Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has shut every Polish consular section around the globe for the four-day Christmas break, freezing all in-person and online visa, passport and legalisation services until Monday, 29 December.
The closure, announced on the e-Konsulat portal and confirmed by consular hotlines, is routine, but 2025 is the first year that 24 December is a statutory public holiday in Poland. As a result, domestic voivodeship offices and Border Guard customer counters—normally a back-up for filing residence-permit extensions—are also dark. Employers therefore have no administrative channel to secure last-minute renewals for foreign assignees whose permits expire over the festive period.
Biometric appointments booked for 24–28 December have been cancelled automatically and must be re-scheduled in January, pushing some assignees past the 14-day deadline for registering changes of circumstance. Consular staff have advised travellers with imminent departure dates to carry proof of their cancelled slot and flight bookings to mitigate potential problems at airline check-in.
![Polish Consulates Worldwide Closed 24–28 December, Visa Processing Paused]()
During the hiatus, employers and travellers can still make headway by partnering with VisaHQ, whose Poland-dedicated portal (https://www.visahq.com/poland/) streamlines document collection, pre-screens applications for errors and automatically grabs the first available appointment once consulates reopen—helping to minimise further delays and keep deployment plans on track.
Business-travel planners report knock-on disruption in high-volume sending markets such as Egypt, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia, where appointment lead times were already running at six weeks. Travel-management companies are urging corporates to build extra buffer days into January deployment schedules and to avoid scheduling board meetings in Poland during the first week of the new year, when pent-up demand is expected to overwhelm consular IT systems.
Looking ahead, the Ministry has hinted that next year’s holiday closure could be shortened if the new Moduł Obsługi Spraw (MOS) e-portal for residence permits proves stable. Until then, multinational employers should adjust mobility calendars to reflect Poland’s end-of-year administrative blackout.
The closure, announced on the e-Konsulat portal and confirmed by consular hotlines, is routine, but 2025 is the first year that 24 December is a statutory public holiday in Poland. As a result, domestic voivodeship offices and Border Guard customer counters—normally a back-up for filing residence-permit extensions—are also dark. Employers therefore have no administrative channel to secure last-minute renewals for foreign assignees whose permits expire over the festive period.
Biometric appointments booked for 24–28 December have been cancelled automatically and must be re-scheduled in January, pushing some assignees past the 14-day deadline for registering changes of circumstance. Consular staff have advised travellers with imminent departure dates to carry proof of their cancelled slot and flight bookings to mitigate potential problems at airline check-in.
During the hiatus, employers and travellers can still make headway by partnering with VisaHQ, whose Poland-dedicated portal (https://www.visahq.com/poland/) streamlines document collection, pre-screens applications for errors and automatically grabs the first available appointment once consulates reopen—helping to minimise further delays and keep deployment plans on track.
Business-travel planners report knock-on disruption in high-volume sending markets such as Egypt, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia, where appointment lead times were already running at six weeks. Travel-management companies are urging corporates to build extra buffer days into January deployment schedules and to avoid scheduling board meetings in Poland during the first week of the new year, when pent-up demand is expected to overwhelm consular IT systems.
Looking ahead, the Ministry has hinted that next year’s holiday closure could be shortened if the new Moduł Obsługi Spraw (MOS) e-portal for residence permits proves stable. Until then, multinational employers should adjust mobility calendars to reflect Poland’s end-of-year administrative blackout.
