Poland has flipped the digital switch on its immigration system. Since 1 January 2026, every temporary-stay (residence) permit—including renewals for long-term assignees, Blue-Card holders and family members—must be submitted exclusively through the government’s Moduł Obsługi Spraw (MOS) e-portal. Paper dossiers presented at any of the 16 voivodeship offices are legally deemed “not filed”, forcing employers and foreign nationals to migrate overnight to a 100 percent online workflow.
The Interior Ministry argues the change will cut processing times by 30 percent once bottlenecks are ironed out. To finance extra case officers, cloud hosting and cyber-security, application fees have soared: the standard residence-permit fee jumps from PLN 100 to PLN 400, while posted-worker permits rocket to PLN 800. Consular tariffs rose in tandem on 1 January, with national (type D) visas climbing to €200 and Schengen (type C) visas to €90.
Early adopters applaud real-time file tracking but report growing pains: qualified e-signature certificates fail to load, sessions time-out without warning and the Polish-only interface stumps smaller employers. Immigration advisers therefore recommend screenshotting each submission step and budgeting two to three extra hours per case until the platform stabilises.
![Poland’s MOS e-portal now mandatory for all residence-permit filings as application fees quadruple]()
At this turbulent juncture, VisaHQ’s Poland desk (https://www.visahq.com/poland/) offers a ready-made workaround: its bilingual specialists can lodge MOS applications on your behalf, procure compliant e-signatures and monitor status alerts, sparing HR teams the learning curve and extra hours now baked into the process.
Strategically the MOS launch is only phase one. Permanent-residence, citizenship, seasonal-worker and EU Blue Card filings are slated to migrate to the portal in mid-2026. Companies that standardise e-signature procurement, allocate an extra PLN 2 000–2 500 per foreign hire, and cultivate internal “power users” are expected to weather the transition best. Those that do not risk employees falling out of status—and losing the right to work—because a paper file can no longer enter the queue.
For corporate mobility managers the immediate to-do list is clear: map MOS roles and privileges, train HR staff, update cost forecasts and amend assignment letters to reflect higher government fees. Failure to adapt could strand new hires at the border or expose the business to hefty administrative fines.
The Interior Ministry argues the change will cut processing times by 30 percent once bottlenecks are ironed out. To finance extra case officers, cloud hosting and cyber-security, application fees have soared: the standard residence-permit fee jumps from PLN 100 to PLN 400, while posted-worker permits rocket to PLN 800. Consular tariffs rose in tandem on 1 January, with national (type D) visas climbing to €200 and Schengen (type C) visas to €90.
Early adopters applaud real-time file tracking but report growing pains: qualified e-signature certificates fail to load, sessions time-out without warning and the Polish-only interface stumps smaller employers. Immigration advisers therefore recommend screenshotting each submission step and budgeting two to three extra hours per case until the platform stabilises.
At this turbulent juncture, VisaHQ’s Poland desk (https://www.visahq.com/poland/) offers a ready-made workaround: its bilingual specialists can lodge MOS applications on your behalf, procure compliant e-signatures and monitor status alerts, sparing HR teams the learning curve and extra hours now baked into the process.
Strategically the MOS launch is only phase one. Permanent-residence, citizenship, seasonal-worker and EU Blue Card filings are slated to migrate to the portal in mid-2026. Companies that standardise e-signature procurement, allocate an extra PLN 2 000–2 500 per foreign hire, and cultivate internal “power users” are expected to weather the transition best. Those that do not risk employees falling out of status—and losing the right to work—because a paper file can no longer enter the queue.
For corporate mobility managers the immediate to-do list is clear: map MOS roles and privileges, train HR staff, update cost forecasts and amend assignment letters to reflect higher government fees. Failure to adapt could strand new hires at the border or expose the business to hefty administrative fines.
