Due to the amendment to the Act of 2 April 2009 on Polish citizenship, as of 1 July, post-secondary school graduation certificates in Poland will no longer be accepted as official proof of knowledge of the Polish language for the purposes of proceedings on recognition as a Polish citizen.
Article 30 section 2a was added to the Act in the following wording: "The knowledge of the Polish language referred to in section 2 shall not be confirmed by a certificate of completion of a post-secondary school referred to in Article 18 section 1 item 2 letter f of the Act of 14 December 2016 - Education Law (Journal of Laws of 2024, item 737, as amended.). "
Transitional provisions also come into force. They state that persons who submitted applications for recognition as Polish citizens before 1 July 2025 and did not receive a decision in their case by 30 June this year may still use post-secondary school graduation certificates to confirm their knowledge of Polish - see Article 15 of the Act of 4 April 2025 amending certain acts in order to eliminate irregularities in the visa system of the Republic of Poland (Journal of Laws of 2025, item 622).
After July 1, 2025, it will be possible to present post-secondary school graduation certificates in Poland for the purposes of recognition as a Polish citizen, but only if all of the following conditions are met:
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the post-secondary school graduation certificate will be issued by June 30, 2025;
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the application for recognition as a Polish citizen is successfully submitted between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026.
A foreigner may use a certificate of completion of a post-secondary school in Poland as an official certificate of knowledge of the Polish language, provided that they have knowledge of Polish at a language proficiency level of at least B1. In order to be recognized as a Polish citizen, the important circumstance is not so much having the rights resulting from having a certificate of completion of a given type of school, but having specific language competences.
We appeal to you to submit, along with your certificate of completion of a post-secondary school in Poland and your vocational diploma, a current certificate issued by the school authorities, stating the period during which you were a student of the school and whether Polish was the language of instruction in the classes.
