How to get a “Odpis skrócony aktu małżenstwa” – Polish marriage certificate
Given that the theme of my blog is foreigners (well OK Brits) in Poland, then my razor sharp logic suggests to me that if you are reading this blog then it’s quite likely that you or your spouse (if you have one) aren’t Polish. Therefore there’s a fair chance that you didn’t get married in Poland. This means you may well have another piece of Polish bureacracy to take care of – reporting your foreign marriage!
Why?
If you are lucky you might not need to bother. If you don’t need to then I suggest you save yourself the money and the hassle and don’t. So by now you are surely thinking – so when would I need to? I can think of the following cases:
- Your Polish wife wants to change her surname to yours.
- You want to register a newly born child in Poland as a married couple.
- You are applying for a residence card (karta pobytu) and need to demonstrate that you have a Polish spouse.
- You or your spouse want to avoid problems with the ruthless Urząd Skarbowy (treasury office) and want to report your marriage to them for financial/tax reasons.
How?
First of all you will need a Polish translation of your marriage certificate from a sworn translator. 1 page shouldn’t cost you more than around 44 złoty. Translators for languages such as English and German can be found in every town. I know a couple who got married in Egypt. I can’t imagine that there are many Arabic translators in the phone book so my practical tip for today is to avoid getting married in odd places, or to odd people, or preferably both.
Next you need to go to the Urząd Stanu Cywilnego (office of civil affairs) in the town where your spouse is permanently melded with your translation and original. My wife did this part so I can’t remember what she paid for the priviledge or how long it took, but I can tell you that THEY WILL KEEP YOUR ORIGINAL so make sure you have photocopies for your own records!
Why they keep your original I don’t understand. What happens if you need your original for any reason back home I don’t know. I am sure there is Polish logic in there somewhere. Come to think of it, like most Polish bureacracy there probably isn’t…
So now you are the proud owner of a yellow piece of A5 paper that has the summary of your wedding details on it. Unfortunately you are likely to face the following potential problems with it:
- Polish wedding certificates have the places and dates of birth of the bride and groom on them. Your certificate probably doesn’t (e.g. UK wedding certificates). Therefore your details will just be blanked out. This will cause you no end of problems when you try and use this document in other Polish offices. When I tried to register the birth of our daughter the woman insisted that our document must have been translated wrong and wouldn’t accept it. It was only after a long phone call with the director of that office that they relented.
- Some offices won’t accept this certificate once it’s older than 3 months old. They expect you to go and get another one. An example is when applying for a karta pobytu. This means going back to the office holding your original wedding certificate, regardless of whether you now live on the other side of Poland because you reported your wedding X years ago and have since moved… This alone is a good argument for not bothering to report your wedding until you find you need to.
I wrote this article based on my experience (a Brit) who married a Pole in the UK. Let me know about your experiences!
Here’s an interesting scenario. How about a Brit living in Poland, but not yet registered, marrying a girl from outside the EU? What would her entitlements be in Poland? Any at all or will we have to move to UK?
I don’t know about this kind of stuff as not been in a similar situation. You had best contact the British embassy about stuff like that. Good luck.
Hi I’ve just found your website whilst browsing for info on Brit’s living in Poland and it’s great! I’m British, stilling living in the UK and have a Polish boyfriend from just outside Katowice. I’m learning Polish (slowly – 174 words/phrases) and I’m really, endlessly, fascinated with all things Polish. Seba, my boyfriend absolutely doesn’t want to return to live in Poland and paints a rather grim picture of it, which I just don’t believe. I on the other hand have wild fantasies of moving here………. Silly really, as I’ve not yet even visited?! In May, we’ll be coming over to see his parents and family, so I’ve tried to rev-up my Polish so I can at least exchange pleasantries with them; nice to meet you, your house is wonderful, your country is wonderful, etc.
Seba’s older brother now wants to move to England to “earn some real money”, so following our visit to Poland his brother will be coming back to live with us whilst he learns English and finds work. I’m hoping this will dramatically improve my Polish and help to satisfy my curiosity about all things Polish. At the very least I am promised that he is a “very good cook”!
Sorry, I have nothing of value to offer, but I’ve bookmarked your site so I can keep up with all you have to say. I’m feeling really very wistful right now…..
Thanks,
Ali x
Hello there im scottish and have been with my polish boyfriend for 9 years we have 2 children and i have been in poland lots of time and i love it the food the culture but we still live in scotland. We are getting married in poland in a couple of weeks was just wondering if i need to register my marrriage in scotland any ideas would be greatful thank you
Hi there,
I have also found this website by browsing and although I have not had a chance to go through it properly (Which I will!) it looks exactly the sort of thing I need. I am a Scottish man who is engaged to a very beautiful polish lady (Ania), and plan to marry next year and have a minefield of beurocracy to get through.
My first question is tax related, Ania has long held out that while working over in the UK she is entitled to a whack of her British earned tax back on her return to Poland. I have heard and read a little and it appears that at the moment should she return to Poland then she is entitled to about 85% tax back. Is this true?
