a large Ukrainian community of mainly economic migrants in Poland before the war.
The new UdSC data show that there are a further 487,000 foreigners with temporary residence permits – issued for up to three years, mostly on the basis of a desire to work – in Poland and another 127,000 with permanent residence permits or EU long-term residence permits.
Those figures are both higher than were recorded just over a year ago, in October 2021, when the total number of foreigners with residence permits in Poland stood at 525,000. The number of foreigners with temporary residence permits has risen by around 47% over that time.
Poland has in recent years experienced the highest levels of immigration in its history, and among the highest in the EU. For the last five years, it has issued more first residence permits to non-EU immigrants than has any other member state.
Main image credit: EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
