The Times of London has confirmed that the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) will go live in the second half of 2026 with a €20 processing fee—up from the €7 originally mooted—payable by nationals of 59 visa-exempt countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States and Japan. (thetimes.com) Although ETIAS is an EU-wide scheme, it will apply to every arrival in Poland by air, land or sea for stays of up to 90 days in a 180-day period.
Travellers will complete an online questionnaire covering health, security and travel history; the data will be cross-checked against Schengen, Interpol and Interpol-Stolen Passports databases. Authorities expect 95 percent of applications to be approved within minutes, but the regulation allows up to 30 days if manual review is required.
For anyone unsure about the new rules, VisaHQ offers an easy one-stop solution: its Poland page (https://www.visahq.com/poland/) already walks travellers and mobility teams through each step for visas and residence permits, and the service will add ETIAS submission tools and compliance alerts as soon as the system launches—handy for both individual visitors and large corporations managing multiple assignees.
![€20 ETIAS Fee Confirmed for Visa-Exempt Travellers to Poland and the Wider Schengen Area]()
For businesses operating in Poland the implications are significant. UK-based consultants commuting weekly to clients in Kraków, Canadian engineers supporting energy projects near Gdańsk and American executives overseeing shared-service centres in Wrocław will all need a valid ETIAS linked to the passport they travel on. Because the pass is valid for three years—or until the passport expires—mobility managers should audit passport-expiry dates to avoid a last-minute scramble.
Poland’s airports and land crossings have spent the past year installing ETIAS-ready e-gates. The Chief Border Guard Office says integration testing with the EU’s Entry/Exit System is “on schedule”, but recommends that carriers begin passenger-manifest pre-validation in Q4 2026. HR teams should build the €20 charge into travel budgets and remind staff that unofficial websites are already trying to charge inflated fees.
Practically, ETIAS will not replace work or residence permits; anyone performing productive activities in Poland still needs the appropriate national authorisation. Yet for short-haul meeting-and-training trips the new requirement is a major administrative change, and companies that ignore it risk denied boarding fines from airlines and costly project delays.
Travellers will complete an online questionnaire covering health, security and travel history; the data will be cross-checked against Schengen, Interpol and Interpol-Stolen Passports databases. Authorities expect 95 percent of applications to be approved within minutes, but the regulation allows up to 30 days if manual review is required.
For anyone unsure about the new rules, VisaHQ offers an easy one-stop solution: its Poland page (https://www.visahq.com/poland/) already walks travellers and mobility teams through each step for visas and residence permits, and the service will add ETIAS submission tools and compliance alerts as soon as the system launches—handy for both individual visitors and large corporations managing multiple assignees.
For businesses operating in Poland the implications are significant. UK-based consultants commuting weekly to clients in Kraków, Canadian engineers supporting energy projects near Gdańsk and American executives overseeing shared-service centres in Wrocław will all need a valid ETIAS linked to the passport they travel on. Because the pass is valid for three years—or until the passport expires—mobility managers should audit passport-expiry dates to avoid a last-minute scramble.
Poland’s airports and land crossings have spent the past year installing ETIAS-ready e-gates. The Chief Border Guard Office says integration testing with the EU’s Entry/Exit System is “on schedule”, but recommends that carriers begin passenger-manifest pre-validation in Q4 2026. HR teams should build the €20 charge into travel budgets and remind staff that unofficial websites are already trying to charge inflated fees.
Practically, ETIAS will not replace work or residence permits; anyone performing productive activities in Poland still needs the appropriate national authorisation. Yet for short-haul meeting-and-training trips the new requirement is a major administrative change, and companies that ignore it risk denied boarding fines from airlines and costly project delays.