Then if she marries me and we decide to move to Poland, which we both would love to do, will that tax earned be affected? On another point would I be able to claim my own tax if I moved across as well?
My second concern is opening a bank account. Ania and I have joint Uk account for housekeeping etc. We both travel back and forward to Poland to see family etc. but usually just take sterling and change it when we get there. I personally hate this. I would love to be able to have abank account that was easily accessed both here and there. Preferrably without the huge transfer costs. I tried talking to the RBS about it but they were not very helpful as the amounts of money were not huge in their eyes! I think I would like to have a European bank rather than a UK one, so thats my question….what do you do??
The final point I have is the marraige and registering children/duel nationality thing. When we get married I realise that we are both going to go through the hoops regarding the beurocracy, how do we make this as easy as possible?? Ania and I want a registry office wedding here (as quiet as possible) then a proper church affair in Poland. How do we do this as legally as possible and get all the documentation right. We both want dual nationality.
Any advice or help would be fantastic and if anyone in a similar position would like to get in touch with me I would be grateful.
Hi Derek
Glad the site is of interest to you and has come in handy. To answer your questions as best as I can:
1. I seriously doubt she will get back 85% but she will get at least something back. What happens is that tax is deducted on the presumption you will earn evenly throughout the financial year. If you leave the UK part way through the financial year then you have got a lot of tax allowance not used up and therefore can reclaim this. There are lots of agencies that for a fee will reclaim this. This is totally unnecessary – it’s just a case of filling out a form which you can download from the HMRC website to declare that you have left the country. They will work out her final tax bill and in the case that she overpaid they send you a cheque. My wife did this and she got back about 1500 GBP but it took them 12 months to finally pay up.
2. You pay your tax in the UK, you leave the UK and settle up the tax bill (which usually means they reimburse you something). You then start work in Poland and start paying tax in Poland. Thus you don’t have to worry about tax complications. The only thing you have to be clear on is from what date you are officially deciding that you are now “resident” for tax purposes in Poland.
3. When you migrate to Poland you will also declare to the HMRC that you are no longer resident in the UK. Again they should work out if you are due anything back.
4. Banking is a bit of a pain in Poland. Not many banks have internet banking available in languages other than Polish. I am with MBank and everything is in Polish. But you can have a bank account in different currencies such as PLN, GBP, EUR no problem. Travelling with cash is a pain but one of the simplest options and the kantors here have good rates. I use a currency broker and I pay about 10 – 20 pounds in fees when I sell GBP from my UK account and buy PLN which they deliver to my Polish account.
5. You can get married at a registry office in the UK with no problem whatsoever. Ania will need a document to confirm her marital status to prove she isn’t already married. These can be translated into English by anyone – you don’t need to pay an official translator. When you go to Poland you should take a duplicate of your marriage certificate with you. This must be translated in to Polish by an official sworn translator. You take these documents to your local office to register your marriage in Poland. Don’t tell them your certificate is a duplicate – let them think it’s the original. They will permanently keep it in their records. They then issue you a certificate back. The church affair is nothing to do with a legal wedding whatsoever and entirely separate. That’s between you and your priest to deal with.
6. You will get Polish nationality having lived in Poland for 5 years. You can get it by being married but I don’t know what the time period is (it could be 3 or 5 years – I can’t remember). If you have Polish blood (e.g. parent, grand-parent) you can claim Polish citizenship also. I don’t know how long you have to be married or live in the UK for Ania to get British citizenship.
Thank you so much for posting this information!! I found your website while in tears after being told by my school that they will not pay me the 900 or so zl they owe me until I have a PESEL (which, as you say in your post about obtaining a PESEL, is NOT necessary for payments, bank transfers, etc. GAH). I found this post and the PESEL/registration posts VERY useful, and as much as I’ve scoured the internet looking for easy to understand, well-written instructions for dealing with Polish bureaucracy, yours is the only the website I have found that meets my (high) standards of quality/useability. Thank you again, and please continue to post such useful information for expats such as ourselves!!
You’re very welcome. Don’t worry everybody goes through the ‘banging head against wall with tears and frustration’ stage at some point. In fact that is how my blog started – born out of frustration at the lack of English language information at the time when I didn’t speak any Polish. Cheers. Ben
Alright, so here’s my scenario.
I am Polish and my husband is Polish. We are both 1st generation Canadians (meaning we were born in Poland but have lived in Canada for most of our lives) and we got married almost two years ago in Toronto, ON.
Now, my Polish passport recently expired and I want to renew it but under my married name. I have been told that to do this, I need to register my marriage in Poland (which I assume means get a Polish marriage license, or my Act Malzenstwa).
My parents will be in Poland this summer and can go and do this for me, but I was wondering what I need to give them to make this happen. So far I have:
1. Translated marriage license
2. Birth certificates (both mine and my husbands) lucky for us they are in Polish
3. A notarized letter stating that I am allowing my parents to do this on my behalf
Anything else?
Any info, would be greatly appreciated. Also, if anyone has any idea on a Polish website where they might have this info, that would be great. I have dealt with the Polish bureaucracy enough to know that unless or your ducks are in order they will not give you the time of day. And even if you have everything they told you you might need, you can still be out of luck.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Cheers.
