Registration, banking and utilities in Krakow

The order that works

Nothing moves until you hold a signed lease naming you at a Kraków address, because that is the title document the registration office accepts. Zameldowanie, the address registration, is free, but the deadline depends on your passport: EU, EFTA and Swiss citizens and their family members have until the 30th day after moving in, everyone else until the fourth. You register either pobyt stały or pobyt czasowy, and a foreigner's declared temporary stay cannot run past the end of their legal right of residence. Bring a passport or ID card and proof of legal title to the dwelling, or have the owner confirm on the registration form that you live there.

• A certificate of permanent-residence registration is free; a temporary-residence certificate costs 17 zł, and is free where the system registers you automatically.
• Filing online needs a Trusted Profile, a qualified electronic signature or an e-ID, none of which you will have before the PESEL exists, so a first registration is done in person.

If you cannot register an address

Only then do you apply for a PESEL separately, at any urząd gminy, and it is free. You have to state the actual legal basis obliging you to hold one, so if an institution such as ZUS or the tax office is demanding it, make them give you that basis in writing. Non-EU, non-EFTA and non-Swiss nationals must apply in person. The clerk accepts the application on the spot.

ZAP-3, the step Kraków cares about

File form ZAP-3 at a Kraków urząd skarbowy declaring Kraków as your place of residence for income tax. Elsewhere this is a formality; here it is what makes you a Kraków taxpayer: the Clean Transport Zone exemption requires that status outright, and so does the resident travel pass for anyone not permanently registered in the city. Someone who registered in Kraków during a year and filed ZAP-3 at the same time can claim resident status for that year.

• Proof is either a tax office certificate confirming you settle tax in Kraków for a stated year, or the filed PIT return itself once the season opens on 15 February.
• Someone with no income, a student or an unemployed person, can file a PIT-37 showing zero, and that counts too.

Health insurance registration

If you are employed, your employer's ZUS registration is what puts you into the health system and there is nothing for you to file. If nobody covers you, you sign a voluntary agreement with NFZ and then submit a ZUS ZZA form for yourself, plus a ZUS ZCNA for each family member. Do this before you need a doctor rather than after, because the contract and the first contribution both have to be in place first.

Which office, and who to ask

Residence legality for non-EU nationals, and registration of a stay over three months by EU citizens, sit with the voivodeship office rather than with the city. Everything municipal, including Clean Transport Zone and Karta Krakowska questions, goes through Krakowskie Centrum Kontaktu on 12 616 55 55. It is the quickest way to find out which counter you actually need before you queue at the wrong one.

In order

1. 1Sign the lease at a Kraków address.
2. 2Register the address in person with your passport and the lease, by the fourth day after moving in or the 30th if you are an EU, EFTA or Swiss national.
3. 3Collect the PESEL the registration assigns, and apply for one separately only if you could not register.
4. 4Buy the temporary-residence certificate for 17 zł if an institution asks for documentary proof.
5. 5File ZAP-3 at a Kraków tax office declaring Kraków as your place of residence.
6. 6Sort health cover: employer ZUS registration, or a voluntary NFZ contract with a ZUS ZZA.
7. 7Apply for Karta Krakowska once you hold permanent registration in Kraków, or proof that you settle your income tax here.
8. 8If you brought a car on foreign plates, declare it in the Clean Transport Zone system before driving in.