🇵🇱 Krakow · Paperwork

Registration, banking and utilities in Krakow

Registering your address is what produces a PESEL, and filing ZAP-3 at a Kraków tax office is what makes you a Kraków taxpayer, which is what gates the cheap travel pass and the car exemption.

Get started in Krakow

The thing people get wrongThe order is lease, then registration, then PESEL. Registering a stay of more than 30 days at an address assigns the number automatically, with no separate application; applying for a PESEL on its own is for people who cannot register an address at all.

Indicative figures

  • Address registration (zameldowanie)By day 4, or day 30, freeNon-EU nationals register by the fourth day after moving in; EU, EFTA and Swiss citizens and their families have 30.
  • Temporary-residence certificatePLN 17The permanent-residence certificate is free.
  • Tax residence declarationForm ZAP-3Filed at a Kraków urząd skarbowy.
  • PIT filing season opens15 FebruaryThe filed return works as proof of Kraków tax residence.
  • City contact centre12 616 55 55Krakowskie Centrum Kontaktu.
  • Residence permit stamp dutyPLN 340 – 640PLN 440 for the single work-and-residence permit, plus PLN 100 for the card. Not refunded on refusal.

Checked . Ranges, not quotes — your Insider confirms the current numbers in Krakow before you commit to anything.

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. It is free, the clerk accepts the application on the spot, and non-EU, non-EFTA and non-Swiss nationals must apply in person.
  • A separate PESEL application has 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.

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.

Residence permits for non-EU nationals

Since 27 April 2026 applications for temporary residence, permanent residence and long-term EU resident status can be filed only electronically, through the MOS portal, and only while you are in Poland legally. You sign with a Profil Zaufany or a qualified electronic signature, which is why the PESEL matters so early. The decision belongs to the Małopolski Urząd Wojewódzki, which then summons you in person for fingerprints and a signature specimen. Stamp duty is PLN 440 for a single work-and-residence permit, PLN 340 for a plain temporary residence permit and PLN 640 for permanent or long-term EU resident status, plus PLN 100 for the card, and it is no longer refunded if the permit is refused.

  • Create a new MOS account yourself; an account on the old system does not carry over, and nobody else may log in for you.
  • File before your visa or visa-free stay runs out. The confirmation stamp in your passport then covers you while the case is decided.
  • A few categories still go on paper, among them intra-corporate transfers and some family cases where the applicant is abroad.

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. Sign the lease at a Kraków address.
  2. Register 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. Collect the PESEL the registration assigns, and apply for one separately only if you could not register.
  4. Buy the temporary-residence certificate for 17 zł if an institution asks for documentary proof.
  5. File ZAP-3 at a Kraków tax office declaring Kraków as your place of residence.
  6. Sort health cover: employer ZUS registration, or a voluntary NFZ contract with a ZUS ZZA.
  7. If you are not an EU, EFTA or Swiss citizen, set up a Profil Zaufany and file the residence application through MOS before your visa runs out.
  8. Apply for Karta Krakowska once you hold permanent registration in Kraków, or proof that you settle your income tax here.
  9. If you brought a car on foreign plates, declare it in the Clean Transport Zone system before driving in.