Looks like you have got all of your bases covered presuming that you will be giving them originals. If you want more help try over at the forum: http://www.britishinpoland.com/forum/
Yep, I have all the originals. They’re not going to want to keep our original birth certificates are they?
They can keep the marriage certificate (it’s easy to get extra originals of that) but it would be VERY difficult to get an original copy of our birth certificates… Polish bureaucracy and all…
Thanks for your help!!
Cheers.
To be honest I don’t know. I don’t think they need your birth certificates (at least they didn’t need mine). I suggest you ask Michael on the “Ask an Expert” forum as he is far more clued up on the details than I am [see link in previous comment].
Hi, Im polish, live in UK, my husband is from Seychelles, recently I got my mom to register our mariage in Poland, and guess what ..they have kept all documents including my husbands oryginal birth certificate and they said to my mom there is no way of them giving it back, hubby is fuming….does anyone know if they have a right to keep it?
Yes – that’s right – under Polish rules they keep your originals! What you should have done (it’s a bit late now though) is to get duplicates of your documents and submit those instead (if they asked, you could have said the originals were lost etc..) or to give them certified copies. There’s not much you can do now I’m afraid apart from try and get duplicates from the Seychelles etc..
Hi Ben, I just discovered your site and I am finding it quite helpful. I am an Australian with British Citizenship living in London and since friday married to a lovely Polish lady.
My wife has chosen to take on a double barrel surname and is not sure where to start. Do you think she will need to do the Polish equivalent of deed poll? With regards to the lack of birthdates on our UK marriage certificate would supplying some other document (birth certicicates?) be advisable?
Congratulations. No, she will just need to register the marriage in Poland at her local Urząd Stanu Cywilnego by taking with her the original marriage certificate (which she won’t get back) plus a translation from a sworn translator. Then she can start the painful process of changing her passport, ID card, bank accounts and everything else….
I don’t think the birth dates or anything else will be a problem for now. Good luck.
Hi!
Im a Filipina married to a Polish guy. We are both living in England as of the moment. We need help in regards to the application of the “non-eea family member residence stamp”. We already sent the application. If anyone has gone through the same experience, it would be very helpful to us.
I have just found out I wont get my original birth certificate back from the Polish authorities after I had to give it to them to get married to my Polish wife last year. :(
I need a passport renewal which is why I suddenly asked after it and she’s told me they will keep it forever! I cant believe they really need the original…I have a shorter 2nd copy that I can probably use for the passport renewal, but I would like the long copy back too for future use – and just because its MINE!
Ok, I seriously need some help here as I am totally confounded by Polish bureaucracy.
My recently married wife [Polish] and I [Indian] are permanent residents of Canada [meaning we still are solely the citizens of our respective countries of origin], and we had our wedding in Canada couple of months ago. My wife went to Poland this week, and armed with the marriage certificate issued by the provincial authorities sought to register our marriage in Poland. There she was told that our Canadian marriage certificate does not show enough information for Polish standards – such as parents names, and place of marriage [we have a number on that field instead]. Now when I contacted the provincial authorities back here, they said there is a standardized format for marriage certificates across all provinces and that nothing beyond that could be provided by them.
So….now we have no idea how to register our marriage in Poland. Given the level of bureaucracy in Poland, I know that not registering our marriage in Poland means and inordinate amount of grief for us, particularly me visiting Poland, or registering our child in future.
Any ideas, comments, or advice anyone?
Your wife should go back to the Urząd Stanu Cywilnego (Office for Civil Affairs) in her home town and ask to see the director. She might need to kick up a fuss, at which point they will grudgingly accept the Canadian certificate. I had a similar problem – my British documents don’t contain everything the Polish ones have, and at first they said it must be because my translations are bad/incomplete. Once my wife and I complained and requested the director it got sorted out. We showed them that the originals simply don’t have all of their fields (and thus the translations are correct) around eventually they accepted them. Good luck….
you need marriage certificate translate to polish language, birth certificate only yours, translate to a polish language, they should have your wife in poland in this office and its better talk to director
this lady told my parents, that english marriage certificate does not show enough information that i don’t have my husband surname,( i need for my polish passport)
I need prove with something, that I and ours children have his surname, because in Poland wife is signing on mariagge certificate husbund surname, in England is diffrent, that’s why we got problems with registration our marriage in poland
Well, it seems that we didn’t have much of a problem when my husband and I registered our foreign marriage in Poland. We had all the documentation translated as well as copies of my birth certificate – though that one confused me. I didn’t know why they needed one but it didn’t matter much so long as I get back my original copy. They did want to have the original copy but I only had one and was reluctant to hand it over. On the other hand, since we had two original copies of our wedding certificate, they kept one with the translation.
I don’t know if there was a time limit to register the foreign marriage – considering we registered 5 months later in Poland.
They did had a problem with my name – or lack of surname and didn’t know what to do. Therefore it was left blank and to be honest, I didn’t mind since we are not living in Poland.